Posted on 05/21/2002 7:34:17 AM PDT by Cagey
WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal government said Tuesday that pilots will not be allowed to have guns in the cockpits of commercial airplanes.
The announcement was made at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing by John Magaw, undersecretary for transportation security. It followed months of debate over whether arming pilots would be a deterrent to hijackers.
Both Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge previously indicated their opposition to arming pilots.
Magaw gave no reason for his decision, which was announced in response to a question from Arizona Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the committee.
Airline pilots have been pushing for guns, saying it would allow them to confront a hijacker who breaks into the cockpit. Hijackers took over four commercial airlines on Sept. 11, crashing two of them into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
Flight attendants, meanwhile, have advocated nonlethal weapons, such as stun guns, that they could use in emergencies.
Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., who chairs the Commerce Committee, said guns would not be needed as long as pilots kept cockpit doors locked while in flight.
"You can put the rule in right now and cut out all the argument about pistols and stun guns," Hollings said.
Opponents of arming pilots have said reinforced cockpit doors now required on all planes mean that pistols are unnecessary. They have also expressed concern that an errant shot might hit a passenger or damage a key electrical system on the plane.
Two House Republicans have introduced legislation to arm pilots and the House Transportation Committee is scheduled to take up the bill this week.
Can anybody imagine such a discussion about not arming stagecoach drivers a hundred of so years ago if there was a known threat on the road (indians, highwaymen)? Or for that matter, disarming the passengers? If a politician had tried that, he would have been ridden out of town on a rail,... if he was lucky enough to escape with his life ahead of the mob of enraged citizens!
Bush is a statist. Who was installed by statists. No one who seriously believes in a return to individual sovereignty is going to be allowed any high office: the parties and power-brokers have already decided that.
What this administration is doing should come as no surprise to anyone keeping score.
Insofar as anything in this universe is a certainty, there WILL be more terrorist attacks. A robust defense in depth provides the highest probability of prevention and mitigation. It is the only MORAL answer.
It is not a question of whether a locked door, guard dog, alarm system, armed homeowner, or additional police presence on the street is the best deterrent to a thief; the war on terrorism DEMANDS the equivalent of all of the above. The consequences of failure are too high to accept anything else.
In fact, the single greatest improvement to domestic security against terrorism would be an armed citizenry. It would place every terrorist in the interior position, surrounded, outgunned, and outmanned. A very untenable position from which to fight, but in the case of suicidal terrorists, a difficult position from which to plan and execute.
The fact that our officials reject armed citizens AND reject profiling (which in less emotionally charged terms simply means using the laws of probability and the unmatched pattern recognition abilities of the human brain) to fight terrorists demonstrates the amateur nature of their response and incompetence of our officials.
No true warrior (or citizen) should tolerate such misfeasance.
Is this the guy who led the charge at Ruby Ridge or Waco?
I explained two already. The one regarding slippery slope is where you put forward all the bad consequences without specifying them and stating realistic potentials. Another was your branding the proposal as simplistic which is an example of complex question.
You might find this site interesting
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm
You may not be a liberal but your tendency toward arguing based on logical fallacies makes you prone to the disease.
The other poster is not only guilty of a logical fallacy of straw man, your opinion about guns has never been stated and is not relevant to the issue.
I am 100% pro-gun. I totally believe that the government has caved to the pro-gun movement in all-too-many scenarios.
At this point, I am at a loss as to how you think that I missed a point. Especially considering the fact that you are reply # 249. What point of yours could I have possibly missed, since you didn't start posting until post #248. If you are talking about the general issue of arming pilots, then we have already covered that ground.
I think maybe you should read through the whole thread before you begin to reply, newbie!
Really! You do know, of course that those doors won't open in flight, don't you? Better hope the terrorist blows a big hole in the fuselage for you to jump through. ;-]
Yes - the hatch resembles a submarine hatch ---- as do the baggage compartment hatches and wing escape doors. (Actually, they are a bit more expensive and elaborate than a submarine hatch ... though withstanding less pressure differential pressure. The hatch reinforced frames, and the hatch itself, carry the structural loads of the aircraft as it flexs and moves during flight. (Witness the several jets that have crashed when the baggage hatches fail during flight....)
The cabin IS pressurized continuously to replace the tens of thousands of cubic feet of air that naturally bleed out during flight through the compensation valves, the cabin and baggage compartment, and the atmospheric vents ... ONE more little hole form a mythical bullet doesn't compare to the existing 2 square foot hole ALREADY there in these systems.
Why are you afraid of responsible Americans defending themselves?
We ahve shown that the cockpit doors ARE NOT on present aircraft, don't work if they were, and can't be installed, nor can they be left shut during flight.
We have shown that ANY air marshall can be immediately killed silently and quickly ... if by nothing else than a plastic stick THROUGH the seat behind him right into his gut.
THAT gives the hijacker IMMEDIATE and UNPREVENTABLE access to the MARSHALL's gun ... WHILE LEAVING THE PILOT (the ONLY person who needs a weapon!) STILL disarmed. Against the NOW ARMED attackers.
Just figure you're re-breathing your own gas too.
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