Posted on 09/29/2001 7:51:21 AM PDT by kattracks
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The union representing Los Angeles police officers wants U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to authorise off-duty cops across the country to carry their guns on commercial jets, saying that they could spring into action to stop a hijacking.
"When a group of people decides they want to take down four airplanes and there is nobody on board to stop them, we need to start thinking about offence," Peter Repovich, director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said.
The police union's request comes after the Sept. 11 suicide hijacking attacks on New York and the Pentagon that left nearly 6,500 people dead or missing and the announcement by President George W. Bush of plans to employ new airline security measures to coax Americans back into the skies.
Those measures include posting armed federal marshals on commercial flights, building stronger cockpit doors and having National Guard troops stationed at airport.
But Stephen Yagman, a Los Angeles civil rights attorney and critic of the LAPD, said he was "frightened" by the idea.
"If Osama bin Laden is responsible for terrorist attacks of September 11, then the only people who I find more scary than him are members of the Los Angeles Police Department," Yagman said. "The thought of letting LAPD officers carry guns on planes is truly frightening and ought to be frightening to anybody who knows anything about LAPD."
The LAPD is operating under federal oversight in the wake of its worst-ever corruption scandal, in which officers allegedly beat, framed and even shot innocent suspects.
That scandal broke as the department was recovering from the black eye it received after the 1991 videotaped beating of Rodney King and the acquittal of four officers in that case, which triggered some of America's worst urban riots.
PUBLIC WOULD 'FEEL MUCH SAFER'
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents more than 8,000 rank-and-file officers, made the request to Ashcroft in a two-page letter signed by union president Mitzi Grasso and sent to the attorney general on Thursday.
Repovich said Ashcroft had not yet responded to the letter and a U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration declined to comment on the letter.
"Since there is currently a need for sky marshals, the LAPPL believes that it is necessary for public safety and reassurance that qualified and adequately trained peace officers immediately be given the option of carrying their firearms while travelling," Grasso said in the letter.
"If the public knows that additional protection is available to them through trained and credentialed officers, they will feel much safer travelling via airplane," she said.
But Yagman said letting armed, off-duty police officers on planes would only further endanger the flying public.
"I only hope that what they're doing is just a macho publicity stunt and not a real suggestion, because no sane person would ever accept it," he said. "Nobody needs the LAPD or any local police getting in gunfights on airplanes."
Repovich said security concerns could be minimised by providing the officers with special ammunition that would not damage planes and that fingerprint scanners could be installed in airports to verify the identity of the off-duty officer.
"This is a huge instant security force that we're not taking advantage of," he said. "When you get to the point where the military has the authority to shoot down a plane if its taken over by hijackers, I think it's critical that the people on board also have the ability to (take some action)."
I trust the guy with a CCW more than the LAPD. At least they have some restaint and are trained. LAPD are like bad cowboys, shoot if it moves and the department will cover your a** if you mess up.
No mention of citizen CWPs CCW? Even the LAPD would divide us into first class citizens (people with "the ability") and second class citizens dying as sheeple.
This is more horsecrap. Identifying someone is only half the job. It would be pretty quick and easy to verify that I'm Sam Smith, off duty officer from Colorado. Then you also have to compare everyone else in the world to make sure that I'm not also the ex- Tom Jones, known terrorist associate from Florida. That sort of comparison would take days (or weeks) assuming you had a database of everyone, which you don't.
These bastards have been trying to seize private citizens weapons for years. Let them feel like the rest of us.
Besides, the LAPD seems to only hit innocent people.
Would they be able to carry their throw down weapons also? They may need it when they hit a 12 year kid.
Does the phrase "Home of the Brave" have ANY meaning for this worm ??
Yagman has pissed off every cop in the nation. Yagman is afraid of the idea of any cop anywhere having a loaded firearm near him. He's probably justifiably concerned. If I were a cop, I'd pop him the first chance I got.
Leave the decision with the individual pilots; they're in the best position to assess the volunteer and his/her training. It makes little sense to me to prescribe rules that force them into situations they feel are wrong.
One change I would like to see is "full faith and credit", of every state, given to the LTCs issued by the various states. The "talent pool" could thus expand, and the pilots could enlist one, several, all, or none of the so-equipped passangers as he/she saw fit.
I too am against allowing only cops or military to be given consideration. Again, pilot's call :whomever; whenever.
There are very talented, dedicated, civilian shootists and boxcutters out there: including the pilots themselves.
And what's with the idea of an armed pilot behind a badguy-proof door? Are the pilots going to sit there and do nothing as the crew and passengers get their throats cut??
Whatever LAPD's shortcomings are, this statement is clearly indicitive of someone with an unhealthy mindset.
Wall Street Journal
September 28, 2001
President Bush yesterday unveiled a plan to tighten airline security,ranging from employing the National Guard at airports to placing more marshals on flights. Those are important steps, but they won't be enough, especially since no one knows where the terrorists will strike next. The only adequate response is to encourage more ordinary, responsible citizens to carry guns, as Israel has done.
Screening at airports, while important, will always be inadequate; terrorists will always figure some way to circumvent the controls - for instance, by bribing airport employees. Strengthening cockpit doors is probably a good idea, but given current airline design it may create dangerous differences in air pressure between the cockpit and cabin. In any case, the door must be opened sometime, to allow pilots to go to the bathroom or get food.
The marshals program is more promising. Empirical research by Bill Landes at the University of Chicago found that between a third and a half of the drop in airplane hijackings during the 1970's could be attributed to the introduction of armed U.S. marshals on planes and an increased ability to catch and punish hijackers.
But to put just one marshal aboard every daily flight in the U.S. would require at least 35,000 officers - far more than currently work for the FBI, Secret Service and U.S. marshals combined (17,000). And one marshal might not be enough to foil a whole gang of hijackers, of the kind used by Osama bin Laden. Clearly it will take a long time to deploy enough marshals.
There are things we can do in the meantime. There are about 600,000 active state and local law enforcement officers in the U.S. today. They are currently forbidden from bringing their guns on airplanes. That should change. They should even be given discount fares if they fly with their guns. Most pilots have also had military experience. The request of their union to arm pilots should be granted; this is what El Al has done for a long time.
Fears of having guns on planes are misplaced. The special, high-velocity handgun ammunition used on planes packs quite a wallop but is designed not to penetrate the aluminum skin of the plane. Even with regular bullets, the worst-case outcome would simply be to force the plane to fly at a lower altitude, where the air pressure is higher.
The use of guns to stop terrorists shouldn't be limited to airplanes. We should encourage off-duty police, and responsible citizens, to carry guns in most public places. Cops can't be everywhere.
In Israel, about 10% of Jewish adults have permits to carry concealed handguns. To reach Israel's rate of permit holding, Americans would have to increase the number of permits from 3.5 million to almost 21 million. Thirty-three states currently have "right-to-carry" laws, which allow the law-abiding to obtain a permit if they are above a certain age and pay a fee. Half of these states require some training. We should encourage more states to pass such aw, and possibly even subsidize firearms training.
States that pass concealed handgun laws experience drops in violent crimes, especially in multiple victim shootings - the type of attack most associated with terrorism. Bill Landes and I found that deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shooting fell by 80% after states passed right-carry laws.
Passing right-to-carry laws might even deter terrorist attacks. True, some terrorists are suicidal, but they still want to cause maximum carnage. They know the "return" on their terrorism would rapidly diminish to the vanishing point if faced with gun-wielding "victims."
0109290147sep29.story
From the Chicago Tribune
Anxiety over terrorism spikes interest in arms By Amanda Vogt and Sean D. Hamill Tribune staff reporters
September 29, 2001
At GAT Guns Inc. & Indoor Range in East Dundee, there was a run on semiautomatic weapons.
Schrank's Smoke 'n Gun in Waukegan has been swarmed by people filling out applications for a firearm owner's identification card, which the state requires before a gun can be bought.
"I had people trying to buy a shopping cart full of ammo," said Alex Hernandez, manager of the Sports Authority store in southwest suburban Burbank.
For many, it seems, the way to make the world feel safe again after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 is to buy a gun. Across the Chicago area and in urban centers around the country, interest in firearms has spiked.
"The attacks have played on our basic insecurities," said Dave Schrank of Schrank's Smoke 'n Gun. "These are average people, many who are entering a gun shop for the first time, who are doing this as an insurance policy."
Schrank said that on a typical Saturday he processes five to eight firearm owner's ID card applications. He said that on Sept. 15, the first Saturday after the attacks, he filed 38.
Schrank said he believes that unless more terrorist attacks occur, many of those people won't return to buy a firearm. But meanwhile, he said, people seem to want a sense of personal security.
Browsing for guns at the Waukesha County Gun Show in Waukesha, Wis., on Friday night, Rafael Tirado, 19, of Milwaukee said he was "worried about riots breaking out." He said he bought two semiautomatic assault rifles Thursday from a Milwaukee dealer "because I figured, with what's going on, I've got to be ready."
Tirado owns seven other guns and said he is prepared to use them. The guns, he said, "makes me feel a lot safer when I'm at home with my family."
At the Outdoorsman Sport Shop in Winthrop Harbor, firearm sales rose 10 to 15 percent in the days following the attacks, and the number of people filling out applications for firearm owner's IDs increased tenfold, owner Paul Cox said.
"There's a new fear of the unknown in America," he said. "We don't know who or where these terrorists are or if the government can protect us."
University of Chicago sociologist Robert Sampson said it's somewhat irrational for a person who wouldn't otherwise visit a gun shop to do so in response to the terrorist attacks.
"You can't carry a gun on an airplane," he said. "There's an underlying fear at work here that's causing people to retreat to their homes and their communities. It's not a rational response, this assumption that terrorist groups are going to seek you out where you live."
Every gun purchase triggers a background check by the Illinois State Police, as required under federal law. During the first 21 days of September, state police conducted an average of 50 more background checks per day than during the same period last year, according to Capt. Dave Sanders. The agency doesn't track applications by date, he said, so it could not provide breakdowns for before and after the attack.
In California, one of the few states with nearly instant accounting of background checks, there was a 42 percent increase in gun sales in the two weeks after the attacks, compared with the same time period last year. In those two weeks, 18,500 people bought guns in California, compared with 13,000 during the same period last year.
"We're not saying right now exactly what the reason is," said Mike Van Winkle, spokesman for the state agency that monitors gun sales in California, "but we've seen increases like this before after a national crisis."
The FBI, which conducts criminal background checks of gun buyers under the federal Brady Law, reported a 15 percent increase in such checks on Sept. 11, 12 and 13, compared with the same days last year.
Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, said his group has seen a surge in membership since the attacks.
Mike Glabowicz, a Libertyville businessman, was among those who visited Schrank's gun shop in recent days.
"I don't know that guns are necessarily a valuable tool against terrorism," he said. "But there's a perception that if you're armed, it creates an uncertainty in the mind of the criminal that results in a shift in the balance of power in your favor."
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