Pilots and Guns

bhayes420

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWDBh0fQ1ug&feature=related

bhayes420

It was ruled yesterday that pilots will not be allowed to carry guns on their flights. I know the consensus here SEEMS to be to allow pilots to pack. But how many of you have actually worked at an airline? I have, for several years as a load master, dealing with pilots on a nightly basis computing weight & balance on cargo flights. Every night, when I came to work, I had to pass through a very good screening process. Not hired "security" or rent-a-cops, but the company I worked for had their own security, their own x-ray machines, their own scanners. 20 machines at the employee entrance. Did the pilots go through the screening that EVERY other employee went through? Heck no. They walked in through the special area reserved for pilots only. That is how, several years ago, one mentally ill pilot smuggled a spear fishing gun into the building, onto the ramp, and into an aircraft. He was not flying that day, just riding along in one of the jumpseats on the a/c. Right after take off, he reached into his bag, pulled out a hammer, walked into the cockpit and smashed the engineer in the head with it, taking him out. Literally. Then he started whipping the pilot with it. Thankfully, the pilot realized what was happening after being splattered with his mates blood and brain matter, so he put the a/c through some violent manuvers to throw the attacker off and make him lose his balance. The co-pilot, with a hell of a hole in his head, finally got out of his seat, grabbed the fire ax, and subdued the attacker. To make a long story just a bit shorter, the pilots managed to turn the plane around and land safely. It was later determined that the attacker wanted to hijack the plane and then turn it around and crash it into the a/c fuel dump on the ramp to take out the companies ground ops. You all might remember this when it happened. Got some national airplay. Guess my point in all this is this: Just who in the heck is going to screen the pilots??? I am not arguing for or against pilots packing, just have some questions about it. Flying an a/c loaded with passengers is an awesome responsibility by itself. And a very demanding job. And in retrospect, a handgun wouldn't have helped the pilots in the above case. The attack came too swift and furious for them to react. Like I said...I just have some questions about the idea of pilots with guns.

bhayes420

Pilots and guns

In a stunning reversal, California's liberal Senator Barbara Boxer has come out in favor of allowing airline pilots to carry guns if they wish, while the Bush administration opposes it. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has passed a bill to permit pilots to carry guns by a vote of 310 to 113.

Although Sen. Boxer is a staunch supporter of gun control, on this particular issue she clearly understands that it is better to have an armed pilot than to have to order a military plane to shoot down one of our own commercial airliners, full of innocent people, because hijackers have taken it over and are ready to do a repeat of last Sept. 11.

We can only hope that the administration is as willing as Sen. Boxer to re-think its position of opposing the arming of pilots. But the Department of Transportation remains closed-minded on the issue. When asked by Congressman Don Young, "Do you really think that 9/11 would have happened if our pilots had been armed, as they should have been armed?" a spokesman for the Department of Transportation replied: "Our position remains unchanged." It was reminiscent of the famous line: "'Shut up,' he explained."

Opponents of allowing pilots to be armed have portrayed horror movie visions of pilots and terrorists shooting it out in the aisles of airliners. But the main reason for arming pilots is not so that they can re-enact the gunfight at the OK corral. The main reason for having guns for self-defense anywhere is deterrence.

In John Lott's landmark scholarly study titled "More Guns, Less Crime," he points out that most instances of the successful use of a gun in self-defense do not involve actually firing it. Just showing an aggressor that you have a firearm is usually enough to make him back off. Having it widely known in advance that people in certain places have guns is a huge deterrent to those who might otherwise be inclined to start trouble in those places.

Communities that have passed laws permitting any law-abiding citizen to carry a gun usually have immediate declines in crimes in the wake of such laws. Both criminals and terrorists prefer to attack unarmed civilians.

Even mass killers labeled "irrational" by the media and by shrinks almost invariably start shooting in places where other people are unarmed, like schools or offices. And they stop when they encounter someone else who is armed. If not, they get stopped, like the assassin at Los Angeles International Airport on July 4th.

Depending on armed marshals aboard airplanes might be an alternative to arming pilots -- if there were any realistic prospect of putting marshals on even half the vast numbers of planes that are flying every day. But hypothetical marshals are no substitute for real pilots with real guns.

Depending on stronger cockpit doors might be another alternative -- if all these doors on vast numbers of airliners could be strengthened faster than pilots can get guns. But hypothetical doors are no more protection than hypothetical marshals. Tests have also repeatedly shown that the effectiveness of security screening at our airports is also largely hypothetical.

Part of the reason for the knee-jerk reaction to firearms may be that we now have a whole generation of people -- especially in politics and among opinion-makers in the media -- who have never served in the armed forces and have no experience with guns. Fear from ignorance is understandable. But that it should be presumptuous ignorance is not.

Are there any possible dangers to arming pilots? Of course! There are dangers to your holding this newspaper, which might catch fire and set off a conflagration around you. Nothing on the face of this earth is 100 percent safe. We already know that flying on a plane with no one on board who is armed to resist terrorists is not safe.

The only meaningful question is which danger is greater. The swiftness with which the idea of arming pilots was dismissed suggests no serious interest in weighing one danger against another. It may be understandable that the Bush administration does not want to buck the media on this emotional issue in an election year. But will the widows and orphans of those who lose their lives, because there was no armed person on board to thwart terrorists, be understanding?

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20020716.shtml


"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

salzo

Too bad the pilot flying that plane didnt have a firearm on him. He could have subdued the loon a lot sooner.
Keep in mind, that pilots were allowed to carry on airplanes prior to July 2001.
"No guns for pilots" is a recent phenomenon.

Happiness is a warm gun

bhayes420

Pilots were only allowed to carry if their employer allowed it. The airline I worked for didn't allow it. A gun wouldn't have helped, I don't think. The attacker was a pilot. He thought he could explain the spear-fishing gun if caught with it. If they had been allowed to carry guns, he could have had one, never been questioned about it if noticed, and made short work of the crew. The tables would have been turned. When approached like they were, from behind, by a co-worker nonetheless, they wouldn't have had time to get to a gun.

salzo

BHAYES- With all due respect, you can always find isolated incidents to use to defend the position that elements of society should not be armed. Gun controllers can always find an incident to prove that carrying is a detriment for society.
Gun controllers like to bring up Columbine as a reason for prohibiting and regulating ownership of guns, even though school shootings is virtually non existent.


Happiness is a warm gun