Let's RETHINK Some Things

As America continues to reel from the catastrophic events of 9/11, we need to rethink a few things:

It’s probably time to train and ARM the cockpit crews of US carriers who agree to the program. Pilots and FOs who do not want the responsibility can be exempted. It was, after all, the folks controlling the aircraft who were the targets on Terrible Tuesday.

During the rash of hijackings of a few decades ago, the feds put armed “AIR MARSHALS” on many flights. While some correctly argued that a fuselage punctured by a bullet at 35,000 feet MIGHT – repeat MIGHT bring the plane down – hijackings fell off.

One thing we know for sure about the four craft hijacked on 9/11: They ALL CAME DOWN and THEY ALL DIED!!

And to those who will inevitably – and stupidly – argue that pilots and FOs just cannot be trusted with the decision about when it’s time to pull a trigger, better tell the up to 400 folks sitting in the back that the guys up front are judgment-impaired!

Personally, I’d prefer to take my chances with a rapid decompression than watch some madman take MY flight into a building or the ground at 500 mph. That was the final experience of 266 fellow humans on 9/11. I KNOW I – like they – won’t survive that!

It’s again the old, old story: There aren’t TOO many weapons out there. It’s that the touchy-feely, warm-fuzzy PC crowd now sees to it that ONLY THE WRONG PEOPLE HAVE THEM!

It’s almost a certainty that our reprisal for Terrible Tuesday will be to return portions of the middle east to sand dunes. While I’m not saying that such action is NOT fully justified, we’d better be prepared for the list of “Those Who Hate America” to lengthen. For every madman we take out, there will be a dozen in line behind him ready to take his place. That means there will certainly be MORE such attacks HERE!

Which brings me to say that if the NJ/NY Ports Authority rebuilds the WTC on the same scale as the one now spread over much of Manhattan, the new design should incorporate large BULLSEYES on the sides.

I’ve spent my career designing steel structures and told my son before the SECOND plane hit the second tower that the FIRST building was “toast.” There was NO WAY those heat weakened columns would hold. And when the second plane hit the second tower, taking out the columns on one side, I knew IT was history. I cried as the second tower struck crumpled in the direction of the sliced columns and, shortly after, the upper 20 floors of the first tower pan-caked into the lower 90 after THOSE columns buckled.

I’m not some anti-techno Luddite: Even BEFORE the events of 9/11, I was growing weary of watching bodies fall from burning high-rise buildings as rescue workers stood helplessly in the street below, poised to clean up the carnage. I wonder how many high-rise dwellers are today looking for farms in Kansas?

The evidence is growing that we need to seriously rethink our compulsion to concentrate populations in taller and taller, easy-to-hit targets which are also built to be efficient chimneys.

The loss of life in the WTC will be staggering. Compare that number to the final body count at the Pentagon. Then think about the differences in those two buildings.

It?s probably time to train and ARM the cockpit crews of US carriers who agree to the program.

Absolutely not. It has been my experience that people who are armed and trained with firearms by their employers as part of their jobs tend in large numbers to suck big-time with firearms--especially cops.

If the crewmembers wish to arm themselves, with their own weapons, and pay for their own training out of their own motivation for self-defense and defense of others, then I say clap 'em on the back and give 'em a big attaboy. But simply issuing weapons and training to people is a bad idea.

You'd agree with me if you'd ever saved up a thousand bucks or so to go to Thunder Ranch or the Lethal Force Institute or Gunsite for some firearms training, and compared your attitude toward the class with the attitudes of the cops there who were having their ways paid by their departments.

Of course, once you have allowed the flight crew to arm themselves, I'm going to come back and want to hear some serious arguments about why you're not also allowing the passengers to arm themselves.

That is what would have prevented yesterday's attack, not increased airport security, or any other government intervention of any kind.

Let me be sure I understand what you're telling me:

You're comparing the skills and judgement of professional airline flight crew members --with whom the airlines entrust multi-million dollar aircraft and up to 400 human lives -- with the judgement and skills of your average street cop who, while he may be a good guy and have good judgement and high skills for his job, has nowhere near the same level of responsibility?

Is that what you're trying to say?

Tell that to my son-in-law who IS a professional aviator and WANTS to be in a position to protect himself and his passengers (one of whom MAY be one of YOUR loved ones).

Let me be sure I understand what you're telling me:

I think there's probably a miscommunication between us somewhere, although I haven't yet located it.

Not at all. I'm comparing the skill-at-arms of someone who is self-motivated enough toward self-defense to save up his own money and do his own research in the process of buying a gun, to save up his own money and do his own research in the process of obtaining firearms training, and to spend his own time and money practicing on the one hand, to somebody who is simply issued a gun and ammunition by his employer and sent involuntarily off to a training course, and whose attitude is that this is just another dumb thing he has to do for his job on the other hand.

Tell that to my son-in-law who IS a professional aviator and WANTS to be in a position to protect himself and his passengers (one of whom MAY be one of YOUR loved ones).

If he wants to arm himself, that puts him in the first category above, not the second one.

You tell him for me that I'm behind him 100% and that I hope he does get the opportunity to carry a concealed weapon on an airliner if he chooses. Tell him that I'll pull for him if he'll pull in the same direction for me. I'd feel safer on his airplane if he had a gun than I would if he didn't, but I'd feel safer yet on his airplane if I had a gun--and hopefully he would too.

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