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Airport security? Hah! It's all for show.
X-raying checked luggage, reinforcing cockpit doors (except on freighters), and arming pilots have been the only meaningful improvements since September 2001.
Unfortunately, the pilots who have been armed are shackled in their role. They can only wear the gun inside a locked cockpit of an airplane flown only within the US. The program must immediately be enhanced to allow (or even require) pilots to wear (and use, if necessary) their guns at all times when in uniform throughout the world.
I'd even go as far as saying that any law-abiding citizen with appropriate training (such as that required by most states for a concealed firearm permit) should be welcome to carry a loaded gun on the airplane.
Being a very-frequent flyer and having been in Israel a few times, I've seen what real airport security is. It begins with screeners having an IQ above room temperature (something lacking outside Israel -- especially the US). A reasonably intelligent screener can be trained to look for people with evil intent. The best we can expect from the intelligence of TSA personnel all the way up to the TSA Administrator is to train them to look for fingernail clippers and toothpaste. They can't even spot a .45-caliber pistol 25% of the time!
Since September, 2001, only two of the hundreds of TSA civil "servants" checking my ID has looked at me to see if my face matches the photo in my passport! I was sitting at the gate in Seattle one day, looked at my boarding pass and saw a woman's name that bore absolutely no resemblance to my own! I can't fathom how I could possibly have gotten through an ID check with it, but I did. The lady with my boarding pass accomplished the same feat!
Don't get me started on how many times I've been infected with athlete's foot walking in stocking-feet on paths trod by millions of other stocking-feet while gloved hands poke at my shoes! (I never had a single case of athlete's foot before the shoe bomber incident.)
And, we haven't even begun to talk about the danger posed by an 835,000 pound 747 freighter commandeered by a handful of stowaways (yes, we have stowaways) coming out of those boxes of "cargo" that rarely get inspected!
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I think it is interesting that they take away your fingernail clippers when you are the one flying the plane. Please explain their thinking on that one. You already have control of the plane you don’t need fingernail clippers to “clip” anyone. I wish some actual thought would go into making up rules.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a great idea to let law abiding people carry a gun. If I were someone who wanted to take control of a plane I would not choose an airplane that I knew people were allowed to carry a gun. I would go to the plane that is full of victims.