One would have thought the number of suicide bombers willing to take even rudimentary flight lessons and crash airliners into buildings were somewhat limited, if they existed at all, but we’ve had at least four confirmed instances, with a number of “potentials”.
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One could also presume that the added security measures taken by airport security would prevent another WTC-like attack. The problem is, we can’t really prove one or the other.
What if this were a “one off” kind of attack, and no one really intends to duplicate it in the future? Then both the enhanced airport security or the arming of passengers winds up, in the end, not preventing anything (at least in terms of suicide-hijackings).
If this was not a one-time occurrence, then future hijackers will undoubtedly take appropriate steps to allow them to succeed (or at the very least, increase their odds of success), armed passengers or no. There would certainly be nothing stopping a group of hijackers from simply shooting first, since everyone’s going to die anyway - no need for hostages if you intend to turn the plane into a missile. Night flights would be the ideal time to carry out further attacks, since it would mean a greater likelihood of sleeping passengers, thus fewer gung-ho types to worry about (and yes, this was a possibility before 9/11; however, the terrorists ultimately responsible for the attacks have made their main point by now. They no longer need the camera’s attention before carrying out further acts.), thus easier crowd control - or elimination.
Well, I think this is a valid objection, but (boy I have said this a lot tonight) I don’t think it is necessarily a fatal one. These potential problems need to be weighed against the benefit of potentially preventing another incident like the ones last week. Also, someone mentioned that some of this stuff is a foam, as opposed to an aerosol, which I think wouldn’t affect air quality as much.
Again, I don’t think this is a fatal objection, but perhaps someone with specific knowledge of airplane geometry can chime in here.
Sounds promising to me. Certainly they would be effective against box-cutters, under virtually any scenario you can imagine.
Agreed, in fact I agree so strongly I started a seperate thread about it.
Perhaps, perhaps not, although I strongly feel that we should not just be fatalistic about this, and resign ourselves to letting the terrorists win. I think it is very important to take concrete steps to prevent whatever terrorist attacks we can anticipate.
Also, some of the specific scenarios you laid out here were addressed in the OP.
Quite so, but not so far-fetched as your scenario. Remember I said willing and able. If we are going to develop a profile of a potential suicide bomber, I am confident that profile would include “ignorant”, “uneducated”, and “low intelligence”. And you are talking about having such people graduate from flight school and getting a job with a major airline, with these limitations on top of the presumed security and background checks.
My WAG is, they had to scrape to get the 4 guys they did (only 3, really, that we’re certain about) to do the 9/11 attacks, and there are no more in the pipeline.
This an issue I meant to start a thread about, but at the moment I have a huge backlog of those.
We can’t prove it, no, but I think it is as close to a sure thing as we can get in this life that these measures, combined with the factors I mentioned above, will prevent a scenario such as the one you proposed.
Well, we can say “what if” all day. The fact is, there is a credible threat, and we need to take steps against it.
Obviously. This fact should not prevent us from taking action though.
True. However, as we are not talking about machine guns (at least I am certainly not), but handguns with amounts of ammunition carefully controlled by the airline (I’m thinking maybe 4 rounds), in a worst case scenario, say 4 hijackers each armed with a gun, they could optimally kill 16 passengers.
However: 1-The terrorists don’t know which passengers to target, at least initially. Remember, we are talking about concealed weapons. 2- After the first shot is fired, the passengers in the immediate vicinity will be alerted, and the ones who are armed will be in a position to shoot back. 3-If they use up all their ammo this way, they will then be faced with the problem of penetrating the cockpit against an alerted and (presumably) armed flight crew.
Finally, all this applies only if the weapons we allow are guns. Do you have objections to other kinds of weapons, such as clubs or tear gas?
Until the first shot is fired. A gunshot would certainly wake me up in a big hurry.
I don’t know what you mean by “gung-ho type”, but why do you think such a person would be less likely to be on a night flight, or any other kind of flight, for that matter?
The logical compromise would be a more extensive air marshal program. It allows for well armed, properly trained personal to be on board the aircraft. The arming of all passengers defies common sense. I get the impression that no matter what controls are in place, you will not be happy until there is weapon in your hand. I wonder what Freud would say…
My response is simplistic? :rolleyes: Did you look through the volume of air rage reports? Was that child supposed to be armed? You also ignore the fact that the air-ragers strike first and without warning. I’d prefer that they made some sort of announcement, but they do not. The more lethal the complimentary in flight weapons, the more lethal the outburst. I also do not see how, for example, an armed female flight attendant vs. and armed lunatic is preferable to them both entering the conflict unarmed. If the passenger has an advantage in the latter case, certainly it will be exaggerated in the former.
“Ignorant”, “uneducated” and “low intelligence” eh? I don’t know about that. I’m an average joe and have no clue how to build bombs, fly airplanes, or elude authorities or even avoid suspicion. And I lack the resources that were available to them. If they were so inept, we should have been able to easily thwart them, yes?
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Well, there is much rumbling from the FBI regarding the possibility of more incidents on 9/22; if there is any truth to these, then I suspect the pool is probably larger than you might believe.
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Indeed, we can say “what if” all day. That’s what this thread is all about, since the likelihood of the airlines actually allowing armed passengers on board (aside from the possibility of Air Marshalls) is quite low, I am sure.
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Actually, I have no particular logical objection to guns, clubs, or anything else [on a personal level, I simply don’t trust it to a) work as a deterrent, or b) work effectively. However, that is mere gut feeling, and I have no evidence one way or the other]. I just don’t believe that weapons are the panacea that some folks seem to think they are. Armed passengers might eliminate the threat of an incident just like the 9/11 attacks, but terrorism is a varied pursuit, and I suspect that, when all is said and done, armed passengers would have little effect. As such, I feel the potential for abuse or harm far outweighs any perceived benefit.
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I have no doubt of that. I am a very light sleeper myself, and would be awake in an instant. But not everyone awakens clear-headed and ready for action. Any would-be hijackers could make good use of the increased delay.
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By “gung-ho” type, I mean someone who might be more than willing to pull a gun and start shooting without thinking. Given the number of reactionaries we are hearing about in the news already (e.g., attacks on Arabs or Muslims in the U.S.), it is not unreasonable to believe that such people could be a) on board any given flight, and b) armed, given the OP’s scenario.
And I don’t think such a person would be less likely to be on a night flight - I think night flights would be better targets because crowd control would be easier on account of sleepers.
No, it is a question, although in fairness you seem to have already answered it.
You may well be right.
Why?
You are most certainly correct. The problem is that I can’t conceive of a weapons regime that would allow me to have a weapon, but no one else. But I am open to suggestions…
As that guy said at the end of that movie, frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
No, and my WAG is that air rage is actually not at all common, but gets a disproportionate amount of attention. But perhaps you would like to provide a cite and prove me wrong?
Yes, yes, won’t someone please think of the children? :rolleyes: indeed.
“Without warning”? Really? Cite?
Only assuming the “air rager” is armed and no one else is. I wonder if people would even be so liable to engage in this sort of thing in the first place if they knew that people around them were armed.
Indeed? My take is exactly the opposite. Certainly if I were the flight attendant, I would want a blunt instrument of some kind at least, even if that meant the “air rager” also had one.
In spite of the fact that they were obviously helped by people who were neither stupid nor suicidal, and that they had the element of surprise given that this was the first time anything like this was attempted, I think you are right. I suspect, as many other have pointed out, that airline security has been lax, and American intelligence services have been unable to do their job due to congressional meddling. But that is for another thread.
And remember, in at least one of those flights it is likely they were stopped.
We’ll see. Of course, I don’t rule out the possibility of other kinds of attacks, just ones by suicidal religious fanatics who know how to fly airplanes.
Well, that is what we are here to discuss.
I have never suggested that they are a panacea. However, as we need to do something to respond to this threat, and as no panacea is available to us, we will have to settle for the next best thing.
Al: So you don’t bother to look through some of the reports of air rage attacks that were provided for you, but you do go on to make wild all guesses [your words], asks for cites as to how common they are, and ask for sites as to whether or not the air ragers gave warning that they were about to attack?
Had you bothered to look, you would have found: “the Air Transport Association, AFA officials say there are approximately 4,000 air rage incidents a year”
Had you bothered to shelve your WAGS for a moment, you would have read, “14 incidences in San Francisco this year alone”
Had you bothered to think it through, you wouldn’t need to ask whether or not a violent outburst comes suddenly, often not giving the victim time to prepare.
If all you intend on doing is repeating your opinion over and over, ignoring facts placed before you, and making repeated ‘wild ass guesses’ when there is evidence available to come to a more informed conclusion, why are you here? Perhaps you have been taking the handbook a bit too literally.
I went through your link, and all I could find was anecdeotal stories. While many of the stories were disturbing, they lack context. Do you know of a site that breaks down the numbers based on violent acts and just loud abusive behavior? Then what kind of crime rate does this indicate compared to the number of people who fly each year? Even 4,000 incidents of air rage may be a small number when we see what percentage we are talking about.
How many people died from air rage in the last 20 years, and how many people died from hijacking? Whichever one killed more is the bigger threat and the more likely to occur.
Well, at least you are appropriatley named.
You must be completely blinded by fear if you have trouble understanding my OP. Yes this means giving the passengers some sort of weapon. Yes I would hand them out to anyone who wanted one. Yes I would have the airplane supply the weapons.
Who the hell cares if we hand the terrorists a billy club? Did you miss the fact that they tend to bring their own weapons anyway? This is a perfect example of only the law abiding getting disarmed while the criminals do whatever they want.
Empowering the passengers means that we place a certain amount of trust in our fellow citizens. It means that we all accept more of the responsibility that we already have for our own safety. It means coming together as a group for safety instead of breaking us down into isolated and easily controlled robots who are afraid to think and act for ourselves.
Empowering the passengers means that 4 guy with knives can’t control 200 people.
First off, I consider the insurance ramifications to be about the last thing I would consider.
Second, how healthy do you think the insurance companies are right now as they are paying for the WTC, who knows how much damage to the city, the Pentagon, 4 airplanes and countless lives?
Would arming passengers make it impossible to crash a jet?
No.
Even you have to admit that spending 15 years preparing for a hijack by going to school and working your way through the ranks is going to make it less likely than it is now.
Excellent point.
I would even be in favor of having the airlines develop a plan for the passengers to fight back. Have it tucked into the seat backs so that we can read it on the 99.99999999% of the flights we take that nothing happens.
I hate to be planning this hollywood scenario in the back of the plane, but after 9/11, it is hard to say that we don’t need to be ready to defend ourselves. These guys are not going to be attacking hardened military targets. They will be focusing on perceived soft spots. If we don’t rely on ourselves and have confident people prepared to defend ourselves sprinkled throughout the general populance, then we ARE going to get chewed up in this war.
My point here is much greater than just preventing hijacks. I’m against the whole mindset that teaches us not to resist evil because it is dangerous to do so. I’m against the mindset that it is only approporiate for the “authorities” to act against people who seek to do us harm.
On 9/11 these guys used airplanes. We will get hit again, and it probably won’t be on an airplane.
Issueing national ID cards, putting cameras everywhere, throwing up random checkpoints and creating a culture of fear is not the way to win this war. We must come together, we must trust those around us to act. When evil faces us, it must do so with the assumption that everyone within earshot will stop what they are doing and face it. There must be the assumption that people will resist, whether we are talking about an airplane or a back alley.
If people are expected to resist, then we must trust them with the means to protect themselves. It is the only way to preserve our freedoms. We must respond to these attacks by opening up our society and coming together as a people, not by locking our doors, shutting the shades and fearing our neighbors.
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How so? Just because you can type it doesn’t make it so. From my point of view disarming all passengers defies all common sense.
Want an example? Check out 9/11.
4 planes where the passengers lined up like sheep for the slaughter because they had been trained to obey force no matter who wields it. 3 planes intentionally crashed with a great loss of life, many times greater than just those aboard. 1 plane where the people fought back and prevented an even greter loss of life.
We hail the passengers on the fourth plane as heros. Have you even wondered why?
They were absolutley the same as the people in the other 3 planes. When the hijackers took over, they did nothing for 45 minutes but follow directions and do what they were told. Only after they learned that following the hijackers demands was futile, did they rise up and resist.
We honor them as heros for resisting evil, despite the odds.
All 4 planes had the capacity to do the same thing. They didn’t because they have been trained their whole lives to sit down and do as they were told. Don’t make any trouble if someone threatens you. Wait for the authorities, someone else will take care of this problem. People need to start out with the knowledge that they can not follow the hijackers demands.
Why would you ask us to follow the example of the first three planes? We have seen the results of disarming all passengers, and continueing in that veign is the only thing that defies common sense to me.
Freedom, I believe first hand accounts by passengers and flight crew crosses beyond mere anecdote to credible evidence. The fact that arrests were made based on these accounts is a matter of record and objective evidence that these accounts were found to be factual by authorities. It’s not really relevant if the deaths caused by enraged, armed passengers would eclipse those caused by hijacking or not. IMHO, the number would be less, but we don’t gamble with human life that way in the US and must search for other solutions.
Because there are incidents of violence documented on aircraft, it is not just conjecture to say that weapons would escalate the situation. That is why I say that arming passengers defies logic.
There are some things we can agree on: Anything we have been taught about cooperating with hijackers is now bunk, and they must be resisted even if it does mean loss of life. Your supposition that I would propose we do otherwise is a strawman. As long as they are in the hands of professionals [read: air marshals] trained in their use and in hijacking scenarios, there is a place for weapons on an aircraft. Even with the new FAA controls, more should be done to insure the safety of passengers.
Weird_Al_Einsten: on that other thread, you wanted to know why I thought that article you keep referring to was insane. Here’s a juicy quote:
It makes not the slightest bit of difference to me if I am killed by a terrorist or by someone trying to shoot that terrorist; I am dead either way. The way I see it, the passenger with the rifle is just as much a threat to me as the terrorist(s). And would you or Dave Kopel mind telling me where the passenger is going to conceal a hunting rifle? In the overhead compartment, maybe? How could he possibly get it out when he needed it before the terrorist(s) kills him?
Unless it’s over a highly-populated area like Manhattan. If either or both of those planes had come down before hitting the WTC, the loss of life would still have been pretty high. It might have hit a high-rise condominum or apartment complex or some other office complex like the World Financial Center. Many people still would have died.
No, the only way to be safe on a plane now is to do our best to make sure that there are no weapons on board, not more weapons.
Freedom, your trust in your fellow man is naive. We are in this mess because we trusted people too much and allowed our security to become lax. Einstein cites El Al Airlines because they allow the flight crew to be armed; well, their flight security is also EXTREMELY tight; they won’t let just anyone who can afford a ticket to fly. Perhaps they should change their name to Big Brother Airlines.
Your site is just that, a site and not a cite. I don’t doubt your facts, it’s just that they are not in any context, that is what makes them anecdotal.
For example, you could talk about Columbine in a gun debate. There is no doubt that it happened, and that it was horrible, but you couldn’t make a case that what happened there was a normal example of gun use.
You could list each and every time a gun was used in a crime, and give us all the gory details, but that list would lack the context of how likely such an event was to happen.
Your site offers no peer-reviewed study that draws a conclusion we can argue about, it is just a collection of stories. If that counts as a cite for you, then I could just as well throw up my own internet site and post thousands of stories of people where they flew safely. Since both sites are obviuosly biased and have an agenda to push, they are going to be pretty useless in determining what really happens.
I feel for you if you don’t trust the average man on the street. They have already suceeded in isolating you. It is much easier to beat us once we are all seperated and broken into untrusting individuals. In this case, you become one of the huddled victims you see in Afghanistan where they have been terrorized into accepting whatever demands are placed upon them.
There is a risk with freedom, and to preserve it a country must be strong and willing to stand up. You have to have faith that when you do step forward, thousands of other will be taking the same step at the same moment,and thet you will never have to walk alone in this fight.
Faith in my fellow man is why I support the Bill of Rights. Nothing is safer and stronger than our collective will to stay free.
Where did I even imply this? I said I was against regular passengers being “empowered.” Cite me. Are you having problems seeing things?
As someone else said, an airliner is pretty compact. All 100 people wouldn’t be able to attack at the same time, and if they got into the cockpit, they could barricade the door and it wouldn’t matter if people had weapons or not.
Yep, I read it. Nope, didn’t see where it was covered.
Unless you’re referring to this:
OK, so because people in Florida with concealed handgun permits are “much more law-abiding” that means that they’re immune to irrational behavior, or fits of anger? And just because there will be a lot of witnesses does not mean that shootings wouldn’t happen either. The article is ridiculous, I would stop using it as a reference if I were you.
I don’t have any figures for El Al. I’m not worried about the premiums being higher, I think it would be worth it. The reason I brought it up, is because higher insurance costs, means higher ticket costs, which would probably lead to a decrease in the amount of people flying.
What would you like me to say?
Why do you keep saying this? Do you think it’s supposed to be funny?
My rolleyes was because I think that it’s irrational paranoia that causes people to think the gubmint is coming after their guns.
And no where did I say anything about banning guns, so stop with your ridiculous box cutter and gym comparison. There are plenty of other debates that go on about that. Let’s not hijack this into one of those gun debates (it’s exactly the kind of paranoia I’m talking about).
Once again, where did I ever say I didn’t want anyone having a gun? I think that air marshalls would be a much better plan than the absolutely asinine idea of arming normal passengers. And unlike a your average regular passenger, an air marshall or commando is a trained professional, being paid by the airline, I seriously doubt air rage would happen.
How is this knee jerk reaction of arming passengers (with any kind of weapon, lethal or otherwise) any different from people calling for more gun laws after school shootings? It looks like you are behaving the way the people you despise do.
I’m sorry, but isn’t the desire to walk around “packin’ heat” indicative of a distrust of one’s fellow man? If one had the idealistic trust you espouse, one wouldn’t need the guns (or other weapons) in the first place, right?
Freedom: I’m not sure what you are looking for. The case studies, for lack of a better word, merely serve to show such incidents do happen. IMHO, it’s clear that these incidents are not isolated, but if you need numbers, they are out there. In fact you missed these two, quoted from my earlier post.
The BBC put together the following figures for 2000-2001:
1250 incidents
595 classified as significant
63 classified as serious
28 cases restraints used
13 cases flight diverted
The degree of disruption is hard to judge, but surely the cases where restraints had to be used could be classified as violent.
In Australia, 571 incidents were reported by major airlines, of those 30 where classified as violent.
US figures vary by who is reporting them for a number of reasons. Airlines are unwilling to make public the extent of the problem, lesser incidents go unreported, and there is no metric for violence. However, this was reported by Salon.com:
I don’t think it’s a fair exercise to work the odds. Certainly you are more likely to be on a flight on which a violent assault takes place than a hijacking, but as I already stated its clear to me hijacking will claim more lives. When violence is involved, you don’t trade on problem for another. You don’t put weapons in peoples hand knowing that X amount of them are going to assault someone… and certainly not until you have researched and exhausted all other options.
Notice that I have been talking about the average man. We are obviously under attack by an outside influence that we must protect ourselves from.
I’m looking for something like total airline passengers carried in a year compared to total incidents. Then I’m looking to see how many incidents were violent, and how many were just people pissed off because they were trapped on the runway for 2 hours.
Two things.
First, everyone already has some type of weapon next to them. Whether they have a laptop, a belt with a large buckle, a hot cup of coffee or a closed soda can, there will always be something some idiot can use as a weapon.
Second, I wouldn’t mind if deciding to take a weapon meant that you got free sodas and no alcohol.
That statistic is bound to be misleading. Consider, for a simplistic example, that there are five flights per year, each with 100 passengers. One of these flights has a violent incident. Using your method, that’s only 1 incident per 500 passengers. However, it also represents a disruption of 1 flight in 5. I think total flights per year (which will still be a large number) vs. the number of incidents would be more meaningful (much like Waverly’s statistics, only the total number of flights isn’t mentioned).
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But until an attack occurs, everyone is the “average man”…the average man which you wish to arm yourself and fellow passengers against…
My point is that good outnumbers bad by at least 90 to 10. I would rather have a strong centralized government that has highly evolved roles for special situations and co-ordinates the general actions of the average citizens in protecting this country.
Would you rather just hand over all power and responsibility for our country’s safety to the government? You do realize that means they will be drawing from the same pool of people?
I see nothing in government training that makes a person inherently better than the rest of us.
The flights for United during the year (1998) I have the statistics for are:
86MM passengers
635 incidents or 7.42ppm
61 assaults or .71ppm
0 hijackings [the 2 in 2001 would represent .023ppm]
I’m eager to hear your take on the numbers, Freedom. For me, it is enough to show that both random violence and hijackings are a present danger and need to be addressed. I’d be loath to play into one in an effort to avoid the other, but let us hear your spin.
