What about having a Swiss Army knife in a pocket of your backpack?
Clearly just as dangerous. Falling into the wrong hands, it could spur yet another mass fingernail filing or corkscrewing.
Pocket knives are useful for all sorts of daily activities that do not involve acts of violence in a way that guns are not. I’ve never seen anyone cut a slice of cheese for a sandwich with a gun, for example.
I used to carry a pocket knife in my purse all the time (it also had scissors, a screwdriver, and other handy items on it), but then I started having to enter government buildings for work reasons and forgot to leave it at work once too often.
The 9/11 terror attacks were accomplished with nothing more than razor blades and they weren’t even prohibited on planes at the time. Both you or I can kill someone just easily with a sharp knife or blade to the throat as you can with a firearm. In fact, the 9/11 terrorists did kill a flight attendant with a simple blade before they crashed planes into the World Trade Centers just to let the other passengers know that they were serious.
An excellent thread on the mathematics and logic of this joke is here:
I was told a variation of that by a math professor (an American), and he wasn’t claiming it actually happened, but was humorously illustrating the same point as the professor you mention (an implication of the Poisson distribution, that carrying a bomb onto a plane would seem to be a safety measure against an actual wrongdoer carrying a bomb onto the same flight).
To the OP: In 2009, I was in Santa Fe, NM, and was checking my bags for the flight home. I had recently returned from Iraq, and was wearing an Iraqi embassy t-shirt. The clerk (Southwest) took my bags, and then amiably gestured at the insignia on my shirt, “And… are you armed?” He had obviously mistaken me for an embassy courier, who often carry weapons.
I would guess that some of the people caught bringing guns onto planes have a legit reason to carry, but are required to check the gun before they board, and forget to do so.
I don’t think that is entirely relevant, I could after all use my shoe laces as a garrotte. Anybody who routinely carries a gun does so as a weapon. The majority of people who carry pocket knives do so because they can be useful in so many benign ways. If you were one of those few who carry a knife to be used as a weapon and you were not sufficiently self-aware not to carry it onto a plane, then I would question your suitability to be allowed out in public.
Due to policies in place at that time. Locking the cockpit doors and changing the policy not to cooperate with highjackers have changed that.
Prohibiting very small knives has had no positive effect whatsoever.
This is, or course, bullshit.
A gun allows action at a distance. A knife requires the attacker to close with their victim.
So, it’s not the same threat.
Could it be they just don’t want to PAY to check a bag?
Don’t forget those dangerous bottles of water TSA keeps people from sneaking in.
Meh…
I would want to fuck with some guy with a knife about a much as I would want to fuck with a guy with a gun on a plane for all practical purposes…
Unless of course I ALSO had a gun:smack:
A gun and a knife are not equivalent. Most folks that carry a pocket knife or a utility tool have a small less than 2" and non locking blade. It’s a tool that can be used as a weapon, but isn’t in the same class as a firearm. You know, the meme of “bring a knife to a gun fight.”
Guns can be used for but usually are not a good tool for opening cans, cleaning fingernails, opening envelopes or boxes, removing splinters, etc.
although my WW2 and Korean Theater combat vet father said pre-911 that all you need is a whittling knife with a 2" blade to take a hostage, and he unfortunately was right.
Zero is essentially zero i.e. as in countries like the UK where it’s national news if one is discovered, this was actually an airgun:
Entering a courthouse, I had my tiny keychain knife confiscated, put into a lockbox, paperwork, etc.
I pointed out to the guard that I could do more harm with my pen by driving it into someone’s eye. There was an awkward ten second stare over that remark, and I’ve been more cautious in my speech since then.
I was the one who originally brought up the pocketknife comparison, and in no way was it intended to draw an equivalence between the dangers of guns and pocketknives.* The point was simply that it’s something else that is also not allowed on planes, and yet I forget I’m carrying one constantly when going places where they aren’t allowed.
Needless to say, a gun should be easier to rememeber since it is larger and heavier but it won’t always be foremost in your mind that it’s on you.
*I carry the pocketknife for utility purposes, not for self-defense. It wouldn’t be much use in a fight even if it wasn’t attached to my keys, and I have no illusions about using it to defend myself from anything more threatening than a small dog. When I was a pizza delivery driver I used to carry a BB gun and Bowie-type knife in my glovebox for protection.
I carry a pocketknife and a Swiss Army knife everywhere. The Swiss Army knife has very thin blades that would probably break for some of the tasks I put my other knife to (prying things apart, cutting tough materials). But it has some handy tools like tiny scissors, tweezers, screwdrivers of various kinds, etc. My “real” knife is a solid Gerber that is half-serrated and it can open easily with one hand, but the blade is only 2" long so that it doesn’t make anyone nervous.
I can be forgetful so I get paranoid before I fly. I have nothing in my pockets except a cell phone. Even my keys go into checked luggage. I don’t want anything to get me in trouble or delay my boarding.
I am a gun owner and I’ve carried a pistol to places but can’t imagine forgetting I have one on me. Even my compact has a good amount of weight to it and I’m aware of it at all times. Unless you’re carrying some tiny little Kahr or something like a Derringer how can you forget it? It’s nothing like a pocketknife. Forgetting it in your bags I can see but not on your hip or pocket.
I do, too, because the TSA is a bunch of bumbling morons. Most of those guns probably looked like this one.
Heh. My American father-in-law, when queuing to tour Buckingham Palace, saw a sign stating that possession of knives or guns would constitute a serious violation of the law, and casually (slightly naively) asked if they meant his pocket knife. I said yes, and he’d likely not see it again if the guards found it. As we were deep in the queue and had pre-paid tickets, he chucked it into the nearest bush. Two hours later he reclaimed it.
Why? As far as I know, none of these people were arrested or considered possible terrorists, just absent minded.