White House Rethinks Opposition to Armed Pilots

NEWSMAX ^ | 7/23/02 | Limbacher

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

The Bush administration is reconsidering its opposition to letting airline pilots carry guns, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told the House Transportation aviation subcommittee today.

Afterward, spokesman Chet Lunner said Mineta was not responding to congressional pressure to arm pilots, but simply asking the new head of the Transportation Security Administration, retired Coast Guard Adm. James Loy, to review an old policy.

"The secretary expects Admiral Loy, with a new set of eyes, to take a look at everything we're doing," Lunner said.

The Associated Press reported: "Loy's predecessor, John Magaw, announced in May that he would not arm pilots, though he continued to study whether to allow flight crews to carry stun guns. Mineta said Loy will look into arming pilots with guns or non-lethal weapons."

Pilots unions, supported by gun rights groups, want Congress to overrule the TSA. The House earlier this month voted 310-113 to let commercial pilots carry guns.

"We're very happy to hear that Secretary Mineta and Admiral Loy will be taking a fresh view with an open mind on this subject," said John Mazor, a spokesman for Air Line Pilots Association.

A Senate sponsor of legislation to let pilots be armed, Montana Republican Conrad Burns, also praised the announcement.

"Right now, the only armed pilots in America are flying F-16s," Burns said. "Secretary Mineta's comments signal his agency's recognition that American missiles shooting down American planes cannot be our government's answer to hijackings."

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Congress makes everyday decisions on environment, business, economy..., what is their experience? Most of these pilots have military histories, who's more qualified to make their decisions?

[Wonder Warthog]

More interesting is that this "reconsideration" comes virtually on the heels of John Magaw's departure. I wonder if he was most of the problem. Certainly his tenure as head of the BATF didn't give gun-owners that "warm fuzzy feeling".

[Shermy]

wouldn't a problem be bad guys aiming to get the gun?

[Digger]

Again, GW & his administators are at odds with practicality. Why would you expect different with a bunch of Bubba holdovers or a bunch of PC picks. If the Congress sent him a bill making AlGore president would he veto it? I doubt it. He would fight it like Ashcroft fought his DEAD rival. (green trees & blue grass, lolipops forever, we must all get along so I can be called compassionate)

[harpseal]

It may not be in response to Congress it may well be in response to the people of the USA.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[mc5cents]

BANG!

[harpseal]

Given that entry onto the flight deck without consent of the pilot would be grounds for the pilot shooting the only concern is if the bad guy already has superior firepower in which case the pilot still has a chance.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[Shooter 2.5]

"wouldn't a problem be bad guys aiming to get the gun?

No. If it was a problem, we would just arm the terrorists and take their guns away when we needed them.

[cynicom]

Mineta is a democrat. Magaw is a democrat bootlicker of old.

[Shooter 2.5]

"Again, GW & his administators are at odds with practicality.

The Bush administration is balancing a fine line between the public and the airlines. Ordering a private company to arm their employees involves liabilities.

[Prodigal Son]

LOL, I don't know about Shermy but I had to think about that one for a minute.

[Atlas Sneezed]

"Ordering a private company to arm their employees involves liabilities."

So just PERMIT them to have armed pilots, and make them liable for a failure to do so, should such failure be found to be negligence.

[Ohioan]

Now that the idiot Magaw is gone, the Administration needs to get on the right side of this issue. It is not just that arming the pilots is a common sense response to the danger that they face. It is the only course that is consistent with the American tradition of individual responsibility.

A pilot is supposed to be to a plane, what the Captain is to a ship. It is demeaning in the extreme, to suggest that anyone ought to be able to tell him that he may not carry a side-arm for his own protection. In pre-Twentieth Century America, of course, we did not have planes. But we understood very well what freedom and responsibility entailed. And the idea that a man responsible for the safety of a plane, its crew, and perhaps hundreds of passengers, should not be able to arm himself, would have been laughed out of any discussion.

Let us face it. There is only one reason that this is even controversial today; and that is because of the hysterical effort of the Left to disarm Americans--an effort in which they have used every emotional appeal that they could muster to confuse the issues, and frighten the susceptible into having a completely irrational fear of what after all is only a tool--no better and nor worse than the one using it. It is very sad when the Administration gives those irrational fears months of deference. An American decision is past due.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[dirtboy]

Ordering a private company to arm their employees involves liabilities.

It's one thing to order a private company to arm their employees. It's another to deny them the capability to arm them.

[aculeus]

White House Rethinks Opposition to Armed Pilots

Good. Now get rid of that idiot "NO PROFILING ... EVER!" Minetta.

[F16Fighter]

Congress will wind up compromising -- they'll permit the pilots to be armed with orange water-pistols.

[TADSLOS]

Congress will wind up compromising -- they'll permit the pilots to be armed with orange water-pistols.

Make that unfilled water pistols...;~)

[hottomale]

I think that the congress should have put limits on the number of airports used for international flights. This would have cut down on all the security needs for international risks. But there would have to be other measures for protecting the borders for this to make any difference. Less travel by air would indeed lessen the amount of money spent on airline security. Charge those who actually use the services not the entire US population most who have never even been on a airplane. Higher prices would curb some of the extravagant expenditures of these LARGE CORPORATIONS. With all the means of communications available it makes less since for all the needless Global travel related to business.

Bring the america businesses back to america and the lot of these problems would be reduced.

[Ohioan]

It's one thing to order a private company to arm their employees. It's another to deny them the capability to arm them.

Precisely. If the ACLU were not the phoney Fabian Socialist organization that it is, this would be their number one issue. Being a Fabian Socialist organization, of course, they do not see any "Civil Liberties" issue here. But it is one nonetheless.

To understand the whole issue over the rights of the people to defend themselves and what is theirs, see The Right To Keep & Bear Arms. As between the right of the Government to regulate transportation and the right of private companies in the transportation business to protect their property; the latter is by far the clearer right.

On the subject of the right of piolots, involved in this, see my post above.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Old philosopher]

The decision not to arm the pilots obviously came from GW Bush. Unless he had approved the decision it never would have been promulgated.

The forced resignation of John McGaw, though welcome, was a CYA action on the part of the White House. This gives Bush the cover to reverse the decision, without taking the blame for the original one. Thus, GW "saves face", and the Bush Bots can once again tell us how he is such a great man.

If GW Bush had dumped all the Clinton appointees the day he took office and appointed his own loyal followers, he would have saved himself a great deal of trouble. As it is he has an administration that is neither fish nor fowl. And the Klinton administration continues a "half speed ahead"

When Bush's term is done it will go down in history as the Klinton third term.

I fear the government we have today more than I fear the "terrorists" from without.

That's my opinion