On Tue, 31 Dec 2003, Teacherjh wrote:

On the one aircraft where the passengers had an
inkling of what was really going on they apparently did fight back and died
trying to take control of the aircraft. In the case of Reid (the shoe bomber)
passengers reacted swiftly and decisively.

Which goes to show how silly it is to take weapons away from passengers. Now
tell me, if you were a terrorist, which airplane would you prefer to board -
the one with security, or the one without?

Obviously the one without security is far more vulnerable.

However, you seem to be equating pax-with-guns with security, with no
evidence to back you up. Last week someone posted the "Archie Bunker
security plan" (give every pax a handgun) which made the same error...

Frankly, given a choice between flying commercially on a plane where
everyone had a gun, and a plane where nobody had a gun, I'd run, not walk,
to board the gun-free aircraft. Flying seems to turn some people into
real a**holes - do you really, really want these folks to be drunk *and*
armed?

You'll note that in the shoe-bomber incident, the pax & crew managed quite
well without firearms. Given how crowded commercial flights are, the
chances of a friendly-fire incident (someone hitting another passenger)
seem far too high.

I'm not at all opposed to armed sky marshals, though. The difference being
that the marshals will be *professional* law enforcement officers, not
just random passengers with sidearms. Similarly, whatever the marshals are
armed with will hopefully be appropriate - frangible bullets, etc.

The American ideal of "safety through arming everyone" really is alien to
most of the rest of Western civilization. Thankfully.

Brian.