Posted on 03/18/2002 12:09:40 AM PST by GalvestonBeachcomber
No Guns In The Cockpits
Our federal government gets awfully quirky at times. Take the issue of arming pilots with pistols so they will have a chance if terrorists breach the door and get into the cockpit.
The federal government opposes the idea. Too dangerous, it says.
On the other hand, the same federal government proposes to put armed air marshals in with the passengers, as well as have fighter jets on standby. The job, of course, of the air marshals is to shoot the hijackers, and if they fail, the job of the fighter jets is to shoot down the passenger plane if it veers from its flight plan. Not only that, but the government has stationed armed National Guardsmen in the airports. Personally, I don't fancy the idea of dodging ricochets if a poorly trained National Guard soldier decides to have a shootout with a terrorist.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see that a pilot shooting a terrorist in a cockpit is any more dangerous than air marshals having a gunfight out amongst the passengers. And certainly a gun in the cockpit is less dangerous than being blown out of the sky by an F-16.
Furthermore, it seems absurd to trust pilots with an aircraft full of passengers, but not trust them to have a pistol. Most commercial pilots are ex-military and have had ample training with firearms. And all commercial pilots are people who know how to stay calm in a stressful situation. A hefty majority of the pilots want to carry personal firearms. They should be allowed to do so.
Just as it is now a given that passengers and crew will resist the hijackers, you can be sure that it is now a given among terrorists that mere box cutters will not be sufficient to take over an aircraft. The flaw in airport security is that the screening stations are well away from the boarding areas. Between those screening areas and the boarding areas are long corridors with offices, restrooms, shops and snack bars. It does not require much imagination to persuade one of the hundreds of people in those areas to plant a firearm for a terrorist who can retrieve it after he's been screened.
And if the government is really serious about Americans being on continuing alert and watching out for terrorists, then it should encourage firearm ownership and pass a national right-to-carry law. A very scholarly work proves that privately owned firearms prevent more crimes than there are crimes committed with firearms. In Israel, private citizens wielding their own firearms have often cut terrorist attacks short.
Encouraging the public to go about their daily lives while armed would also greatly cut down on the crime rate, not to mention improving people's manners. Two of the most famous outlaw gangs, the James Gang and the Daltons, were shot to pieces not by lawmen or Pinkerton detectives, but by the citizens of the towns they tried to rob.
If you want to know how little that elitists think of us common folks, just watch the reaction to this suggestion. The whole business of gun control is based on the fear of the common people by the elite. Maybe the elite have a guilty conscience and want to keep the common folks unarmed in case the folks figure out how they've been taken advantage of.
When the Florida Legislature was debating a right-to-carry law, I had to listen to really ridiculous predictions from my elitist comrades in the news racket. "Oh, if people can carry guns, there will be shootouts in the supermarkets and at every traffic signal." It was all rubbish. The law passed. A couple of hundred thousand people have permits, and the violent-crime rate has gone down, not increased.
I asked one of my elitist friends, "Do you really think your fellow citizens are stupid and mad?" The answer was "Yes." Nothing is so conducive to making a fool of oneself than a small brain and a big ego.
I say, arm the American public and then watch our country become safe and peaceful once again.
Why stop with the pilots? Why not give the flight attendants a gun as well? That's what the 50,000-member union, the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), is advocating. The union recently took a stand against arming pilots in the cockpit, unless the rest of the cockpit crew was required to leave the fortified sanctuary and defend the main cabin. Patricia Friend, the AFA's international president, said, "The flight attendants are against guns being put in the cockpit if the pilots are the only ones with a means to defend the passengers and us. We must advocate that pilots be required to act in our defense, rather than locking and staying inside the cockpit while flight attendants are harmed." Not surprisingly, it's a controversial position. Herb Hunter, a United pilot and Chicago-area spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, told the Chicago Sun-Times it doesn't make any sense. "If they have to come out to intervene in the cabin, then you risk losing the whole airplane," he said. "I appreciate the position of the flight attendants, they're entitled to their position. This is ours: If you lose the cockpit, you lose the airplane. You can't bring the weapon out of the cockpit, that's our position right now." At AVweb, we're wondering when the pax are going to get together and demand their right to bear arms.
It's still a no-brainer, Howie. This reeks of the democRAT parsing that we went through with klintoon. "Did she blow him? Was it really sex? Did he stain her dress, or the rug in the Oval Office? Well, it's a private matter!"
An armed Pilot can stop a hi-jacker. An un-armed Pilot cannot! It's pretty simple..........FRegards
I wonder if there aren't a few pilots who are taking care of this without the federal governments' blessings.
Things are looking up a little anyway..
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush is unlikely to support the idea. Bush plans to follow the advice of administration officials, Fleischer said, "and the recommendation of the experts is that this not proceed." Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta oppose arming pilots."
It's time to let the Whitehouse know what people want.
I don't think so. It would be impossible to even get to the gate let alone on a plane.
Hardly a week goes by without a revelation about a gun being aboard a plane.
Our leaders are gonna wait for another disaster and then they will do the right thing. (as usual)
Absolutely correct, but until then, the airlines don't get my dollars (or is it pecos now?).
But the pilots are screened better than the passengers. I've seen it.
Pilots and little old grandmas are screened very well..
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