IP: safe for them but damn us peasants. Arming Pilots Is the Best Way to Get Air Security By JOHN R. LOTTJr.

[David Farber <dfarber () earthlink net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt () coil com>
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 11:59:04 
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Arming Pilots Is the Best Way to Get Air Security By JOHN R. LOTT
 Jr.

[Note from Matthew Gaylor:  Transportation Secretary Mineta is a 
hypocrite by opposing letting airline pilots have guns to guard their 
cockpits.  The Bush administration is showing the usual governmental 
arrogance by denying protections that they insist for themselves. 
The Associated Press last October 11 wrote a news release about the 
resignation of the FAA's security chief. Quote:  "The head of 
security for the Federal Aviation Administration decided to quit 
after he was told to reassign air marshals to commercial flights 
carrying members of President Bush's Cabinet, a source with knowledge 
of the resignation said Thursday. Michael A. Canavan, named associate 
administrator for FAA's office of civil aviation security last 
December, said the marshals had been assigned to other flights that 
he felt could be more at risk of a hijacking, according to the 
source, speaking on condition of anonymity. Bush administration 
officials had wanted marshals on the planes carrying Cabinet members, 
who took commercial flights to demonstrate that air travel was safe 
and thereby encourage Americans to return to the skies."]


<http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-000017968mar11.story>


COMMENTARY

Arming Pilots Is the Best Way to Get Air Security
By JOHN R. LOTT Jr.
John R. Lott Jr. is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise 
Institute and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of 
Chicago Press, 2000).

March 11 2002

His timing wasn't the best.

The morning after U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta 
announced that he opposed letting airline pilots have guns to guard 
their cockpits--though he might consider stun guns--the Washington 
Post reported "a declining number of federal air marshals are aboard 
flights using Reagan National Airport."

Despite repeated promises that all flights into the capital, with its 
many vulnerable targets, would be guarded, pilots say the true number 
is "quite a bit less than 100%" and falling. Worse, while the exact 
number of marshals has not been made public, the same news report 
claimed that there were fewer than 1,000 across the nation, and only 
a fraction of those were available on any given day. With most 
marshals apparently working in pairs, less than 1% of the 35,000 
daily commercial flights in the U.S. are being protected--hardly what 
we had hoped for six months after Sept. 11.

With increased preflight screening and passenger awareness, it may be 
harder today for terrorists to take over a plane. But the reward for 
terrorists also would be higher. Another successful attack would 
destroy confidence in air travel. The airlines still are suffering 
massive losses. And while Mineta's decision to rely on screening 
passengers, strengthened cockpit doors and air marshals to prevent 
terrorism is a good start, it is not enough.

Inspections are hardly perfect. Again, the day after Mineta's 
announcement, security was breached at Connecticut's Bradley 
International Airport, forcing a plane in mid-flight to return to the 
airport and have its passengers sent through metal detectors a second 
time.

In recent weeks, knives, box cutters and long scissors have regularly 
made it through security. As accused shoe bomber Richard C. Reid 
demonstrated in December, tiny amounts of military explosives such as 
C4 are easy to hide.

When screening fails, armed marshals can help prevent hijackings. 
Bill Landes at the University of Chicago found that between a third 
and half of the drop in airplane hijackings during the 1970s could be 
attributed to two factors: the introduction of armed U.S. marshals on 
planes and the increased ability to catch and punish hijackers.

But the process of recruiting enough marshals is slow and expensive. 
The marshals program would cost $10 billion per year and "require a 
work force the size of the U.S. Marine Corps" to cover most planes, 
according to the pilots' unions. Not only does it take a long time to 
attract and train enough new marshals, but the program has had a 
problem with retention. According to the Federal Aviation 
Administration, marshals are finding the job incredibly boring as 
they fly back and forth across the country, waiting for something to 
happen.

And the marshals program doesn't guarantee safety. Osama bin Laden's 
organization was able to put five hijackers on each of three planes 
and four on a fourth. With enough hijackers on a plane, they could 
overpower two marshals. Nor does strengthening cockpit doors 
guarantee safety. Doors can be blown open. Security can be breached, 
and terrorists could get the keys or codes used to open the doors.

So what else can be done? One choice is to arm pilots as a last line 
of defense. Their job is not to police the entire airplane but the 
much more limited and relatively simple task of defending a single 
narrow entrance to keep terrorists out of the cockpit. Of the two 
pilots unions, 83% of the Allied Pilots Assn. and 73% of the Air Line 
Pilots Assn. support arming pilots. Seventy-eight percent of the 
nonunionized Southwest Airlines Pilots' Assn. feel the same way. More 
than 70% of the pilots at the major airlines have served in the 
military and are familiar with guns. They know more about their 
planes than the marshals.
All three pilots groups have agreed to training programs before being armed.

Stun guns are not a serious alternative. The New York Police 
Department found that stun guns fail to fell suspects 30% of the time 
because of thick clothing or rubberized shoes. Fears of bullets 
piercing the airplane's skin and causing it to lose pressure are 
misplaced. Specialized bullets are designed not to penetrate the 
airplane's aluminum skin. And even if a regular bullet penetrated the 
skin, there is unlikely to be any noticeable change; an air outlet at 
the back of the plane, which draws the air through the cabin, would 
automatically shrink to a smaller size to compensate.

Banning guns does not ban violence. It is the law-abiding citizens 
who obey these rules, not the terrorists.

__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---


**************************************************************************
Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues
Send a blank message to: freematt () coil com with the words subscribe FA
on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week)
Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722  ICQ: 106212065   Archived at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/
**************************************************************************

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/