After 9-11 anything with a point of it or the tiniest of tiny knives were out of the question. I even had a Black & Decker brand new cordless screwdriver that I had bought moments earlier at Home Depot confiscated from my pack in Kansas City (…I didn’t have a suitcase so I put it my day pack as cabin luggage). When asked why, I was told it could be used to unscrew the plane. When I pointed out the battery probably wasn’t charged and that there were no screwdriver bits included, I was told it could be used as a club. It didn’t seem to matter that the ballpoint pen I was carrying could probably be easily driven through someones neck, jugular vein, or heart. What gives?
As many critics have pointed out, there really isn’t much rhyme nor reason to what’s allowed and what isn’t. You can no longer take cigarette lighters with you, but a book of matches (what the shoe bomber guy used to try to light his shoes on fire) are okay, unless you bring more than 4. Fingernail clippers and scissors were banned, and so were knitting needles. All of which overlooks the fact that the moment someone stands up on a plane, announcing that it’s a hijacking, they can expect to have everyone in the passenger cabin come after them (assuming there isn’t a sky marshall onboard).
I don’t think you’ll find a factual answer to this beyond “it’s on a list somewhere.”
The current airport security measures are largely nonsensical as far as actually preventing weapons from boarding a plane; I imagine they’re really meant to provide an illusion of security to prevent folks from trying dumb things.
As you point out, pens and similar devices make excellent piercing weapons; a laptop screen (glass pane) plus a handkerchief or other cloth breaks into several effective knives; canes and the like make good clubs; belts and torn cloth will make a rope, add some weights for a bola. And of course almost anything will suffice as that most primitive of weapons: the blunt object.
So they ban what they can. Best would be everyone stripped naked and handcuffed to their chairs, but this wouldn’t fly with most folks (although a certain segment of the population might be willing to pay extra for this treatment, I suppose). You draw a line somewhere and live with it. The urge at the moment to be “doing something” about terrorists on planes pushes the line more toward the bizarre. Eventually businesses whining about the time and stupidity will push it back.
What s/he said.
Plus, there’s also a metal content issue. Banning nail clipers is next to moronic, but they’re easily found by metal detectors. Pens can kill, but they’re hard to screen for, so they’re not on the list.
Ever seen one of those flat pencils used by house builders? One could sharpen one of them and it would be both undetectable by metal detector, and as lethal as a box cutter (which were the 9/11 weapons of choice).
Total “security” seems to be very inefficient in today’s airports. Too expensive to be great, and too slow to appease travellers.
I read an interesting article once by a guy promoting martial arts training with a cane. One of the advantages of the cane is that you can take it with you anywhere. On flights, into Govt buildings, police stations etc. And if you are able to do martial arts with cane , you are very dangerous.
I think Michael Moore did a piece on what things you could take on a plane after the World Trade Centre attack. Apparently the cigarette lobby lobbied the government to let passengers take on matches, so that smokers could light up as soon as possible after the flight.
It also doesn’t seem to matter that there are ballpoint pens which unscrew to reveal a knife or that a ballpoint pen could carry a concealed weapon. :eek:
Airport security isn’t about security, it’s to make the masses think The Man is watching out for them. We get lame reactionary overreactions because we can’t solve the actual roots of the issue and we can only cover up our ineptitude with band-aid fixes after the fact. Oh, no, the terrorists are using little knives, we gotta stop the blades! Oh, no, the terrorists are using explosive shoes, we gotta stripsearch all footwear! The measures are more about making people feel good than providing actual security. So pens are allowable because they haven’t been used in a major attack/attempt yet. If that does happen one day, expect the flight attendants to start handing out crayons along with your plastic knives.
To be fair, the additional measures probably contribute some degree of security, but I don’t see how you could measure that. There isn’t a terrorist census that asks “Why have you not hijacked a plane in the last six months? Was it because a) the security sensors were too effective, b) the Americans blew up one too many of your bases c) the Americans monitored all your conversations or d) you’re still busy planning the Next Big One?”
On a broader level, terrorism is so open-ended that it can take just about any form. If your goal is simply to garner attention through mass casualties, kamikaze airliners are just one of many ways to accomplish that. The question shouldn’t be why we allow ballpoint pens, but why we bother with useless searches to begin with.
But those ‘pens’ are, in fact, knives and/or concealed weapons. The point here is that a normal ballpoint pen is a pretty damned dangerous weapon.
Especially if it’s a cheap hard plastic BiC that turns into a sharp little knife when broken in half. Of course, I carry multiple blunt trauma weapons with me every time I fly. I call them ‘books’, and the hardcover varieties even have sharp corners. Are passengers allowed to bring containers of Tabasco sauce with them on planes? I know pilots are, and nobody doubts the effectiveness of a good red sauce applied directly to the eyes.
Reply makes some especially good points. So does Bruce Schneier, the cryptography genius. Read his ‘Movie Plot Threat Contest’ blog entry to get a basic introduction to his thoughts on the matter.
A rather strange former cow-orker of mine once demonstrated how one could make an ordinary credit card into a lethal weapon by sharpening one edge. Just as effective, he said, as a box cutter. (This person was known to carry a concealed knife in his high-topped boots, even in the office. One of the good things about losing that job was that I will never have to deal with him again.)
I once had an ordinary, disposable ballpoint pen taken from be by security. He told me he couldn’t allow me to have sharp objects on the plane (but I’m pretty sure it was taken out of pure spite). So yeah, they can and sometimes do take them.
used correctly, a ball point pen is a very deadly weapon. Just after 9-11 an Australian lady who was staying with us on a student exchange program, flew home, and when she got home wrote us to say the eyeglass screwdriver she had on her keychain was confiscated. What was she going to do? disassemble the plane in flight? My time in the army, which included a class in “Improvised munitions and weapons” taught me that almost anything can be a weapon. (I still have not figured out how to turn a soggy noodle into a weapon). The solution is to strip everyone buff naked. It will add a whole new meaning to “Fly United”.
Maybe not for hand-to-hand combat, but as far as the generic term “weapon” goes, you have obviously never eaten at my old college cafeteria! 
I’ve got a weapon I carry about with me 24/7. And it’s never been properly sheathed. 
Carefull there Quartz, nothing more embaressing than being arrested and then released for lack of evidence…
Plux there’s a whole lot of tax money being spent on this. Who’s pockets is it ending up in?
Halliburton or some other no-bid contractor?
I think Reply has it right - it is just to let everyone think someone is watching out and doing something. Anything. The box cutter thing was good for one time and I can’t imagine it working so well the next time around … or promises of a safe landing somewhere while the details are being worked out.
It’s visible and doable and doesn’t involve a lot of the more difficult questions like the ability to have Homeland Security if you don’t have good border and port control.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying!! It’s either this, or issue every passenger a gun - either nobody has a weapon or everybody does.
I’ve also never seen the logic to taking the tweezers from a 90 year old grandma, but letting 325 lb. Shaquille O’Neal on.
How’re we supposed to fill out immigrations and customs forms without ball-point pens?
Knitting needles were not banned, and still aren’t. At least, I have never had any taken away from me.
Funny, isn’t it? I couldn’t bring nail clippers less than 2 inches long in my purse, but I can and did bring 12 inch knitting needles onto several flights, both domestic and international.
Hell, if you can’t take somebody out with a knitting needle, you just aren’t trying…
:wally
Obviously, the “putzes” in questions all seem to work for the TSA…