Posted on 06/03/2002 7:41:14 AM PDT by white trash redneck
The recent controversy over arming airline pilots against a possible repetition of the 9/11 atrocity misses a crucial problem that makes arming pilots relatively ineffective: terrorists would know in advance where the guns are, and be able to game against that.
Let's say you are a terrorist executing a hijacking. You know the pilots are armed. Then here are your tactics -- you send the pilots a message that you will begin shooting cabin crew and passengers, one every five minutes, until the pilots throw their guns into the main cabin. Just to make sure, you split your gang into an A team and a B team. After the pilots have thrown out some guns, you send the A team into the cockpit. If the pilots resist, the B team kills more people.
Sky marshals can be taken out in a similar way. Your B team, armed with knives, breaks cover and announces the hijacking. The sky marshals (if there are any present; they're now flying on less than 1% of planes, and can't be trained fast enough for that figure to go up significantly in the foreseeable future) break cover. Now your A team, armed with guns, breaks cover and disposes of the sky marshals. Game over.
Anyone who thinks either scenario can be prevented by keeping firearms off-board should put down that crack pipe now. Tiger team exercises after 9/11 have repeatedly demonstrated that the new, improved airport security has had effectively zero impact on a determined bad-guy's ability to sneak weapons past checkpoints -- it's still easy. Despite government spin, there is no prospect this will change; the underlying problem is just too hard.
For terrorists to be effectively deterred, they need to face a conterthreat they cannot scope out in advance. That's why the right solution is to arm the passengers, not just the pilots.
Now, as a terrorist, you would be facing an unknown number of guns potentially pointed at you from all directions. Go ahead; take that flight attendant hostage. You can't use her to make people give up weapons neither you nor she knows they have. You have to assume you're outnumbered, and you dare not turn your back on anyone, because you don't know who might be packing.
The anti-gun bien pensants of the world wet their pants at the thought of flying airplanes containing hundreds of armed civilians. They would have you believe that this would be a sure recipe for carnage on every flight, an epidemic of berserk yahoos blowing bullet holes through innocent bystanders and the cabin walls. When you ask why this didn't happen before 1971 when there were no firearms restrictions on airplanes, they evade the question.
The worst realistic case from arming passengers is that some gang of terrorist pukes tries to bust a move anyway, and innocent bystanders get killed by stray bullets while the passengers are taking out the terrorists. That would be bad -- but, post-9/11, the major aim of air security can no longer be saving passenger lives. Instead, it has to be preventing the use of airplanes as weapons of mass destruction. Thus: we should arm the passengers to save the lives of thousands more bystanders on the ground.
And, about that stray-bullet thing. Airplanes aren't balloons. They don't pop when you put a round through the fuselage. A handful of bullet holes simply cannot leak air fast enough to be dangerous; there would be plenty of time to drop the plane into the troposphere. To sidestep the problem, encourage air travelers to carry fragmenting ammunition like Glaser rounds.
Think of it. No more mile-long security lines, no more obnoxious baggage searches, no more women getting groped by bored security guards, no more police-state requirement that you show an ID before boarding, no more flimsy plastic tableware. Simpler, safer, faster air travel with a bullet through the head reserved for terrorists.
Extending this lesson to other circumstances, like when we're not surrounded by a fuselage, is left as an exercise for the reader...
Truly a freeper must-read.
BTTT
Great cartoon here.
I beg to differ.
Civilians with valid CCW permits and peace-officers (not LEOs) should be allowed. Of course, this is after the permits have been looked at by airline security. The pilot will then know how many armed passengers he/she has, and so will the air marshall that might be on the flight. If a terrorist happen to be one of the armed CCW permittees, then the state authorities already have a head-start with the investigation, and might be able to alert the pilot while enroute.
Not part of the topic, but how about doing away with the cockpit doors, and have a permanent wall separating the pilots from the passengers. The pilots can enter the plane through the windshields, eat MREs and use a bucket. A potential hijacker would have to cut through, or come in from the outside. ;)
LEOs misuse their weapons more often than CCW holders.
A better question: how long before a testosterone-fueled "Air Marshal" misuses his weapon?
Government is NOT serious about airline safety. It is no better today than it was on the morning of 9/11.
The only difference today are the attitudes of the passengers. Passengers prevented the use of Flight 93 to take out the White House. Passengers prevented "shoebomber" Richard Reid from bringing down that flight. Now passengers are unarmed. Someone had the idea of allowing CCW holders to get further training and have an ATQ (Air Travel Qualified) extension on their license.
Mineta and Bush are TODAY still not serious about airline passenger safety. They won't even take the step of arming pilot. The Air Passenger Militia obviously is needed and is the only pragmatic way to stop hijackings.
Everyone however has a line and this author has found mine. A plane full of drinking, air psychosis prone people with guns is my line.
Even if you think air marshals are capable of handling problems, there will never be enough of them to be on every flight. A class of unpaid volunteers is the only way to secure our air industry.
They still do.
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