So exactly how extensive is this restriction? I heard something on the news about men being forced to throw out their disposable razors before boarding. Is the “no knives” provision going to include airport restaurants? No plastic knives to spread cream cheese on your bagel or what not? What about on the planes themselves? Any knives with dinner service? Will this force a drastic change in the meals the airlines serve? My mother knits on long flights. Will her needles be confiscated? What about her one-inch scissors for cutting her yarn? What about nail scissors in manicure sets, or nail files? If the prohibitions are this sweeping, how can they possibly be enforced?
CNN just interviewed a woman at SFO whose scissors were confiscated. They didn’t say what kind of scissors they were, though. I think we can pretty much expect that for at least the next couple weeks nobody’s getting any scissors on board (when/if I fly on Monday, I’m not even going to bother trying to bring my cuticle scissors on board!).
It was also reported (can’t remember where, sorry) that only plastic knives would be served with meals on board.
Certainly in the next few weeks, anyone flying would do well to pack any and everything that might be construed as a weapon in their checked luggage.
I hope that there aren’t jerks out there that want to carry their swiss army knife, leatherman, steel nail file, anything on board.
They will have to ban all carry-on items. This would not be such an inconvenience if our goddamn baggage wouldn’t get lost all the time. I carry on because I got tired of the airlines losing my bags.
They have to restrict all carry-on items because I don’t think it would be too hard to turn a cd into a 6" knife in less than 2 seconds.
The news reports have also said the hijackers used mace. It wouldn’t be too hard to get an areosol can of mace to look like deodorant or hairspray.
What surprised me is that before this, they allowed knives at all. Sure 4 inches isn’t a very long blade, but I was under the impression that no weapons of any kind were allowed.
They also said the terrorists used box cutters. I’m assuming that a box cutter is what I’ve always called a utillity knife, used for cutting drywall and carpeting and can be bought in any hardware store for about 3 bucks. If my assumption is correct, then the blades are only about 2 inches and can easily be smuggled on board. The first thought that came to my mind was that they could be taped to the back of a belt near the belt buckle. That way when going through the metal detector, the guards would only think it was the belt buckle.
It will certainly be interesting to see how this pans out, because it’s going to be yet another example of rules which only inconvenience people who follow rules. Until they enforce complete nudity on flights, it will always be possible to slip a ceramic shiv in the sole of your shoe or a spike in the seam of your pants.
Restricting all carry-ons is unlikely to be implemented because the airlines are simply not equipped to handle items like laptops as checked baggage (or pay the resulting damage suits). How many women will check their purses? Also, when I travel with my toddler, I have a bag full of diapers, snacks, books, and toys. Do you really want to subject the rest of the passengers to what would ensue if my kid didn’t have these “necessities”? Perhaps the airlines could supply those, but there are a lot of things people are going to be unwilling to check.
Don’t misinterpret; I fully support increased security on flights. However, they need to find a way to actually block the people who want to carry weapons without unduly restricting normal traffic. I don’t know how you do that, but all the proposals I’ve heard will be ineffective in blocking intentional contraband.
Also, keep in mind that there are opportunities for violence even if no carry-on is allowed at all and everybody wears clothing issued at the gate. A person with enough creativity can make weapons out of things already inside the cabin, or just use brute-force and hand-to-hand combat techniques.
Just like micco, I’m not saying that we should just give up. It’s just that, as usual, there are no quick and magical solutions.
umm, why not check the web?
Here they are: http://www.faa.gov/