Pldennison, you said, “an enormous proportion of civilian airline pilots have spent some time in the military, and probably have some concept of how to handle a firearm.” If you feel that my equating that to, “[you] picture pilots as ex-marines, etc.”, is a mischaracterization of your words, then I apologize. To me it seemed a similar statement.
You also asked how many commercial pilots I know; dozens.
Fang, you said that the guy flying the plane is in a better position to judge his own qualifications than the people that know him (or word to that effect). But the problem with this is how many people are able to make a fair and accurate assessment of their own abilities? Almost everyone overrates themselves. And have you ever spoken with a person with mental problems? They almost invariably believe that it is everyone else who has a problem, not them. So I don’t feel pilots can or should judge themselves; that should be done by outside, objective observers who know them.
Sam Stone, in your scenario if the Bad Guys are already in the cockpit, then an armed pilot will not make any difference to the outcome. The key point of defense, in my view, is to keep them from ever getting past the cockpit door. They might take control of the cabin, but never the cockpit. ONLY if they can get the pilot to unlock the door will they get control of the plane. But this can be done by getting the pilot to come out of the cockpit brandishing his pistol.
Even if the pilot can be trusted with a gun, and even if he is a perfect marksman, and even if he can keep a cool head during a highjack situation: STILL, I don’t want him taking responsibility for trying to subdue the Bad Guys. His job during a situation, his ONLY job, is to keep the cockpit secure and to land the plane ASAP.
Tedster, your argument seems to be that 9/11 could have been avoided if there had been guns on the plane. Is this your view, or am I misunderstanding your point?
I think that Sam Stone makes a pretty convincing case for arming pilots who volunteer for training.
I would add that, if terrorists know that some pilots carry guns, and some don’t, and they don’t know in advance whether a gun-carrier will be assigned to a particular flight or not, it will make their planning more difficult.
I heard an argument against pilot having guns on plans. The argument was that it could do more harm than good if they accidentally shoot a passenger or part of the plane while it’s in flight.
I think a solution to this problem would be to have tranquilizer guns that’ll just knock the culprit out until the plane can be landed and officials can arrest him.
However, I’m sure a problem could be found with this too. (Such as if the culprit was wearing full armor.)
Easy. You don’t have pilots carrying their personal weapons aboard. The airline and/or airport security staff procure and ready the guns, and stow them in a locked compartment next to each pilot seat (including copilots). Each person authorized to fly the plane will have a key or combination to open the gun compartment. That way, there’s no carrying guns through the airport or security checkpoints.
Better, they’d be unlocked electronically. I’m thinking a button set among the flight controls, and maybe a “terrorist alert” silent alarm button next to the stewardess call buttons at each passenger seat. It’s not possible for hijackers to monitor every single passenger, so at least one would be able to trip the alarm, alert the pilots, and unlock their guns. If I were designing the system, I’d also put a closed-circuit TV monitor in the cockpit so the pilots can see the passenger cabin. That would help to prevent false alarms and allow early warnings even without the passenger alarm.
And of course, the cockpit door would be locked and secure.
Once again, I’m sick to death of the “GUNS=BAD” mentality of people these days. The mere presence of a gun is not going to turn a normal, rational human being into a raving psychotic killer, no matter what that jerk-off Kellerman would have you believe.
The danger isn’t so much damage to avionics, as that of an armed hijacker facing off against an unarmed pilot. Especially if you start crashing into buildings.
Safety precautions are good, but with a terrorist in the plane AND no line of defense, you have a recipe for disaster.
I don’t really want them to have control of a plane, either. So what’s the solution? Should we not allow anybody to fly, because it can be abused? That’s the baby-with-bathwater solution you seem to be suggesting for guns. Just because some jackass is irresponsible, don’t allow anybody a means of defense. So by your same logic, air travel is now void. Everybody needs to drive.
But wait, drivers can be drunk, too, so I guess we’re all back to walking or riding elephants, right?
And one final thing:
I think the recent trend of making policy based on what you see in movies is both scary and pathetic. But even in the movie, sailors on a SSN are still armed.
I’m basically a Johnny-One-Note on this topic (see other thread), and I’ll keep singing that note until someone shoots me down.
There is no need to defend against a September 11th style attack. None. I’m refering to a group of 4 or 5 men, armed with box-cutters gaining control of a much larger group of people. There are a two main reasons why such an attack will never again occur.
Change in Mindset on the part of the Population at large - Before September the 11th, the generally accepted advice in hostage situations was similar to that told to bank tellers in case of robbery: Cooperate fully, give the hostage-takers exactly what they want, and you will survive the situation. How else would 4 men with box-cutters subdue a group 20 times their size? The mindset has changed. Passengers will no longer be content to be held at knife point, waiting for the proper authorities to resolve the situation. They will be proactive.
Existing Anti-Hijacking Initiatives on the Government’s Part - This type of attack takes endless planning and preparation. The fact that the government is willing to shoot down any hijacked plane, and that by the time another similarly planned attack can be pulled off, Air Marshalls will be in place, means that any terrorist with the time, funding, and drive to commit such an attack will focus on something with a higher likelyhood of success. Said terrorist will realize that crashing a plane into a landmark is now an impossibility.
Given the above, that a successful September 11th style attack is no longer a possibility, why arm the pilots?
Granted, it shouldn’t be their responsibility to take down the bad guys. However, the safety of the plane and it’s passengers are their responsibility. If that means sitting at the cabin door with a loaded weapon to make sure nobody tries to come through it, well, that’s fine by me. Who really thinks that pilot is going to come through the cockpit door guns a blazing? The purpose of the gun is to make sure no one can seize the controls.
-You seem very sure of yourself. Those attacks literally changed the world, and in that, they could be considered “successful”. So the bad guys will never again even attempt something similar?
-And as in the other thread, what if it’s a low-capacity redeye flight with only forty people onboard, five of whom are hijackers? How about an AARP charter full of the elderly and infirm? Have you considered the possibility somebody might hijack a cargo flight?
What happens if the hijackers don’t kill anyone and only threaten them? If they keep saying “Stay where you are, we just want to land the plane in Cuba and make demands for our Revolutionary Allies!”?
What happens if the hijackers up front in first class tie up some passengers and make four or five of them sit in the aisles so the hijackers can’t be “rushed” easily?
Again, you seem awfully confident that no possible scenario can work simply because the passengers won’t sit back and let it happen.
You also seem to have a Ceasar’s mindset: Letting poorly-armed and UNtrained civilians mob and overwhelm the bad guys rather than even allow the possibility of a single armed and trained individual to handle the situation.
And further, you seem to have an either/or binary mindset: If the pilot is NOT armed, the pasengers will mob the bad guys. If the pilot IS armed, they’ll sit back like sheep and let whatever’s going to happen, happen.
Is it too far-fetched to consider that perhaps the passengers can subdue the thug long enough for the pilot to take him or them into custody at gunpoint? That the passengers won’t come to the aid of the pilot when a thug is trying to break down the cockpit door, since they know he’s got a gun?
I see. So from your viewpoint:
A) It’s better to have a fighter blow an entire passenger aircraft out of the sky with a missile, than to possibly even consider letting a pilot carry a handgun.
B) The government detected and prevented the 9-11 event from taking place, and in fact knows precisely where bin Laden is today, so we can be supremely confident that they’ll detect and prevent any future attacks from happening.
C) There’s something like 30,000 US flights a day, and currently somewhere around 1,000 air marshals. It’s better, and obviously more economically feasible, to hire and train another 29,000 marshals, and pay them to be dead weight on each flight, than it is to allow a portion of the pilots to carry firearms they may already own.
-Given that no one other than Tom Clancy saw the possibility of using an airplane as a guided missile, are you confident that there’s no single possibility at all, in any situation, under any circumstances, where a pilot may have to defend himself and his airplane?
What if all the hijacker wants to do is kill as many people aboard as possible before he’s stopped? Ignoring the “taking over the plane” aspect altogether. What if he’s in the bathroom trying to light the fuse to his suitcase-bomb? Trying to get the lid off his thermos full of smallpox?
Grim Spectre makes an excellent point, though. The chance of another Sept. 11 style hijacking is probably not going to happen again, for the reasons he mentioned.
Terrorists like soft targets. They don’t like to attack things that fight back or have other protections. Airplanes are no longer ‘soft’ targets, because of a wide range of measures and changes since Sept 11 (and almost NONE of them involve the ridiculous ‘security measures’ at airports now).
The thing to remember is that there are LOTS of targets. Airplanes were good when people weren’t expecting it. Now that they are, there are plenty of other ways to carry out human and economic destruction.
But I’m in favor of arming pilots, for lots of reasons. I just don’t think it’s going to be a big factor in safety one way or the other.
Doc, you threw a lot of “What ifs” my way, and I’ll return with a “So what”. Any successfully hijacked plane will be immediately shot down by fighter planes. Hijacking a cargo plane would have the same amount of casualties as a car crash; A charter plane the same amount of casualties as a bus crash; A red-eye with 40 non-terrorists aboard the same amount of casualties as an explosion in a restaurant. So why bother with the expense and added security of hijacking a plane? What would be the point?
What is the rest of the plane doing while this is going on? If you assume, like I do, that passengers will act proactively to combat a terrorist assualt, why would they wait for the terrorists to take the cockpit?
The general consensus of practically everyone in the thread, whether for or against guns in the cockpit, is that a pilot should never, ever, ever, ever, ever open the cockpit door. The gun should be used in case of an assault on the cockpit. Given that whether the pilot is armed or not is irrelevent to the safety of the passengers, your statement makes no sense. In fact, I’m confused as to why you made that inference.
Incorrect, sir. My position is that fighter pilots shooting down hijacked airplanes acts as a deterrent to any future “Steer plane into landmark”. My position is that it’s better for pilots not to be armed, than to let a pilot carry a handgun.
I could do without your sarcasm, however, you do have it partially correct. I’m supremely confident that they will never have to detect or prevent any future attack similar to that of September 11th, because there will never be one, for the reasons outlined above.
I was under the impression that the wisest course, as Joe_Cool stated, would be to place the guns in the cockpit in an electronic lockbox (Possibly similar to the lock box designed to hold Social Security by Vice President Gore [SUP]1[/SUP]). This avoids the problem of allowing certain people to carry firearms through airport security, and the inherent danger thereof. Therefore, pilots would not have the option of having firearms on their plane on not. Every single pilot would have to be trained in both firearms safety and dealing with hostage situations. Every single plane would have to be outfitted with both a high tech security box as well as a firearm. Economically feasible what? Besides, why design anti-terrorism measures based on the most economical plan?
Putting aside the fact that everybody in this thread aside from you agrees that having the pilot leave the cockpit guns blazing is a stupid, stupid idea (Meaning he would be powerless to stop, and probably even unaware any of the situations you mentioned above). Putting aside the fact that I posit that proactive passengers will not sit idly and allow themselves to be killed one by one, as your first example seems to suggest. Putting aside the fact that there is no reason for any of your examples to occur on an airplane: They could occur in an office building and be just as deadly (Meaning no benifit for the terrorist in exchange for added security working against him).
Well, when you put aside all that, there really is nothing left, is there?
Seeing as how this post is long enough already, I’ll tackle the abject silliness of “You trust pilots with your life already, why not with a gun” later.
[SUP]1. How’s that for an obscure reference?[/SUP]
-Which is obviously the better choice over enabling the flight crew to possibly save their own lives.
Next up, when a bank robbery goes bad and the robber’s trapped inside with hostages, we simply have the whole building napalmed. :rolleyes:
-Circular logic. With the new security measures, airplanes are now “hard targets” so it’s not worth a terrorists’ time to attack them, so there’s no need for any additional security measures.
-Proactive action that, on 9-11, resulted in the deaths of all aboard. The hijackers revealed themselves by immediately killing at least one flight attendant, and counting on that shock value. Their weapons were simple, they were greatly outnumbered, and we know from the infamous phone call that the passengers tried to overcome their attackers.
The only measure of their success is that the airplane didn’t crash into the White House.
Small comfort, I’m sure.
In any case, again, why the supposition that one can have one but not the other? If, for some reason, the passengers fail to subdue the thug, why not allow the pilot a second (or, after the armored door, a third) line of defense?
-The policy previous to 9-11 was to keep the cockpit locked. All that’s changed since is an improvement in the strength of the door.
The terrorists killed a passenger, then threatened to kill more in order to get the pilot out of the already-normally-locked cockpit.
Agreed, the pilot should not leave the cockpit under anything but certain circumstances. But if the cockpit itself is violated, the pilot should have some last-ditch defense.
-Deterrent? The idea, from what I understand of the hijackers, was to crash the plane, kill everyone aboard, and do as much damage on the ground as possible.
So where’s the difference, especially as far as the passengers and flight crew are concerned, between crashing into a building and being blown out of the sky by an air-to-air missile?
-My position is that the average human being should be able to defend him or herself from the thugs and animals out there. A firearm is an effective tool to this end, but is villified as being evil by persons such as yourself.
-We’re back to that circular logic: There’s no need for additional security because the additional security keeps people from trying?
-So it’s not a danger for a skymarshal to carry a gun through airport security, but it is inherently dangerous for the pilot to do so?
-I find this somehow worse.
While parts of the concept have promise, I’ll be the first to say that the worst person to allow to have a gun is someone who neither wants one nor will take the time to learn how- and more importantly when- to use one.
The current bill is voluntary. IF a pilot wishes to carry, he or she, with certain restrictions and training, may. No one is- or should- force those who do NOT wish to carry one, to do so.
Putting one in the plane as you describe, puts the requirment on the industry to train ALL it’s pilots, not just those who wish to take such training (or, from prior military service, already have some training.)
-It shouldn’t be, but often is, and nothing you or I can say will change that.
The fact of the matter is, one could add a great measure of additional safety for perhaps as many as half a days’ flights by doing very little more than allowing pilots to carry and performing some training. The other option would be to hire 10,000 or more skymarshals to get the same level of coverage. These marshals would not only cost more by base pay, they’d take often-valuable seating and other resources.
Again, this is not a binary equation: I think both should be employed- additional skymarshals AND allowing pilots to carry if they so wish.
-Stupid? When the only other option is possibly being shot down by a Sidewinder missile?
-That’s a pretty big aside, as I already mentioned what happened to one planeful of “proactive” passengers.
That’s like an engineer doing some equations: “Okay, if we disregard friction and air resistance…”
-So because a terrorist could attack an office building instead of an airplane, there’s no reason to try and protect the airplane?
An interesting use of the word “benefit” in reference to people who knew they were going to die to accomplish their goals.
-Um, nope, not a thing.
Just “Guns are evil so let’s keep them out of as many people’s hands as we can. And if something like this ever happens again, let’s hope a human wave of panicked civilians can overcome the armed hijackers before a fighter jet blows it out of the sky.”
Sufficiently hyperbolic for you?
-Actually, I’m still waiting for somebody to tell me why a trained pilot with a gun in an airplane might be any less trustworthy than a trained police officer with a gun on the ground.
Hijacking ATTEMPTS are extremely rare. I think it implausible to believe that after the 5,912th flight where absolutely nothing happens, a pilot would, on a particular day and without warning, be sufficiently alert to this danger to make the pistol effective against a planned attack.
Such a plan may give a false sense of security and divert resources and attention from more effective defenses.
If you want the pilots armed, I say do it on a random basis, so the pilot is alert on the particular day so armed. Keep the schedule and ratio secret.
The chances of a hijacking attempt on that particular flight may be minutely small, but a series of such “random” defenses(such as a limited number of skymarshals), adds uncertainties the hijacking may need to consider, helping to counter balance the natural advantage of surprise.
You made the same point repeatedly: That not arming the pilots is the exact same thing as taking no anti-terrorism measures at all. You attempted to make that point here:
here:
and here:
I never, ever, ever, ever said, and never, ever, ever, ever will say that no additional security measures were needed post September 11th. In fact, 2 additional measures figure pretty prominently in my reasoning: A proactive group of passengers, and the willingness of the government to shoot down hijacked planes. There are many other security measures that I support yet have not mentioned. Simply because I do not see the need for this particular measure by no means implies I don’t see the need for any at all.
With that said, I’ll tell you why what you posted is flat wrong.
The main difference between a bank and a plane in this area of discussion is that one can be used as a missile and hurtled into highly populated areas, causing more deaths than just those inside. Your analogy is not valid, and I’m surprised that didn’t occur to you before you posted.
I’m repeating myself again (What with there being two threads on the exact same topic), but here goes: The situation you use as the example for all situations that would alledgedly occur without arming pilots has an obvious and important difference from future situations. The only reason the plane crashed is because the hijackers had already taken control of the cockpit. How would they do so, when confronted by a proactive group of passengers and a cockpit crew with a reinforced door that the pilots refused to open?
The more people that can carry guns through airport security, the more the system opens itself up for abuses. Surely you can see how pilots carrying weapons around the airport could cause problems? If you can’t, I’d be more than willing to point out a few fairly obvious dangers to you. Remember also that “guns on planes in boxes” isn’t my idea; it’s Joe_Cool’s. I think that’s a pretty bad idea, as well, so I’m not going to debate you on its merits. I’ll leave that for Joe to do.
I’m not sure what logic you used to get those options. I believe that shooting down an airplane is an option that should be used only when hijackers have control of the cockpit, and are going to use the plane as a weapon of mass destruction by crashing it into a populated area or building. Why would the plane be shot down if the cockpit was never breached?
If you assume, like I do, that passengers will act proactively to combat a terrorist assualt, why would they wait for the terrorists to take the cockpit?