D'OH!! ...but on the other hand, federal forces also wouldn't have been checking him for weapons, or much of anything else, for that matter. So that kinda makes Reid a bad example either for or against my argument.
Pan Am 103 was brought down by a slightly modified clock-radio - unless attention is paid to preventing weapons on board airplanes, profiling alone is too coarse a sieve to be effective.
Perhaps I should have been clearer. When I said I'd go easier on "weapons", I meant firearms. Or at least BB guns or something, so we don't blow out a window.
It's easy to romanticize that kind of thing from a distance, but whether you're right or wrong about the efficacy of armed passengers, I really doubt that there is a realistic chance of persuading people that it's a good idea.
Then I guess I won't get customers to fly on Air Inquest with that approach. Such are the ways of the free market. My pilots would still be armed, for what it's worth. Maybe the stewardesses, too. So don't be complaining about the food my plane, buster.