Opposition Seems to be Building to the TSA's Proposed Relaxation of Its Security Rules to Permit Pocket Knives to be Carried Aboard Airplanes
 | Posted by Arthur Frommer at 3/28/2013 2:00 PM EDT |
Both the union of flight attendants, and the union of federal air marshals, seem to be waging a powerful campaign against the TSA's proposed weakening of its security regulations to permit pocket knives to be carried aboard airplanes. It was recently pointed out by the president of the flight attendants' union that the September 11 hijackers took control of aircraft with box cutters having blades smaller than the pocket knives that the T.S.A. would now permit. Whether or not those pocket knives could now enable future hijackers to break through the doors of the airplanes' cockits, they could apparently cause severe injury to the attendants and passengers against whom they are used.
I find that argument compelling, and am puzzled as to why the TSA has proposed such revisions to its regulations. The claim that the new rules would bring us into sync with European regulations seems unconvincing; the Europeans' record of aviation safety--the ease with which they allowed the "shoe-bomber" and the "underwear bomber" onto planes--does not inspire confidence.
I plan to mail my own opposition to the new rules to the TSA, and feel that readers of this blog might want their own views to be known.
It's true that they can be used to assault bystanders. But why do airplanes warrant special measures to prevent simple assaults? Pocket knives are equally dangerous in restaurants and theaters, but we don't routinely search anyone in those settings.
As far as European security is concerned, they confiscated a nail cutter because it had a nail file on it. Guess what, they were selling a similar nail file from their on-board duty free shop.
That is NOT how they took control. They took control because up until that fateful day flight crews were trained, and passengers expected, to acquiesce to hijackers. Prior to 9/11, a passenger jet was not used as a suicide WMD.
http://www.chesstelecom.com/Telephone-Systems
You don't live in the "Wild West" any more. And you don't belong to a "well regulated Militia" like it says in your Constitutional Rights, so you don't have the right to "Bear Arms". The rest of the World watches with amazement as 30,000 young lives are cut short because some fool demand his rights.