Posted on 07/31/2002 1:58:17 PM PDT by Conagher
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of arming U.S. airline pilots said on Wednesday that prospects were brighter for getting legislation passed this year after the idea's chief opponent in the Senate said he would allow a committee vote.
A spokesman for Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, one of the chief co-sponsors of a plan to arm pilots, said he would push for committee action in September, after the chamber returns from its summer recess, with the hope of getting the entire Senate to approve the measure soon afterward.
"We intend to ask for a markup (committee) hearing in September. Our feeling is that this is going to pass easily out of committee and survive a vote on the floor," said Eric Bovim, Burns' spokesman.
South Carolina Democrat Ernest Hollings, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee through which the pilot-arming proposal must pass, removed a potential obstacle on Tuesday when he said he would not stand in the way of a committee vote on the plan.
The House of Representatives has already voted to let pilots carry guns, although the Bush administration said two months ago it was opposed to the idea. However, last week Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said he had asked his new security chief to study the possibility.
MACHETES NEXT?
Earlier this year, Hollings mocked the idea of giving guns to pilots, saying passengers might be armed with machetes next. But support has been building both in and out of his committee for the proposal, which has 24 co-sponsors in the Senate.
Hollings' spokesman Andy Davis said the senator still thought arming pilots was a "terrible idea," and believed the money could be better spent reinforcing cockpit doors, but that he would not block a committee vote.
The House in July passed legislation that would allow all 70,000 pilots of U.S. commercial airplanes to carry guns on a voluntary basis. Supporters said it was necessary to secure the cockpit and prevent hijackings of the kind that happened last Sept. 11.
Two months ago, the Bush administration announced it opposed the idea, and Mineta said last week that a plan like the House had approved could be very expensive, costing $850 million to establish and over $250 million a year to carry out.
However, Mineta also said that while he was personally opposed to giving pilots lethal force, he had asked his new security chief to explore options to arm pilots with guns.
Does seem to fly in the face of reason(no pun intended); I don't understand either...
FGS
"The Senate has no confidence in the continued leadership of the Transportation Department by Norman Minetta. Secretary Minetta consistently avoids implementing effective policy in favor of expensive policies that salve his multicultural conscience. The Senate hereby requests the President fire Secretary Minetta, and submit for Senate approval a candidate willing to ensure the safety of the flying public."
This is probably not a new idea, but just how difficult would it be to put a canister of sleeping(?) gas on board that could be opened as necessary? The pilots/crew would have gas masks so they could diffuse the situation and continue, or alternatively land the plane.
Anybody trying to board with a gas mask would be kinda suspicious, eh?
FGS
He'll veto something (eventually) if this gets through the Senate he'll sign it and take credit for it. I hear this is pretty much what he did in Texas...signed most everything the Demos sent him and took credit.
If pilots were serious I’d have no problem with it either. Let the pilot unions put the issue up to a vote of their members. Pass it by majority vote to arm and I’d bet something could be negotiated (both contractually and in congress) that would allow arming of ALL pilots while on the plane or on airline/airport property. We could do that. They do NOT want that. It is NOT what they have proposed.
They need to make the call – it’s necessary as a last line of defense or not.
I suspect that Mineta was deferring to (ex-BATF) Magaw on this one. From some of the off-the-record comments made about his "retirement", I suspect that Magaw said: "no guns for pilots or I quit".
The crescendo of incredulity meant that he had to take the latter option. Now, Mineta, Hollings, and even Bush are "reconsidering" the issue.
All they need to do is put it back to what it was at some point in the past: airlines have the option to arm their pilots. All the feds have to do is adjust the security procedures to accommodate it.
Airlines could make their choice and announce it (or not). Individual pilots could choose whether to participate -- just like most people in some states can choose whether to get a CHL and carry a handgun.
It would be an interesting market experiment:
Which airline would you prefer? Which airline do you think most people would choose?
I think is just all part of his "uniter not a divider" get along policy. The person in charge of making the policy is a Clinton appointee, and Bush delegates, letting the people responsible for the decisions make them. I'm guessing that he's jut not going to force his will on this.
I hope if he's reelected in a landslide and we get the Senate back, we get a more aggressive Bush.
Because the airlines are all against it. I'm for arming the pilots but suppose you own a business that you created. The government tells you one morning that all of your foremen have to be armed. What is your gut reaction to that? The very first thing that goes through your mind is, who is responsible if something goes wrong? Are you liable if a foreman decides to start shooting on the way to work? Etc. It's one thing for the government to create changes in a government terminal that you rent space from. It's another when they tell you how to run your business.
And even that is unlikely. THe aircraft pressurization system can easily keep up with a bullet sized hole. I've been told that it can keep up with a blow-out window, as well.
It would be noisy as hell, but the largest danger would be to passengers that had heart attacks because they believed the movie dramatizations of a similar event.
Loading a gun with frangible ammo is really to avoid overpenetration of the intended target. In close quarters like that, you want the bullet to expend all its energy on the target and not punch through -- potentially hitting the innocent person standing behind it.
Gas cannisters don't vote!
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