Without a doubt, the United States is a violent society. One needs to look no further than the television to figure that out. Violence sells on TV, movies, books, games, News, elections and legislation–especially legislation.
Demonstrating once again that the U.S. House of Representatives is populated by rabid maniacs, legislation allowing pilots to carry guns on U.S. commercial flights was overwhelmingly approved.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that guns on airplanes is an uninhibited bad idea. Pilots could shoot a critical system, a flight attendant, another passenger and themselves. They could quickly decompress and crash. Pilots could, and probably should, shoot each other.
Unfortunately, as this bill heads to the Senate, the House has the upper hand. They understand that their constituencies believe that this country was founded by God and that we could save ourselves a lot of time and money by simply dropping our entire nuclear arsenal over Asia, Africa and large portions of Europe. As long as they can keep these people happy, election time will favor the rabid representative.
The Senate cannot afford to look like they are soft on terrorism. Their objective is to find a safer form of lethal violence at 40,000 ft. going 400 m.p.h.
The Senate should suggest, in the spirit that is truly American, a compromise. They should take a page from the al Qaeda playbook and mandate that all pilots carry box cutters. Such a compromise would greatly reduce the danger faced by the entire flight under a system of armed pilots.
Getting guns, or anything else, past airport security has been proven time and again as no big deal. When you consider that the goal of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001 was to keep the planes in the air and redirect the flight to Manhattan, Washington D.C. and elsewhere, it’s not hard to figure out that even the terrorists knew that discharging a gun would be an unacceptable risk to completing their objective.
The U.S. government and the pilots union should attempt to demonstrate that they are at least as smart as al Qaeda. The Senate could not only approved the use of box cutters by pilots but they could also eliminate the expensive training provision. Even better, senators could required that the pilot purchase their own box cutters at their local drugstore.
While a gun can sell for upwards of $100, a box cutter can be purchased for approximately 99¢. If over 50,000 pilots started buying box cutters, it would revitalize a product that has not seen investment or innovation in decades.
In short, the whole idea of pilots bearing any sort of weapon is a ridiculous farce. The correct position is the position of the Bush administration: pilots should focus on flying, air marshals should focus on subduing terrorists.
