Xeno! I feel like an ass for saying so, but I didn’t know you were absent. Perils of a large-ish community. Welcome back. Uhm…where have you been?
Maeglin: thank you, sir.
treis: don’t neglect magazine capacity. Most hunting rifles are manually actioned (typically bolt; the Mauser Bros. knew what they were doing) and hold, on average, 5 rounds; more than sufficient for hunting purposes. This is where the term “firepower” (also a morbidly cool song from Icicle Works) comes from.
But don’t dis the semi’s either. Rock-and-roll (even just semi-auto style) is still a great way to kill a Saturday afternoon, and I dunno about you, but I’m pretty damned accurate with my Mini-14 at 100 meters, and that’s squeezin’ 'em off as fast as I can pull the trigger.
I’m still waiting on Anthracite to take up my challenge: she and I with Mini-14’s at 100, 200 and 300 meters. On meaness alone, I think she can take me.
Generally speaking: I didn’t say so earlier, but I also don’t see how armed passengers could have actually prevented the Tennessee Bus incident (I don’t think it qualifies as a hijacking per se; more along the lines of a bizarre suicide attempt, maye?). From all accounts, it happened so quickly…
And what I said earlier about the average airline passenger not having the necessary paranoia to maintain a 100% vigilant attitude against wierd behavior goes just as well for bus and train passengers as well.
Armed passengers may, I admit, may discourage terrorists, depending upon their tactical objective (that is, the immediate methodology for achieving their general objective of spreading terror). It may deter criminals. But the suicidally insane?
Sensor: this board’s been around a bit. Check around a bit (Search is your friend, right next to Preview) before posting.
Probably not, but an Air Marshall would be my first choice. Besides, cockpits are full of electronics and instrumentation, and flat-screen digital displays. :SIGH: I miss analog.
Anyway: one misplaced bullet has a much greater potential for catastrophic results in the cockpit (do you think future terrorists are going to be armed just with boxcutters?) than in the passenger cabin.
I dunno; think like a terrorist.
You want to take over an airplane, and crash it in a spectacular manner. You manage to smuggle weapons on board, and suprise the flight crew. The two Air Marshall stand up and kill Achmed and Acheem. You and Abdul rush the cockpit, while Omar and Saladin try to hold off the Air Marshalls, but the Emergency Cockpit Locking Device is engaged, and you cannot break down the locked, reinforced door.
What do you do? Throw down your gun and surrender? Stick your pistol in your mouth and pull the trigger?
Or point your pistol at door or window and empty the clip? Maybe start unloading upon the passengers? Sudden decompression isn’t necessarily catastrophic, but any pilot will tell you that it is an unpredictable, random element. Professional pilots (Top Gun bullshit aside) don’t like unpredictable, random elements discharging in a planefull of people in their keeping. It changes the aerodynamic profile of the airplane, which is basically a round-nose Greyhound bus with wings, and has all of the aerodynamic properties of a slightly rounded brick in the first place.
The burble of air stresses the fuselage. If it is an older aircraft, there is the possibility that metal fatigue could cause the fuselage to begin breaking up. Remember the Airplane on its way to Hawaii a few years back? The top of the fuselage began pealing back like a can of sardines, and sucked a flight attendant right out?
In other words: Air Marshalls and any notional armed passengers may be carrying pre-fragmented ammunition to prevent over-penetration. I seriously doubt that a terrorist group would be that conscientious.
Ergo: a closed environment at 35,000 feet, moving 500+knots does not need even the remote chance of random variables like bullet hole(s) in the fuselage. I want highly trained pistoleros with badges up there, not a guy who paid $300 and sat through a weekend’s worth of instruction***** to get a Concealed Carry Permit.
That guy can sit next to me on a bus, or a train.
But keep him the hell off of my airplane.
[sub]*****that’s basically what I went through in Texas to get a CCW.[/sub]
