Comments on: Pre-9/11 mentality alert: Obama cancels program allowing pilots to carry guns

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:27:12 +0000

Exactly what is the danger of a pilot having a gun? If the pilot of a commercial airliner suddenly went beserk and decided to kill people, surely he could wipe out the entire plane-load by flying the plane into the ground or the side of a mountain or a building. Or if he wanted to be subtle he could surely tamper with the instruments in some way that no one on board, even with help from air traffic controllers, would be likely to figure out. With a gun, maybe he could shoot one or two people before someone wrestled him to the ground.

If a pilot is a dangerous maniac, the solution is not to prevent him from carrying a gun on board the plane. It’s to not put him in the cockpit to begin with.

Hey, sudden thought: If you’re really afraid that the pilot might run amuck and try to kill all the passengers, wouldn’t the smart thing to do be to arm the passengers?

By: Cylar

Cylar — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:07:39 +0000

Pilots carrying guns, and using them to defend the aircraft during a hijacking attempt? Are you nuts? A gun could go off and perhaps nick a passenger, or put a hole in the fuselage, causing….slow decompression…which might cause the oxygen masks to drop down and force the plane to descend to a lower altitude. That is a horrid fate.

No, no, no. It’s much better, once a hijacking has been reported, to scramble an F-16 to chase the passenger aircraft. That way, when negotiations fail, the military pilot is forced to kill the entire planeload of people.

After all, it’s far better to assuredly kill 250 innocent passengers with an air-to-air missile…than take the risk of one or two passengers being hit by a stray bullet in the cabin. Right?

By: MarkS

MarkS — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:17:53 +0000

I’ll be impressed when Obama disallows the Secret Service from carrying firearms.

By: Cousin Dave

Cousin Dave — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:41:38 +0000

Indeed, it was once required of pilots who flew any aircraft containing a U.S. Mail shipment to carry a gun. And back in the day, the Post Office routinely flew mail shipments on commercial airlines, so that was nearly all of them. Although, as Earnest Gann has written, some of the pilots didn’t take it very seriously. (That’s one place whre the post-9/11 program was an improvement — the required training.) But I’ve spent some time looking into aircraft accident and incident records back to the 1940s, and I’ve never found a report of any incident being cause by a pilot abusing his weapon.

By: Bobv

Bobv — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:32:24 +0000

So you can’t trust pilots with guns, that could be used to kill a few people, but you can trust them with 747s, which can be used to kill thousands?

By: Shane Vander Hart

Shane Vander Hart — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:46:44 +0000

That is just crazy! Oh shoot let’s get rid of those silly door locks while we are at it.

By: sean

sean — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:59:46 +0000

If you think that is worrisome, check this out:

http://www.yourpoliticsareboring.org/2009/03/us-army-deploys-troops-to-alabama/

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:49:43 +0000

With a middle name like Hussein, he wouldn’t like to see any of his tribe being shot at. Barry is slowly but surely dragging us back to Sept. 10, 2001.

By: Mat

Mat — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:28:26 +0000

My guess is that this is only the beginning regarding “gun control.”

By: btenney

btenney — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:25:24 +0000

This President clearly needs his ass kicked until his nose bleeds.
I am saying so figuratively and anyone who percieves this as a threat can kiss my skinny White Ass.