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My dad's first criticism of the "air marshal" approach was the cost to pay 1 or more marshals per aircraft.

This in an excellent point, and one that is often ignored by the people who place "emotion over logic".

Yes, it would be nice to have an air marshall on every flight, but it is cost prohibitive as you state and John Lott implies. Furthermore, the job is incredibly boring, and a high turnover rate should be expected.

As a taxpayer, if someone has been thourougly trained, and is "clean" enough to get a security clearance, I'd much rather have them chasing down terrorists than keeping a seat plane warm for their entire careers.

CCW holders, police officers, and pilots should definately be allowed to carry guns on flights.

I have the security clearances too, but that's all I'll say on that matter. I wouldn't want the "job" as "air marshal". I would be willing to bring my CCW when I had a specific need to fly. The downside is that the very flights at most risk e.g. bound for Europe, would be problemmatic upon arrival with a firearm. That's about the only time I would have a legitimate need to fly on the class of aircraft that has been hijacked of late.

Talkback Live recently featured a former Air Force General who was also a commercial airline pilot. Don’t recall his name, but he supported ARMING PILOTS – and here’s why:

4 or 5 terrorists randomly seated on plane. Terrorist closest to front stands, grabs a flight attendant and, holding a large plastic blade he’d sewn into his clothing to her throat, announces he’s hijacking the aircraft. LONE sky marshal, weapon drawn, declares himself, and commands terrorist to release hostage and assume the position. During take down and marshal’s attention focused on first terrorist, terrorists behind marshal swarm and subdue him – and take his weapon! Unless the OTHER passengers come to his aid and take down the bad guys, the terrorists now have the only weapon on the aircraft and are now in command.

IT’S A NO-BRAINER, MR. BUSH: WITHOUT A GUN ON THE FLIGHT DECK, THE PLANE WILL EITHER BECOME A GUIDED MISSLE or BE SHOT DOWN BY THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE – PER YOUR ORDERS.

I AND MY LOVED ONES ARE SURE AS HELL NOT GETTING BACK ON A COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT UNTIL THE GUYS UP FRONT HAVE SOME MEANS TO KEEP US ALL ALIVE.

AND THEY ALREADY HAVE! Title 14 CFR 108.11 already authorizes airline pilots to carry firearms.

Check it out yourself by punching “14CFR 108.11” into any decent search engine.

Meanwhile, the Airline Pilots Association is petitioning Congress to pass a law allowing them to carry firearms in the cockpit. Doesn’t this association have lawyers, and don’t these lawyers ever check the law books? It’s already there! Here’s a piece:

Sec. 108.11 Carriage of weapons. (a) No certificate holder required to conduct screening under a security program may permit any person to have, ...on or about his or her person or property, a deadly or dangerous weapon, either concealed or unconcealed, accessible to him or her while aboard an airplane for which screening is required unless:
(1) The person having the weapon is-- (i) An official or employee of the United States (Why are they so !@#$% special?) or ... (ii) Authorized to have the weapon by the certificate holder and the Administrator and has successfully completed a course of training in the use of firearms acceptable to the Administrator.

A friend who is a Delta 767 Captain phoned to inform me of this. Pull up the whole statute and read it closely. I asked him about the "certificate holder."

"That’s the airline," he barked. "They have the authority to put a gun in anyone’s hands, according to the law already on the books."

He’s right. That "person" referred to is not restricted to pilots. They way I read it, the airline can authorize anyone to carry a weapon anytime, and that means you and me. It is strictly up to them. The bozos could have made the flights a lot safer a long time ago by simply utilizing this statute with prudence.