Truth or Fable? Judge for Yourself.

[name and organization omitted] I thought this worthy of sharing. This is a piece written by an author friend of mine. It is not very comforting but soberly poignant and likely true:

"Today I had the fortuitous experience to have breakfast with a Muslim who was a former antiterrorist soldier from Afghanistan. Can you believe this? I will share with you his comments that I found quite interesting.

He said this operation took years to pull off, the planning, the coordinating, the execution. He would guess that it cost around 200 million. They train a thousand for the top 10 to become their executioners of war. They train on planes they crash. The weapons. The cells. It costs a fortune.

Several countries and untold numbers were involved in order to make this operation as successful as it was. He said four planes got through but do not believe for a moment that only four planes were involved. There were at least 10 more but Bush halted our air force crews [sic]and grounded them instantly. Apparently, we were lucky only 4 got through.

He said Westerners have no idea how Middle Eastern [sic]think. For example, we need evidence and proof before we will do anything. Middle Easterners are the opposite. They will execute the terrorist before he is able to do his dirty work. Think of Israel and how Israel has been so criticized because it executes the PLO and Hamas leaders before they can execute their orders. Targeting Assassination Killings.

According to this Muslim soldier, their aim is to destroy our financial and economic centers. This is their goal. And our military of course. But first the financial nerves of our country. Our enemies despise us to a depth that is hard for us to imagine. One of the most poignant frames I saw on television last night was seeing tiny little Statue of Liberty facing New York in a pile of smoking opaque debris. Freedom faces Tyranny, I thought to myself.

The other thing he mentioned is that in the early 80's our Intelligence changed their rules which is that they wanted agents with clean resumes. He said to get into the head of a terrorist, to gain their confidence to get into their cells, you have to hire agents that do not have clean resume's but have resumes like the terrorists. He is right.

They chose airplanes that were in the terminals over night. Otherwise, they would have to take chances with planes that are delayed, like what happened recently with me trying to get to [destination deleted] Chicago from New York and with [name of author's wife delelted] trying to return home. The other thing he said was that everyone is worried about the security getting onto the plane. This is the not the roblem. It is about the night shifts, the 12-7 midnight's crews, where apparently "security" is so lax that you and I could go on and off the planes with no effort or challenge. This is how they were able to get their plasticized weapons on board. Also Security cannot detect weapons sealed in special plastic.

This is what I think. The 20th Century was the century of the airplane war. In time, we will look at WW2 romantically with a beginning, a middle and end. The 21st Century will be a war of ongoing terrorism without beginnings, middles or ends. It will be a century of Missiles which have become so sophisticated and advanced that it is hard for us to omprehend.

Just recently, Israel, using a pinpointed missile, killed a high PLO official who was the mastermind behind many of the suicide bombers in Israel. They killed just him. The other people in the room remained alive, the building and structure remained standing. Unbelievable. Terrorism will continue to come from the air.

The fundamentalist Muslims are squarely to be blamed for this. No doubt in my mind. They also had the support from several countries which gave them money and refuge. Iran. Iraq. Afghanistan. These fundamentalists, as seen in villages across Israel,were euphoric in celebration.

And they will try it again. And again. Once a plan is as successful as this one was, it is almost impossible not to want to duplicate it on an even grander, steady scale. War will now be defined not as something to be won like WW2 but rather as something to combat, as seen by continuous acts of Terrorism that will become a mainstay of our lives and have permanently shaken us to our core.

I fear most immediately for our commercial aircraft. It will take at least a year to make our planes secure with clearances of passenger lists, undetected security marshals on planes, locked cockpits, trained security personnel, etc.

If you think about it, it is evil genius, to combine our planes loaded with maximum fuel with their suicide bombers, and then use this lethal bomb of destruction against us!

What ever happens to the world, happens first in Israel. This is only one reason, I pay such close attention to the events in Israel. The way of life that Israel has had to endure this past year is what we as Americans will have to endure in the future. Make no bones about it. Ongoing Terrorism is the new warfare of the 21st Century.

We have fundamentalism Muslim hood [sic], which despise our democratic principles and values, to thank for this.

I only pray and hope that we as a nation has the resolve and endurance to face what will lie ahead of us in the many years to come."

I am in total agreement with your views. I would go at least one step further, however, and eliminate the job of flight attendant.

They are likely to be useless in serious social encounters (indeed, it is usually male passengers who end up subduing "air ragers," according to several reports published over the past two years), serve crappy food and tiny soft drinks and coffee (all of which can be brought aboard by passengers), and generally are a pain in the ass with an attitude.

I would replace the aforementioned typical cabin crew of six or eight with two or more uniformed and plaincloths security officers who are highly trained (including some with paramedical qualification), highly paid, mentally stable, and experienced in the use of the weapons they carry, namely expandable batons, tactical edged weapons, and sidearms loaded with cartridges which contain frangible bullets.

Said officers would oversee cabin cleaning and maintenance, the loading of supplies (which would not include food and beverages, BTW), and the loading of luggage.

The cockpit crew would enter its domain through its own hatch and be separated completely from the passenger compartment by a Level IIIa antiballistic bulkhead.

Communication between the cockpit and security officers would be by pushbuttons designated to inform the captain of emergencies, etc. in only a general way (e.g. "Medical emergency. Land plane now").

So much for threats, demands, screams, noise associated with throats being slashed, and other distractions. Cockpit crew members then would be limited to performing their only proper function, which is to fly the damned plane.

Add to this the requirement that at all times at least one officer would be inside the protection of a locked and "bullet-proof" enclosure, and voila,' no more highjackings.

The cost of these measures probably would be completely absorbed by the savings realized by causing the flight attendant to go the way of the do-do bird.

The rules of engagement were forever changed last Tuesday, and the foregoing measures would address the fact that terrorists should be assumed to have only mayhem and not political goals in their hearts and on their twisted minds........

Unfortunatley, the Control-Freaks-That-Be will never cede responsibility for our security to us -- after all, they do know best.

Interesting: I posted the same thing earlier. I said it like this: "The deaths of several dozen thousand people is unfortunate, perhaps even regrettable; but the loss of government power is absolutely unacceptable."

I also agree with your choice of hollow points over frangible bullets, but this too is a bugaboo that likely will never go in our favor.

The problem with allowing only certain approved ammunition on an airliner, of course, is that someone will have to be around to approve it, and that someone, in order to prove that he is doing his job, will have to make a list of all the ammunition he approved--that is to say, a list of all the people on the plane who are armed. That list will be of great interest to hijackers.

I prefer the 124 gr. (hollow-point) Hydra-Shock 9 mm round.

And welcome you are to it, sir. We wouldn't want either Speer or Federal going out of business--that is, as long as by "Federal" we mean the ammunition company.

Guess that makes me agreeable. All the best, comrade..........

Thanks. And speaking of agreeable, I'd also agree with your impenetrable-bulkhead-separate-entry scheme, although I think the pushbutton-message system needs a little work. I understand your objective, but I don't think that's the way to achieve it, for two reasons:

First, in non-hijack emergency situations, it hampers vital communication: in a medical emergency, the cockpit crew would have no way of knowing what emergency services to have ready at the destination airport; in an aviation emergency, the pilot might need real-time communication with a passenger-cabin observer in order to keep the plane from crashing.

Second, it doesn't eliminate the communication you're trying to stop as long as airphones or cell phones are present in the passenger cabin. A hijacker could threaten to kill a hostage if he wasn't patched through ground stations to an ATC center that could talk to the pilot. A savvy hijacker would make the patch-through demand of a television station.

But as I said, I understand the problem with a straight intercom connection. How about a videotex connection, where the communicants type text back and forth? The pilot doesn't need a QWERTY keyboard distracting him, but perhaps one of the other cockpit crewmembers could serve.

Kahonek! Hey, old friend, long time no talk! Good to see you around again.

The vast majority of people who cause problems on planes are drunk, mentally unstable, acutely angry, or some combination of the above. These are people who would not necessarily be deterred by the knowledge that other passengers might be armed (especially if they've got weapons, too). Sure, they might be dispatched by well-meaning civilians, but I've seen enough well-meaning civilians do STUPID things with firearms to want a few of them (with no specialized training, and having knocked back a few cocktails) standing up and unloading sidearms into a bad guy from opposite ends of an aircraft.

I imagine that if the let-the-passengers-arm-themselves solution ever came under serious consideration (it won't, because it would involve the government giving up some control, and it's going to take a lot more than dozens of thousands of American deaths before that happens), lots of people would raise this objection.

I imagine that because every time the legislature of a no-carry state begins considering allowing concealed carry, lots of people raise this objection--many of them quite shrilly. (I was recently at a hearing in my own state over concealed carry, and I was amazed at the shrillness.)

The problem with the objection, even though it's very standard, is that it has not ever been borne out anywhere. Forty-four states now allow some sort of concealed carry, and not one of them has turned into Dodge City, as the gun-control people predicted in every case. Not even Vermont, where concealed carry is completely uncontrolled.

I guess even drunk people have a greater sense of self-preservation than expected.

As for ordinary citizens doing stupid things with firearms, you're absolutely right: but I'll bet that for each of your ordinary citizen, I've seen four or five cops do stupid things with firearms. People who arm themselves and spend their own resources on weapons, ammunition, and training tend to be much more responsible with firearms than people who are armed and trained by their employers. There are exceptions in both cases, of course; but I know what my preferences would be.

I think the undercover air marshall idea is probably a good one, [...]

There are three problems with air marshals that I see.

First, they're dang expensive, at least if you hire the right ones. They have to be very, very good at what they do, yet they have to be willing to almost never do what they do. People who can maintain that edge in the face of burgeoning disuse are rare--and therefore expensive.

Secondly, they can be flushed out and identified. A single terrorist can jump out of his seat and start hollering about Allah, and the plainclothes sky marshal will do his duty, at which time he will be identified for the rest of the team. We could talk about multiple sky marshals if you want, where one is designated to take the first threat, another one the second, and so on, to avoid identification, but now you're talking about some pretty insane expenses, and no matter how many sky marshals you can put on every flight in the country, I can put more terrorists on the particular flight I want to hijack.

The third problem is that the sky-marshals solution means a very few good-guy guns (perhaps only one), and a lot of unarmed passengers. That makes the sky-marshal vulnerable to persuasion when a terrorist walking up the aisle from the bathroom suddenly grabs a passenger, hauls him out of his seat, puts a gun to his head, and starts giving orders. If the sky marshal is reluctant, he can simply blow that passenger's head off and grab another one. If there were multiple threats all around the cabin, on the other hand, the terrorist would likely have sprung a number of leaks before he even had the chance to make his point. More realistically, though, the terrorist wouldn't grab the passenger in the first place because he would know ahead of time that it would be a losing proposition.

[...] but I also think that some of this tragedy might have been prevented by having long-range tasers available at each end of aircraft, and training the crew in their use.

Tasers? Tasers are good for only one thing: making women feel safe. (Not keeping them safe: just making them feel safe.) Tasers have a whole host of problems. First, there's no such thing as a long-range taser: they fire little darts with compressed air that are retarded by dragging wires as they fly: velocity decreases precipitously with distance. To make the velocity reasonable at ten yards, you'd have to crank it so high that it would be lethal at ten feet. Secondly, the accuracy problem is increased both for weapon and for shooter, because both darts must strike the target: one hit and one miss is worse than nothing. Thirdly, even at close ranges, the darts have been shown to have significant trouble getting through heavy clothing like a leather jacket. A soft ballistic vest would be even more effective. And remember, both of them have to do the job reliably. Fourthly, tasers and stun guns are only effective on people who have no experience with them. A surprising immunity can be developed. I saw a video of a fellow who volunteered to have a 200-kilovolt stun gun applied to his testicles, and who was fully functional almost immediately after it was removed. Fifthly, if regulations specify that airplanes are to be stocked with tasers, hijackers are going to have guns. Guns are much more effective, cheaper, and provide much, much quicker followup shots. How many tasers are you going to carry on each aircraft? Two? Ten? Fifteen? I can carry eighteen rounds in my Glock 17 (twenty if I want to get ridiculous about it), and I can have another thirty-four on my belt that can be in the gun in less than a second. A simple airline seat back will protect me from all your tasers, but there are very few bulkheads on an airplane that my 124gr +P Gold Dot hollowpoints can't tear through--and they're pretty wimpy compared to what real terrorists would be carrying. Sixthly, if tasers are standard on aircraft, then the crew of hijacked planes will find that the tasers are missing or inoperative when they need them. Any terrorist who can bribe enough people to get guns onto a plane can also have the tasers taken care of.

No, I'm sorry. Sky marshals and tasers don't even hold a candle to simply eliminating the metal detectors and X-ray machines altogether. That is what would make passengers safe. But the government is not interested in making passengers safe, it's interested in gaining more control over people. Therefore, your sky marshal and taser "solution" is probably much likelier in actual practice than mine.

"The problem with the objection, even though it's very standard, is that it has not ever been borne out anywhere. Forty-four states now allow some sort of concealed carry, and not one of them has turned into Dodge City, as the gun-control people predicted in every case. Not even Vermont, where concealed carry is completely uncontrolled."

I understand what you're saying, and I think that concealed carry is a good idea under most circumstances. However, I think that an airplane is a special kind of environment, and I don't think I'd want multiple armed civilians on a plane. It does take either some specialized training or a great deal of common sense (which doesn't seem to be very common these days) to handle a firearm safely under such conditions. Not only that, but I think the chances that someone will respond inappropriately on an airplane are higher than in other settings.

"People who arm themselves and spend their own resources on weapons, ammunition, and training tend to be much more responsible with firearms than people who are armed and trained by their employers. There are exceptions in both cases, of course; but I know what my preferences would be."

I'm afraid a lot of people end up spending their own resources on weapons and ammunition, but skip the training altogether. I'd certainly want a careful selection and screening process for sky marshals (similar to, or more intense than, that for other US marshals today). Many US marshals seek their jobs for the same reasons that many civilians pay for weapons training.

"They're dang expensive, at least if you hire the right ones."

You are, of course, correct.

"Secondly, they can be flushed out and identified. A single terrorist can jump out of his seat and start hollering about Allah, and the plainclothes sky marshal will do his duty, at which time he will be identified for the rest of the team."

Yes, the marshal can be flushed out and identified. However, the average gun-toting civilian can be flushed out and identified, too. The alternative would be if many people decided to carry. You'd then have multiple, poorly trained people in different positions throughout the plane (a great set-up for a very nasty crossfire situation)not knowing which of the others are terrorists or just well-meaning civilians.

"That makes the sky-marshal vulnerable to persuasion when a terrorist walking up the aisle from the bathroom suddenly grabs a passenger, hauls him out of his seat, puts a gun to his head, and starts giving orders."

This is one reason why I think that the sky marshal needs very thorough training.

"If there were multiple threats all around the cabin, on the other hand, the terrorist would likely have sprung a number of leaks before he even had the chance to make his point."

As would a lot of other passengers who were hit by stray gunfire. Then, of course, there's the issue of whether all of those people interpreted the situation correctly. Have you read threads here about the guys that were pulled off those planes in New York last night? On later examination, they were perfectly harmless. However, if some of the posters had been there and armed, they'd likely be dead today. Matter of fact, any person of Arab descent who so much as looked at a couple of those posters wrong on an airplane would probably be full of holes (along with other innocent people who happened to get in the way).

"More realistically, though, the terrorist wouldn't grab the passenger in the first place because he would know ahead of time that it would be a losing proposition."

The rational, intelligent terrorist wouldn't. However, the mentally unstable, angry, or drunk person might. As I mentioned before, these people are a whole heck of a lot more common than the rational, intelligent terrorists, and a lot less dangerous in the long run.

"There's no such thing as a long-range taser: they fire little darts with compressed air that are retarded by dragging wires as they fly: velocity decreases precipitously with distance."

I'm sorry. I was using long-range in relative sense. I don't think the range would have to be anywhere near ten yards. If you don't like the taser idea, go ahead and use stun guns. You don't have to incapacitate the guy for very long at all. As long as you disorient him for even a few seconds, it should be long enough for trained flight attendants and cooperative passengers to get the upper hand.

"Guns are much more effective, cheaper, and provide much, much quicker followup shots."

They are also much more difficult than knives or other sharp objects to get onto airplanes when good security measures are in place.

"But the government is not interested in making passengers safe, it's interested in gaining more control over people."

That's pretty cynical. The government people that I know are generally interested in both, but are often misguided in their beliefs that the latter will accomplish the former.

I think that an airplane is a special kind of environment, and I don't think I'd want multiple armed civilians on a plane. It does take either some specialized training or a great deal of common sense (which doesn't seem to be very common these days) to handle a firearm safely under such conditions.

What's special about it? Crowding? Why does it require different training to handle a firearm on an aircraft than it does on a bus, or in a shopping mall, or on a street?

Not only that, but I think the chances that someone will respond inappropriately on an airplane are higher than in other settings.

Why is that? Perhaps because alcohol is served on airline flights? That's pretty easy to fix, and cheaper than sky marshals...

I'm afraid a lot of people end up spending their own resources on weapons and ammunition, but skip the training altogether.

Perhaps not as many as you think, and even when it's so, it's not as much an issue as one might think.

Take the two of us, for example. If I understand correctly, you have at least one firearm of your own, but I suspect you have no formal training with it. Does that mean you're irresponsible or dangerous with a firearm? Not particularly, because I'll bet you don't carry it with you very often. Why is that? Because you know you lack training. If you were to carry it on an aircraft.

I probably carry my weapon much more often than you do--but I've spent a fair amount of money on training and a fair amount of time on practice.

Are there bozos who carry guns they have no idea how to use because it makes them feel like men? Sure there are; but there aren't very many who use them stupidly, and the number steadily decreases because of Darwinian natural selection.

I'd certainly want a careful selection and screening process for sky marshals (similar to, or more intense than, that for other US marshals today).

You're looking for someone who is very intelligent, very good at his job, and very bored most of the time. Such people are ripe for bribery.

Many US marshals seek their jobs for the same reasons that many civilians pay for weapons training.

Not exactly. Most ordinary citizens (US marshals are civilians too, by law) obtain and carry weapons because they are focused solely on protecting their own lives. There are all sorts of reasons for becoming a law-enforcement officer, from a vague altruistic "I just wanna help people" mindset to a specific "I just like bossing people around" attitude. But people who are interested in making themselves as safe as possible? Generally those people don't become LEOs or firefighters or soldiers.

Yes, the marshal can be flushed out and identified. However, the average gun-toting civilian can be flushed out and identified, too.

If there's only one of them, sure. I would hope there would be a lot more than one.

The alternative would be if many people decided to carry. You'd then have multiple, poorly trained people in different positions throughout the plane (a great set-up for a very nasty crossfire situation)not knowing which of the others are terrorists or just well-meaning civilians.

First of all, don't assume that an ordinary citizen with a gun is less well-trained than a law-enforcement officer with a gun. It is frequently just not so. The easiest way to verify what I'm talking about is to wangle a chance to shoot at a police pistol range. Look at the other folks shooting, and also look at all the misplaced holes in the range: in the walls, the ceilings, the floors--I even saw a buckshot pattern in the wall behind the firing line once. If you do decide to take a high-priced firearms education course at some point, like the ones at Thunder Ranch, Lethal Force Institute, Front Sight Institute, Gunsite, and so on, compare the attitude with which you approach the course with the attitude you see in the cops whose departments have sent them "for free." To you, it will be thorough training that you have paid dearly for and that one day may protect your life. To him, like as not, it's just another dumb thing he has to do for his job. It's well known (at least among gun people) that the relatively small number of police we have in this country account for five to eleven times the number of accidental shootings of innocent people that are committed by the dozens of millions of armed citizens across the country.

Before I got into guns, I assumed that police must be better trained than the average Joe too. I found out that some of them are; but most of them suck.

Secondly, a nasty crossfire situation is right: nasty for the terrorists, and therefore a large deterrent. As for the danger of misidentifying a target, that's a well-known problem for which there are several standard solutions.

Essentially, I would rather be responsible for my own security than to entrust it to somebody else; if that means that I must allow others to be responsible for their own security as well, then hey--that's why I'm a libertarian.

This is one reason why I think that the sky marshal needs very thorough training.

What sort of training do you foresee that would make such persuasion ineffective? I can't think of any. It's a problem inherent to any situation involving a few armed sheepdogs and hundreds of defenseless sheep.

"If there were multiple threats all around the cabin, on the other hand, the terrorist would likely have sprung a number of leaks before he even had the chance to make his point."

As would a lot of other passengers who were hit by stray gunfire.

Simply from a physics standpoint, that's not true. The target will be the focus of a number of trajectories; people around the target will be crossed by one or at most two. And even if a lot of passengers do get hit by stray gunfire in the process of taking a terrorist down, that is more acceptable to me than allowing the terrorist to kill everyone on the plane. Sometimes there isn't any clean way out.

Then, of course, there's the issue of whether all of those people interpreted the situation correctly. Have you read threads here about the guys that were pulled off those planes in New York last night? On later examination, they were perfectly harmless. However, if some of the posters had been there and armed, they'd likely be dead today.

Really, you ought to look at a few of the issues surrounding concealed carry before you write too much on the subject. You know I hold you in the highest respect, but I'm afraid that objection is a little silly. Most of the time when somebody comes up with a theoretical problem with concealed carry, he will find that the problem has already been raised and addressed by the concealed-carry community. Go here and ask some questions, for example. (Post an airliner scenario and ask people how they'd deal with it.)

Matter of fact, any person of Arab descent who so much as looked at a couple of those posters wrong on an airplane would probably be full of holes (along with other innocent people who happened to get in the way).

This isn't going to happen, but suppose it did. What would be the result? The shooters would go to prison for murder, and persons of Arab descent who wished to ride airliners with persons of non-Arab descent would be encouraged to go out of their way to look at their neighbors in the right way, the same as happens to Americans in Arab countries now. Would that be a bad thing? An armed society is a polite society.

If grabbing people and hauling them out of their seats became a career-limiting proposition, fewer people would do it--even the people you describe. Even now, very few people other than hijackers do it, no matter how drunk, angry, or mentally unstable they are. Fewer than that is even better, in my book.

If you don't like the taser idea, go ahead and use stun guns. You don't have to incapacitate the guy for very long at all. As long as you disorient him for even a few seconds, it should be long enough for trained flight attendants and cooperative passengers to get the upper hand.

This is a better idea--a stun gun on every flight attendant--but there are still problems. Stun guns are only useful at contact range, and flight attendants are few and recognizable. It'd be pretty easy simply to kill all the flight attendants from a distance at the outset; then the stun guns wouldn't be a problem.

[Guns] are also much more difficult than knives or other sharp objects to get onto airplanes when good security measures are in place.

Security measures are run by people, mostly people who aren't going to be on the plane being secured, and people are vulnerable to bribery. Terrorist organizations, especially Arab ones, have lots of money.

An approach to airline security that would still allow the government to be involved, but would be a little more secure than what we have now, would be to attach the security personnel to the airplane and force them to take each flight along with the people they've just secured.

"But the government is not interested in making passengers safe, it's interested in gaining more control over people."

That's pretty cynical.

Cynical? Hey--you haven't seen the beginning of cynical yet. Remember: I'm a gun enthusiast. The government does everything it can think of to make mortal enemies of gun enthusiasts who would like nothing better than being left alone to mind their own business. Most of the time it doesn't succeed, but you'll not often meet a gun enthusiast without at least a healthy dose of cynicism about the government.

The government people that I know are generally interested in both, but are often misguided in their beliefs that the latter will accomplish the former.

There's a subtle difference between "the government" and "government people" that's beyond the scope of this thread. I'd love to get into it, but I've got real work to do, so I'll settle for saying, good for you.

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