Gun Nuts at 30,000 Feet?

After the pervasive failure of airport security on 9/11, the Air Line Pilots Association sought federal permission for pilots to carry handguns to defeat hijackers. Capt. Steve Luckey, chairman of the association’s flight-security committee, explained, “The only reason we want lethal force in the cockpit is to provide an opportunity to get the aircraft on the ground. We don’t have 911. We can’t pull over.”

The Bush administration rejected the request, preferring instead to rely on jet fighters to shoot down hijacked civilian planes. U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta declared on March 4, 2002, “I don’t feel we should have lethal weapons in the cockpit” — as if airplanes themselves were not among the most deadly lethal weapons.

Congress eventually trumped the administration, passing a law in September 2002 to create a program to train pilots to use firearms to defend their planes. (The Transportation Security Administration — TSA — effectively buried the program with red tape, ensuring that only 48 pilots would be permitted to carry guns in early 2003.)

Former TSA chief John Magaw was the administration’s point person in the fight against permitting pilots to be armed. Magaw announced, “The use of firearms aboard a U.S. aircraft must be limited to those thoroughly trained members of law enforcement.” The federal air-marshal program was touted as a silver bullet against hijacking threats. A White House statement on aviation safety in the wake of 9/11 declared, “The requirements and qualifications of Federal Air Marshals are among the most stringent of any U.S. federal law enforcement agency.”

The TSA was determined to quickly expand the number of marshals from a few hundred to more than six thousand. However, most of the applicants failed the marksmanship test. The TSA solved that problem by dropping the marksmanship test for new applicants — even though the ability to shoot accurately in a plane cabin is widely considered a crucial part of a marshal’s job.

Some would-be marshals were hired even after they repeatedly shot flight attendants in mock hijack-response training exercises. One marshal groused that the training for new marshals was “like security-guard training for the mall.” USA Today’s Blake Morrison noted a report that “one marshal was suspended after he left his gun in a lavatory aboard a United Airlines flight from Washington to Las Vegas in December. A passenger discovered the weapon.” An air marshal left his pistol on a Northwest flight from Detroit to Indianapolis; a cleaning crew discovered the weapon. Morrison noted,

At least 250 federal air marshals have left the top-secret program, and documents obtained by USA Today suggest officials are struggling to handle what two managers call a flood of resignations. TSA director James Loy (who was hired after Magaw was fired) insisted that the “traveling public should rest assured that the Federal Air Marshal Service is providing the largest, highest-caliber, best-trained and most professional protective force in American aviation history.” The Transportation Department responded to the USA Today exposé by sending Secretary Mineta to an air marshal training facility, where he witnessed a training exercise in which marshals shot a would-be hijacker. Mineta commented,

I not only saw a remarkable demonstration of skill, professionalism and marksmanship, but a degree of professionalism we are instilling throughout our aviation security system.

Eight days later, on August 31, 2002, Delta Flight 442 with 183 people on board was proceeding from Atlanta to Philadelphia on a Saturday afternoon when a passenger got up and began rummaging in the overhead bin. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the trouble began when a man described as “fortyish and disheveled made inappropriate comments to a female passenger a few rows behind him.” Two plainclothes air marshals jumped up and tackled the guy, shoving him first to the back of the plane and then dragging him to the first-class area.

Then the trip got interesting. One of the marshals returned to the front of the coach section, drew his Glock semiautomatic pistol, and started screaming and pointing his gun at passengers. Philadelphia judge James Lineberger, a passenger on the flight, commented,

I assumed at that moment that there was going to be some sort of gun battle.... There were individuals looking to see what they were pointing at and [the air marshals] were yelling, “Get down, get out — get your head out of the aisle.” In a formal complaint to the TSA, Lineberger declared that

there was no apparent reason for holding all the passengers of the plane at gunpoint, and no explanation was given.... It appeared a gun battle was imminent, causing great distress. Lineberger was sitting diagonally across from the initial target of the marshals; he did not notice any problem on the flight until the marshals went ballistic. Susan Johnson, a social worker from Mobile, Alabama, was also unaware of any disturbance until the air marshals seized the man. She said,

It never made sense. This guy was not any physical threat that we could see. Maybe he said some things to them that made them concerned. He just appeared to us unstable, emotionally. Becky Johnson, a reporter who wrote a column about the episode for her Waynesville, North Carolina, newspaper, observed, “They never, ever said who they were, that they were air marshals or whoever.”

After the flight landed, the marshals nailed another terrorist suspect — Robert “Bob” Rajcoomar. He was handcuffed and taken into custody because, as TSA spokesman David Steigman later explained, Rajcoomar, “to the best of our knowledge, had been observing too closely.” Rajcoomar had been sitting in first class quietly reading and drinking a beer until the marshals dumped the allegedly unruly passenger from coach class into the adjacent seat. Rajcoomar recalled, “One [marshal] sat on the guy ... he was groaning, and the more he groaned, the more they twisted the handcuffs.” Rajcoomar asked the stewardess for permission to move to another seat in first class; she told him to take one of the seats the marshals had vacated.

When the plane landed, Rajcoomar recalled, “One of these marshals came down to me and said, ‘Head down, hands over your head!’ They pushed my head down, told me to bend down.” Rajcoomar said one of the marshals told him, “We didn’t like the way you looked” and “We didn’t like the way you looked at us.” Some air marshals apparently think of themselves as minor-league deities whom no mortal should be permitted to directly observe. Rajcoomar was locked up in a filthy cell for three hours before being released without charges. His wife was left to roam the Philadelphia airport, not knowing what had happened to her husband.

Rajcoomar was born in India and became a U.S. citizen in 1985. He was a retired U.S. Army major and a practicing physician in Florida. He filed notice that he would sue the TSA for violating his civil rights through “blatant racial profiling.” Rajcoomar complained that the marshals “were behaving like terrorists themselves.” After the plane landed, the first person the marshals had handcuffed was questioned but a U.S. attorney decided not to file charges.

TSA spokesman David Steigman told The Palm Beach Post, “If the air marshals say, ‘Sit down, keep eyes straight forward,’ well, don’t even think about moving around.” (The TSA has not yet formally proposed that Congress legislate a death penalty for getting out of one’s seat in violation of a TSA command.)

TSA spokeswoman Heather Rosenker justified the response to the Associated Press because marshals are trained to “do what they believe is the right thing to do to get control of the airplane.” Steigman told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “There was a passenger who was being obstreperous, who was subdued by sky marshals and has since been released.” “Obstreperous” could simply mean the guy made some noise. Does this mean that air marshals feel entitled to threaten people with imminent death any time someone raises his voice during a flight?

The air marshal who brandished his weapon had twice applied to be a cop in Philadelphia but failed the police department’s psychological tests; the marshal was also rejected in his attempt to get a job as a prison guard. The marshal had received only two weeks of training at the time he threatened scores of coach passengers. Steigman, responding to the Philadelphia Inquirer scoop about the air marshal’s psych test strikeouts, declared,

Federal air marshals are highly trained law enforcement professionals, each of whom can be called upon to make, at any moment, a split-second decision while traveling hundreds of miles per hour 30,000 feet above the ground with no backup. This comment implied that the marshals were miraculously piloting the plane and maintaining altitude at the same time they waved their guns in the air.

What escalates this episode beyond a mere bizarre anecdote is the fact that the TSA hailed its marshals as models. Several days after the incident, Thomas Quinn, the national director of the air marshal program, asserted, “The federal air marshals did a very good job. They did exactly as they’re trained to do.” This makes stark that all the onus will be placed on airline passengers when TSA employees lose control of themselves and threaten to kill people. Problems are caused only by people who disobey the commands of federal agents.

Even though the air marshals are unreliable, the Bush administration has slowed down the congressionally mandated program to authorize pilots to carry guns. Though it went through the motions of setting up a program, it did so in a way to discourage pilots from participating. One pilot, Tracy Price, complained, “The TSA has very intentionally and successfully minimized the number of volunteers through thinly veiled threats and by making the program difficult and threatening to get into.”

Nine months after Congress passed the law, TSA had certified only 44 pilots to pack heat while flying. The Washington Post reported in October 2003 that

advocates for pilots who carry guns said the pilots are barred from criticizing the program to the media. The TSA has offered the news media opportunities to interview pilots who are supportive of the program. Brian Darling of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations condemned the TSA’s slant: “They should not be trotting out federal flight-deck officers to say good things about the program while muzzling pilots who are critical of the program.” After grumbling about TSA’s policies on armed pilots spilled into the media, a TSA official sent an e-mail warning to all pilots authorized to carry guns prohibiting them even from communicating to their congressmen about their concerns about the program.

In 2002 Bush bragged that the law creating the TSA “greatly enhanced the protections for America’s passengers and goods.” Rather than making Americans safe from terrorists, the TSA has made them prey to federal agents. There is no reason to expect the agency to turn over a new leaf. And there is no reason to expect a small army of undercover federal agents flying on planes to make Americans safe.

James Bovard is author of The Bush Betrayal as well as Lost Rights (1994) and Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2003) and serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

This article was originally published in the December 2005 edition of Freedom Daily.

Allow Joe Schmuckatelly and Jane Average Citizen to carry if they want. That way, when Abdula decides to try and take over the plane, he has to do so through a hail of return fire. If Mr. TSA Air Marshal badass has one too many while on duty, he's gotta behave himself with the Civvies or risk getting his punk behind in a bind.

Bzzt! Wong, sorry - Abdullah will be just as if not better well-armed as Joe Schmuck and have better training and a plan. Joe will die messily as he draws.

"thoroughly trained members of law enforcement .. "

US military, security agencies, Air Marshals, state and local police, heck, even wildlife law enforcement ... by drawing their pay from taxes, couldn't these guys all be termed "government soldiers"?

Little scary, I think. I'll keep my trust in armed civilians, thanks!

Here are the 2, and only 2 options.

1) Armed pilot takes out hijacker in cockpit
2) F-16 shoots the plane out of the sky, killing everyone.

Those are the choices people. Which do you prefer?

3) Armed passengers take out hijacker

First I've heard of crazy whackos being let into the Air Marshall Program. Not surprising though.

Armed pilot and cockpit crew is the best available response-for the airline industry. Best response for travelers is to choose other means of transportation.

Lets be realistic. With how much trouble it has been and how much resistence has been put up to allowing some pilots to be armed, there is no way in hell that armed passengers will be allowed on board. You can't even bring nail clippers or a lighter on with you anymore!

the marshal was also rejected in his attempt to get a job as a prison guard

Now that's the ultimate sign of a total loser -- not even fit for a job so low that it is taken by people who voluntarily put themselves in prison every workday.

26 posted on 03/09/2005 8:46:04 AM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)

Bzzt! Wong, sorry

Much refuted BS.

IDPA and Cowboy action shooters can outshoot most law enforcement quite easily. Not to mention 3-gun match shooters. Race gun shooters. Former LEO and military guys. Ect...

Lurk around for a while before posting such nonsense again.

Much refuted BS.

Bologna. You're saying that the fact that training and a plan trumps a mob, "refuted"? You've been sniffing too much Hoppes.

Blatant alarmism. That kinda crap can't go on for long. I'd settle for requiring civilian passengers to have proof of a "airplanes and guns" safety course and using a "powdered lead" airplane "safe" ammo. That'd be more of an insurance issue than one that would require legislation though.

I'd rather take the class and carry than sit there wondering if Mohammed in 12B is gonna try and use a sharp, pointed stick to hijakc the airplane.

The Sandfleas our boys have been stomping down in Iraq aren't exactly Expert Marksmen. That is just one of the reasons we've got a 1:100 kill ratio on 'em. And civilian shooters, even hobbiests, can be even better trained. I can dump 10 rounds from my AR into a spot the size of a penny at 200 yards and I don't consider myself an "exceptional" shooter.

A mob? Hardly. The terrorists could plan for weeks, and they still won't trump one civilian who's been shooting since he was 7.

Thanks for playing though Newbie.

I don't disagree with you, but when the TSA allows Air Marshalls on board with guns, SS agents on with Guns, and other authorized people to carry firearms (body guards and the such) but makes even them throw out their nail clippers then the chances of any general passenger being allowed to bring a firearm on the plane is zero.

Well, there is the little fact that most of them are in some financial straight or another. If the FedGov doesn't bail them out at taxpayer expense again, about half will go under.

I've been voting with my feet. I'll drive from Austin to Minneapolis before I'll fly due to BS restrictions like that.

Thank you for proving my point. Forces who have trained, and trained together, and have a plan, can handily beat any rabble thrown against them.

Thanks for playing though Newbie.

Keep sniffing that Hoppes.

I rarely have to fly. Maybe once every couple years. My vacations are almost always within driving distance.

My wife flys several times a year though.

And when I go to Vegas, I don't drive.

And your average US gun owner has MUCH more training than your typical hijacker. Period. Most people who carry probably have more range time and training than the Air Marshals.

You might wanna stop sniffing things and go out and get some fresh air. Or do you enjoy carrying water for Sarah Brady and the rest of the hoplophobes?

Air Marshals are supposed to sit down and shut up until there is an imminent threat to the plane as a whole. Even if there is an in-progress attack against an individual passenger, their job is to stay quiet. A coordinated terrorist attack will take into account the possible presence of AMs on board, and will likely include a tactic to draw them out for immediate termination; as such, the AMs must remain under cover as long as possible, only moving defensively when an immediate large-scale threat is underway - at which point they'd better be able to plug a quarter at 25 yards in 1 second flat.

Also your average civilian shooter is a better shot than your average cop. Feel free to disagree but that was told to me by the armorer from the local police range just a couple days ago.

My father is a range officer and a retired Deputy. I've been at the range watching some of those Barney Fife clones re-qual. Watched one put a double tap into the overhead sunshade on the firing point on the 7 yard siloutte with a Beretta 92.

I've also been to 3-gun matches and watched supposed "SWAT" members get mediocre scores compared to guys who go out every weekend.

The Newbies premise is about as faulty as they come. We've had this conversation time and again over the years. Their alarmist arguments STILL don't hold water.

This article was originally published in the December 2005 edition of Freedom Daily.

Let's do the Time Warp again!

This article was originally published in the December 2005 edition of Freedom Daily.

Let's do the Time Warp again!

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