Signs posted in the airport state that baggage will be checked and you will be asked to step through a metal-detector as part of airline safety procedures. Legally, by going to the airport, you are consenting to be subjected to these searches. Searches of everyone who enters an airport are not required, only those who seek to enter a concourse. Therefore the search is not random and arbitrary, therefore it is not unreasonable.
2. Considering the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms ("...shall not be infringed", end of declaration), arbitrarily searching someone for something they have a right to is inherently unreasonable. See the latest "Emerson" and "DeCSS" court rulings for supporting legal views.
Yet the court has upheld (almost since the 2nd amendment was minted) the rights of cities and states to declare "Weapons Free" zones. Schools, airports, and other public areas are included under local statute.
3. By your reasoning, random or pervasive searches anywhere else in society would be "reasonable" - but courts regularly deem far more "reasonable" searches unConstitutional. A guy wearing gang colors and obviously carrying a small heavy item in his pocket in a drug-dealing area cannot be searched for guns/drugs by police (despite obvious high probability of serious crimes past/present/future involved) and such a search, without corroborating evidence, would be ruled "unreasonable" - but an average person just stepping onto an airplane can be searched for just being there...this is "unreasonable" by any reasoning.
No, As seen in paragraph 1, airport security is not arbitrary or non-consenual. Only people entering a concourse are searched, and even then in a non-invasive way. The rest of your argument is just "slippery-slope" claptrap. There is a compelling reason to have tight security at airports just as there is a compelling reason to have tight security at the White House.
4. An otherwise baseless search performed to find items deemed "weapons" arbitrarily by an agency and not by explicit legislation is unreasonable. My right to be secure in my person & effects cannot reasonably be suspended/violated just because a faceless unelected burrowcrap, unaware of my existence, arbitrarily decided that I can't be trusted with a nail file.
Rants against bureaucrats aside, the safety of all of the passengers on a given flight overrides your personal right to carry a handgun, rpg, knife, toothpick, fork, or salami sandwitch. I am a good citizen who has never been convicted of a crime, does this mean that I should be allowed to bring a pound of semtex into the Hoover Dam? No, and I would rightfully be arrested for criminal conduct if I tried to do so.
5. The 4th Amendment REQUIRES that any search be predicated by probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Translation: a search may only be done upon a SPECIFIC person, with a SPECIFIC reason to believe crime-related items are possessed, with SWORN testimony to a judge, with SPECIFIC declaration of where the search will occur and what is expected to be found. Arbitrarily searching billions of passengers, especially when questionable items are RARELY found (and most of those otherwise legal without clear criminal intent), is almost as pure an example of "unreasonable search" as can be given.</>
The need to ensure the smooth running and safety of airline travel provides the P.C. that the security officers require to scan each traveler comming onto a plane. I think that if there were a real legal leg to stand on the Supreme Court would've ruled against airport metal detectors and airline weapons bans a long time ago.
HOWEVER, this changes drastically when the guards are replaced by federal agents, at which point the voluntary business nature of searches is replaced by a plain Constitutional violation: NOTHING in the Constitution provides for such searches by federal agents (even when motivated by your vague fear of terrorists with nail files); to the contrary, the 4th Amendment plainly restricts such warrantless (in both senses of the word) searches.
Compare recent comparable decisions on the 1st and 2nd Amendments:
Re: limitations on 1st Amendment
Prior restraints on pure speech are highly disfavored and presumptively unconstitutional. (Hurvitz v. Hoefflin (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 1232, 1241.) "In the case of a prior restraint on pure speech, the hurdle is substantially higher [than for an ordinary preliminary injunction]: publication must threaten an interest more fundamental than the First Amendment itself. Indeed, the Supreme Court has never upheld a prior restraint, even faced with the competing interest of national security or the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial."
Re: limitations on 2nd Amendment
In essence, Emerson, and the district court, concede that had the order contained an express finding, on the basis of adequate evidence, that Emerson actually posed a credible threat to the physical safety of his wife, and had that been a genuinely contested matter at the hearing, with the parties and the court aware of section 922(g)(8), then Emerson could, consistent with the Second Amendment, be precluded from possessing a firearm while he remained subject to the order.
These, and supporting texts, make it clear that sections of the Bill Of Rights may ONLY be suspended in very deliberate, targeted, individual cases where specific evidence is approved by a judge in a federal court - IF they may be suspended at all. Broad suspensions based on nebulous fear, as you suggest for the 4th Amendment, are not Constitutionally acceptable. Bare baseless fear that someone might carry a weapon onto an airplane with the specific intent to commit a heinous crime does NOT warrant federal agents suspending the 4th and 2nd Amendment rights of passengers.
If you still disagree and hold to having federal agents check everyone's luggage, PLEASE demonstrate a clearly Constitutional basis for suspending one of your Constitutional Rights.
Actually, I'd like to see the feds take over airline security screening - specifically so the issue can be taken to court and such warrantless searches struck down once and for all.