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Bush flying blind on armed pilots issue.
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Bush flying blind on armed pilots issue.
by Dr. Michael S. Brown
July 16, 2002
President George W. Bush must be preoccupied with overseas strategy, because he has allowed his administration to take a politically disastrous position against the arming of airline pilots. Polls show strong support from both pilots and the public for allowing guns in the cockpit.
Last Wednesday the House of Representatives bowed to public opinion and their own instincts by passing, 310 to 113, an ambitious plan to arm any pilot who volunteers for training. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) explained that many members of Congress fly every week and see for themselves the gaps in airline security.
Political analysts had expected serious opposition in the Senate, but resistance there has begun to crumble after notoriously anti-gun Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) surprised everyone by announcing her support for arming pilots.
Congressional Democrats are fortunate to have found an issue they can use against a popular president. It also gives them a priceless opportunity to change the public perception that they are dogmatically against all guns, something that gave them serious trouble in the last election.
It is difficult to understand how the President allowed his administration to take a hard stand against arming pilots considering the following facts that have emerged during the last ten months of public debate:
Prior to 1987, pilots were exempt from security screening and many carried firearms in the cockpit. No problems were ever reported and at least one hijacking was averted when a pilot shot a hijacker.
Aviation experts have debunked the myth that a modern airliner can be brought down by stray pistol bullets. Redundant control circuits, over-engineered structures and powerful air supply systems make the big jets highly resistant to this kind of damage.
There will never be enough Federal Air Marshals to monitor more than a tiny percentage of airline flights. The expensive program also draws experienced officers from other critical agencies that are experiencing staff shortages.
News reports of missed weapons have made the public painfully aware that the current system of security screening is ineffective, even as travelers are forced to endure poorly conceived random searches by amateurish, abusive security guards. Thousands of Americans have simply decided to stop flying until the situation improves.
Perhaps the strongest argument for arming pilots was inadvertently made by the President himself. Shortly after September 11th, he announced that hijacked airliners would be shot down by the Air Force. What possible gun accident could be worse? The consequences of a hijacking are so horrific that the downside risk of arming pilots is insignificant by comparison.
The counter-arguments by members of the Bush Administration are so weak as to be laughable. The best point they can offer is that pilots must concentrate on flying the aircraft. Using this logic, even a simple fire extinguisher should be denied to these poor overworked pilots, since fighting a cockpit fire might distract them from their duties. Pilots are incensed at this condescending attitude. It ignores the fact that modern aircraft are highly automated and makes it seem as if pilots have all they can do to keep their machines in the air.
One puzzling aspect of this strange situation is the fact that the President flew F-102 fighters for the Texas National Guard from 1969-1973. He should know better.
The F-102 was a product of the Cold War, designed to intercept enemy bombers over the continental United States. The radar system was linked to the autopilot, which would fly the fighter into the best attack position. The automated fire control system would then release the air-to-air guided missiles or unguided rockets at the optimum moment. With this kind of aviation experience, one has to believe that the President is not paying any attention to the way his administration is handling this issue.
The White House is now referring all questions to the two men responsible for blocking the armed pilots initiative, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and his underling John Magaw, chief of the new Transportation Security Administration. Magaw is the former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. While under his leadership, BATF was one of the most mismanaged and self-serving bureaus in U.S. history.
Magaw and Mineta are more interested in building fiefdoms than in protecting citizens. They instinctively recoil at the thought of allowing any Americans not employed by the government to provide armed security. To do so, they fear, would effectively admit their own impotence and irrelevance in the war on terrorism.
As long as President Bush is on the wrong side of this issue, it will appear that he is not serious about airline security. With a growing consensus in favor of arming pilots and a mid-term election coming up in less than four months, the President needs to take charge of this issue soon.
Dr. Michael S. Brown is an optometrist and member of Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws, (www.dsgl.org) Email: rkba2000@yahoo.com
Related Reading: Airplanes & Guns archives
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=3479
"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
by Dr. Michael S. Brown
July 16, 2002
President George W. Bush must be preoccupied with overseas strategy, because he has allowed his administration to take a politically disastrous position against the arming of airline pilots. Polls show strong support from both pilots and the public for allowing guns in the cockpit.
Last Wednesday the House of Representatives bowed to public opinion and their own instincts by passing, 310 to 113, an ambitious plan to arm any pilot who volunteers for training. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) explained that many members of Congress fly every week and see for themselves the gaps in airline security.
Political analysts had expected serious opposition in the Senate, but resistance there has begun to crumble after notoriously anti-gun Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) surprised everyone by announcing her support for arming pilots.
Congressional Democrats are fortunate to have found an issue they can use against a popular president. It also gives them a priceless opportunity to change the public perception that they are dogmatically against all guns, something that gave them serious trouble in the last election.
It is difficult to understand how the President allowed his administration to take a hard stand against arming pilots considering the following facts that have emerged during the last ten months of public debate:
Prior to 1987, pilots were exempt from security screening and many carried firearms in the cockpit. No problems were ever reported and at least one hijacking was averted when a pilot shot a hijacker.
Aviation experts have debunked the myth that a modern airliner can be brought down by stray pistol bullets. Redundant control circuits, over-engineered structures and powerful air supply systems make the big jets highly resistant to this kind of damage.
There will never be enough Federal Air Marshals to monitor more than a tiny percentage of airline flights. The expensive program also draws experienced officers from other critical agencies that are experiencing staff shortages.
News reports of missed weapons have made the public painfully aware that the current system of security screening is ineffective, even as travelers are forced to endure poorly conceived random searches by amateurish, abusive security guards. Thousands of Americans have simply decided to stop flying until the situation improves.
Perhaps the strongest argument for arming pilots was inadvertently made by the President himself. Shortly after September 11th, he announced that hijacked airliners would be shot down by the Air Force. What possible gun accident could be worse? The consequences of a hijacking are so horrific that the downside risk of arming pilots is insignificant by comparison.
The counter-arguments by members of the Bush Administration are so weak as to be laughable. The best point they can offer is that pilots must concentrate on flying the aircraft. Using this logic, even a simple fire extinguisher should be denied to these poor overworked pilots, since fighting a cockpit fire might distract them from their duties. Pilots are incensed at this condescending attitude. It ignores the fact that modern aircraft are highly automated and makes it seem as if pilots have all they can do to keep their machines in the air.
One puzzling aspect of this strange situation is the fact that the President flew F-102 fighters for the Texas National Guard from 1969-1973. He should know better.
The F-102 was a product of the Cold War, designed to intercept enemy bombers over the continental United States. The radar system was linked to the autopilot, which would fly the fighter into the best attack position. The automated fire control system would then release the air-to-air guided missiles or unguided rockets at the optimum moment. With this kind of aviation experience, one has to believe that the President is not paying any attention to the way his administration is handling this issue.
The White House is now referring all questions to the two men responsible for blocking the armed pilots initiative, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and his underling John Magaw, chief of the new Transportation Security Administration. Magaw is the former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. While under his leadership, BATF was one of the most mismanaged and self-serving bureaus in U.S. history.
Magaw and Mineta are more interested in building fiefdoms than in protecting citizens. They instinctively recoil at the thought of allowing any Americans not employed by the government to provide armed security. To do so, they fear, would effectively admit their own impotence and irrelevance in the war on terrorism.
As long as President Bush is on the wrong side of this issue, it will appear that he is not serious about airline security. With a growing consensus in favor of arming pilots and a mid-term election coming up in less than four months, the President needs to take charge of this issue soon.
Dr. Michael S. Brown is an optometrist and member of Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws, (www.dsgl.org) Email: rkba2000@yahoo.com
Related Reading: Airplanes & Guns archives
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=3479
"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
Comments
The New York Times has found a reason to oppose the bill arming airline pilots. It would - gasp! - upset trial lawyers.
Not satisfied with its attempt to manipulate public opinion against arming pilots, as reported in NewsMax.com Friday, the fanatically anti-gun New York Times went back to the well again Sunday with a so-called News Analysis aimed at the bill calling for arming airline pilots in cockpits, citing concerns by trial lawyers, of all people, that the legislation might limit their ability to sue both airlines and pilots.
The House-passed bill, the Times whines, "would drastically limit the legal liability of airlines, for example, shielding them even from negligence not involving guns or terrorism, said some critics of the bill."
The critics turn out to be either anti-gun nuts or trial lawyers who fear the bill could deprive them of chances to take airlines or pilots to court in the event of some disaster that they otherwise might exploit for big-bucks awards.
Noting that the bill would deputize pilots who volunteered to be federal law enforcement officers, Times reporter Adam Liptak wrote that "'federal flight deck officers' would receive free training and guns from the government."
To the horror of the Times, airlines would be prevented from telling pilots they could not take on the role of federal flight deck officers or retaliate against them for taking part in a program designed to help protect their passengers from hijackings.
"Employment lawyers" told the Times this could promote job-related litigation, particularly in light of pilots' sometimes testy relationships with their employers.
But what upsets the trial lawyers, the Times laments, is the fact that the bill confers on airlines immunity from liability arising out of more than merely gun-related incidents.
"The airlines' liability waiver is incredibly broad and could be read to relate to circumstances not related to guns, even if it's forgetting to set the * at takeoff," Kristin Rand of the anti-Second Amendment Violence Policy Center told the Times.
The immunity would apply whether a pilot used or did not use a gun, the Times reported.
"'They've weakened the airlines' responsibility for security,' Marc S. Moller, a New York aviation lawyer who typically represents plaintiffs [in other words, a negligence trial lawyer], told Liptak. 'And the airlines are being given a free pass for other sorts of breaches, too.'"
Moller added that airlines would use the provision in cases unrelated to terrorism or violence. "It will lead to more harm than good," he said, "and basically confers immunity in precisely the situation where there should be none."
That immunity, the anti-gun Rand told the Times, is nothing but an attempt to appease the airlines, many of which, he charged, oppose allowing guns in cockpits.
"They're trying to buy them off," she said.
Under the bill, the Times warns, pilots would be given far less immunity. In their case, the immunity would cover incidents involving defense of the cockpit against criminal violence or air piracy, but they could be held liable when they were grossly negligent or guilty of willful misconduct.
"Unlike the airlines, pilots might be sued for using their guns in the main cabin or elsewhere. To some plaintiffs' lawyers, any immunity for pilots, however narrow, is too much."
"He crashes an aircraft with 300 people on board negligently, and who are you going to sue?" Moller asked the Times
http://newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/7/14/161816
"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
THE NEWS & OBSERVER: Throwing reasonable caution to the wind
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday July 15, 2002, 10:53:44 AM
(SH) - What started out as a bill to test the wisdom of airline pilots having guns in their cockpits has turned into something much more problematic. The House last week threw reasonable caution to the wind with its overwhelming vote to allow all pilots voluntarily to arm themselves. It will now be up to the Senate to rein in this overreaction by reinstating sensible and safe rules.
Having a gun in the cockpit during the worst-case scenario of a successful terrorist hijacking might well provide, as the bill's supporters claim, a last line of defense for flight crews and passengers. And certainly there are pilots who could be trained to handle firearms safely and competently.
But a flight crew's first responsibility must be to keep the aircraft flying safely and under its control. Security in the passenger compartment is better left to the air marshal program. They are law enforcement officers trained in the use of firearms as well as how to control threats with non-lethal force such as stun guns, chemical agents and, if need be, physical confrontation. Using a firearm inside an airplane full of passengers should be a last, desperate act undertaken by an expert, not a pilot distracted from his vital flying duties.
No matter how many air marshals are eventually on duty, there is no way logistically or financially to have them on every flight, every day. So an experimental two-year program to train a small number of armed pilots in the latest tactics used by police officers in hostage situations is at least worth studying. Training civilian pilots to know when and how to fire a weapon in an emergency situation in a crowded airliner in flight will not be simple, fast or cheap, but anything less carries more potential risk than reward
http://www.bakersfield.com/24hour/opinions/story/466421p-3730839c.html
"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
Editor -- Your editorial, "Guns in the cockpit?" (July 12), amazed me, particularly after both of California's U.S. senators endorsed the arming of pilots.
Assume that the flight crews on Sept. 11 had been armed. Do you believe that 3,000 lives would have been lost through the actions of boxcutter-armed terrorists if that had been the case?
You state that the crew's job is to "keep the plane in the air." Defending the cockpit appears to be a vital part of that function, which the Sept. 11 crews were unable to perform. An irrational fear of guns in the hands of law- abiding citizens explains opposition to a worthy use of lethal weapons.
ALBERT H. HARRIS
Tiburon
WHY ARM THE PILOT?
Editor -- Regarding your editorial, "Guns in the cockpit?," and comments by Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose: You and Honda are basically unclear on the concept of arming airline pilots.
The bill's concept is that a properly trained pilot has a gun for the last line of defense against a would-be hijacker. The pilot and the gun do not leave the cockpit. The gun is used only if someone makes it through the cockpit door forcefully.
Honda worries that bullets could harm the airplane's computers or depressurize the cabin. If the hijacker is not stopped, that point is moot as the plane is either used for mass destruction or is shot down by an F-16.
Thankfully, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer appears to have done her homework on the subject. She realizes the vast shortfall in the number of federal air marshals and has a good grasp on the concept of cockpit defense and its importance to the security of our national interests.
DWIGHT DALEY
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/07/15/ED208377.DTL
"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
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Given the amount of energy required for thinking, and my aptitude for staring into middle space, I confess to an affection for no-brainers, such as: Should airline pilots carry guns?
Wait, wait, I'm tearing myself away from a mesmerizing galaxy of dust particles to make this public service pronouncement. Yah. Why not? Terrorists have box cutters and nefarious plans for murdering thousands by taking out helpless pilots. Here's an idea: Let's give pilots a way to defend themselves!
OK, that's a wrap. I'm exhausted. See you next week.
Would that life were so simple. Instead, during more than nine months since the savage attacks of Sept. 11, we've acted like we checked our brains curbside.
Anyone who has flown in recent months knows the drill: Little old ladies, comely blond women and Al Gore get frisked and searched while government decoys carrying fake guns and bombs slip through the gate 25 percent of the time, according to recent nationwide tests.
At the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the slip-through rate was 41 percent. LAX, you'll recall, is where Egyptian gunman Hesham Mohamed Hadayet mowed down two travelers at the El Al ticket counter on the Fourth of July. It doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine that a madman who takes a gun to an airport with a 41 percent slip-through rate could wind up on an airplane.
But not to worry; we're in safe hands. Our security folks are on top of this one: Hadayet is Egyptian; may have terrorist ties; is believed to have met with Osama bin Laden; is a known anti-Semite, and picked a national U.S. holiday to attack people at the Israeli airline ticket counter. They'll be closing in on a motive any day now.
Let's tighten our little thinking caps a minute. Guns and bombs get through; security checkers are busy fondling the random paying (duped) customer; pilots are defenseless . That's not an ellipsis, but the dots that need connecting.
Fortunately for those still forced by business or circumstance to fly, some members of the U.S. House of Representatives sharpened their pencils this week. Wednesday, the House voted 310-113 in favor of a bill that would allow commercial pilots to sign up for an armed-pilot program.
As proposed, the program would be voluntary. Some pilots might opt out, but those comfortable with the idea of having a final shot at life - rather than being carved up by hijackers or radically deplaned by the U.S. Air Force - may take a training course and lock and load.
The bill still faces the Senate, where it isn't likely to do as well owing to fierce opposition from key players combined with an uncharacteristically wimpy White House. Both Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge are against arming pilots, as is John W. Magaw, head of the Transportation Security Administration.
Why? I'm not sure. Dots too small? Logic too obvious? Politics too hot? From where I sit back in coach class, nothing is hotter than a radical, Koran-chanting Islamist who thinks that killing Americans is a sacrament and that 72 virgins awaiting in heaven is a fair trade off for ramming an airplane into a tall building.
That's also the sort of heat a fruitcake pilot could inflict any time the mood swings. As commander of a 400-ton missile loaded with explosive fuel, a commercial pilot is already in charge of a significant lethal weapon. By inserting ourselves inside said missile, we've already put our lives into his hands. And we're worried about a gun in the cockpit?
Given a choice between trusting the screeners, whose "security measures" would get them indicted for sexual assault in any other workplace, and a trained, armed airline pilot, in whom I already have placed my trust, I'll go with the latter.
In the nightmarish event that an armed lunatic takes over my airplane, I am fundamentally not interested in handgun-control rhetoric or in slippery slope arguments that, golly, before you know it, bus drivers and train engineers and who knows who else will want guns, too. Give a mouse a cookie and, barring literary interference from E.B. White, he runs away.
What I am concerned with is just one thing: stepping over a dead hijacker as I exit my safely landed airplane. Given the weaknesses in our current security system, arming pilots is the best insurance we have against another slaughter like Sept. 11. Given the obvious simplicity of this no-brainer, don't count on it.
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Kathleen Parker
"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
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Guns in cockpits give little safety
The Virginian-Pilot
c July 15, 2002
Pilots are one step closer to ``flying shotgun.''
Political influence trumped sound security policy when the House of Representatives voted last week to let pilots carry guns in airplane cockpits as a defense against terrorists. This will make pilots feel safer, but not passengers.
More than 20,000 pilots, backed by their unions, aggressively petitioned to be armed. It's not as if they were going to be ignored. The Airline Pilots Association has contributed $764,000 -- a sum greater than the airlines -- to campaigns since January 2001. Over objections from the White House and the airlines, the House agreed to allow any of 70,000 pilots who volunteer for training to arm themselves. Perhaps the Senate will show more prudence.
Pilots believe that firearms would deter hijackers and that proper training would transform them into effective firearms handlers. But even months of training won't ensure that that hijackers will not seize the gun or that a stray bullet won't damage flight instruments or kill passengers or crew.
The Association of Flight Attendants opposes arming pilots while crews remain defenseless. So does Transportation Security Administration head John Magaw, who has said that a pilot faced with onboard terrorists should focus on landing the plane while keeping hijackers off balance.
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Measures already in place, such as reinforced cockpit doors, should protect pilots. Perhaps the best alternative, the federal sky marshal program, remains inadequately funded. Congress and the airlines should find the money to hire more sky marshals for America's 30,000 daily commercial flights.
Too much focus remains on security for security's sake. Although 50,000 to 70,000 federal airport screeners will be hired and rigorous new procedures have been implemented, a federal undercover investigation last month found that screeners could not find simulated guns and bombs 24 percent of the time.
What's more, according to a Reason Foundation report, current detection systems are labor intensive and mediocre, with error rates as high as 30 percent. For this, taxpayers will pay $12 billion, three times the budget of the FBI.
Instead of arming pilots or buying nifty but ineffective machines, Congress should focus on the passengers. Yes, this means profiling. For maximum security, passengers who may be real risks should undergo extra scrutiny. Effective detection of high-risk passengers would eliminate the need for prohibitively expensive screening and gun-toting pilots
http://www.pilotonline.com/opinion/op0715eda.html
"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
Seems the only ones who are against arming pilots are a couple o editorial writers, and president George Bush. Thank God we have a pro-gun president in the white house-NOT!!!!
"The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal governmentare few and defined, and will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace negotiation, and foreign commerce"
-James Madison