It's obvious from this sort of "controversy" that the self-anointed demagogues of our government, who supposedly "rule by our consent", are stuck on the horns of a self-made dilemma: They know what the solution is, that is, arming pilots. Yet, to advocate this is to contradict their standing de facto policy that "common folk" are incapably of properly acting in their own behalf and need government-authorized "professionals" to take care of us. This leads directly to these absurd contradictions between stated policy and raw common sense.
