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Subject: IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough
CJH    5/21/2006 9:16:39 PM
This will probably sound crazy although that could be because we are so influenced by the political correctness about us that serves as blinders. I believe that the airport security procedures we have exist primarily to impress the innocent traveller with how safe the government makes him. I can't believe determined terrorists won't find a way to take over a flight again in spite of security as they have before in spite of security. Air marshals are reportedly complaining that needless regulations force them to be too obvious. They believe that they can be converged on and taken out first after having been easily identified in a terrorist attack on an airliner. Instead of relying on, essentially, a few security guards and ostentatious airport procedures that treat grandma as a terrorist, I would feel safer if I could or other passengers could carry pistols concealed on flights. What I'm speculating about is letting those who already have concealed carry permits purchase specialized training and have a chance to demonstrate a reasonable level of competency to get an add on to their permits. The purpose would be to carry for their own personal defense and they would have to show they aren't a risk to innocents, air marshals or a hazard to an aircraft. I'm not saying we don't need air marshals and I'm not saying every passenger should be armed. It would suffice for any potential terrorists to know there could be 10, 20 or 30 or more ordinary people carrying and that there is no way to know which passengers are. And airport procedures need to allow everyone to board normally without showing who is getting special treatment.
 
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displacedjim    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/21/2006 9:55:48 PM
Amen! Right on target. While I think the odds of another successful hijacking attack are slim, I agree the key to aircraft security is for more people to be armed, not fewer. I don't fly, but if I did and if I could, I certainly would carry on the airplane. Displacedjim
 
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ArtyEngineer    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/22/2006 1:42:18 AM
Yeah, especailly after the myth busters proved that a bullethole in an aircraft window doesnt suck people out and cause the aircraft to tumble uncontrollably from the sky.
 
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mustavaris    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/22/2006 4:35:58 AM
"What I'm speculating about is letting those who already have concealed carry permits purchase specialized training and have a chance to demonstrate a reasonable level of competency to get an add on to their permits. The purpose would be to carry for their own personal defense and they would have to show they aren't a risk to innocents, air marshals or a hazard to an aircraft." Well. How about a bunch of determined terrorists who all got these permits? How many dead people we´d get if there is 2 or 3 of them and the firefight begins... How the marshalls can know who is the bad guy when all the civvys are reaching for their guns? Kill´em all? Bad guys ain´t necesserily shouting allahu akhbar... And so on, you can add much twist to this as you want. Recent airport security seems to be experiencing problems with air marshals and then they should take care of those, check the permist for legal guns, check that others don´t have guns and so on.. Another line for armed people makes clear that who is armed and who is not.
 
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displacedjim    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/22/2006 1:39:17 PM
How many dead people do we get if there's only two or three terrorists now and they manage to take out the air marshal? Yes, you can twist it as much as you want. Therefore, I'll stop at not twisting it and just rely on principle, instead of (hypothatical) anecdotes. More uncertainty for the terrorists: good. More possibility of passengers mounting a successful defense of the airplane: good. More involvement of the citizenry in the responsibility of providing for their own protection: good. Increasing the requirements for the terrorists (now they need to apply for permits, get a big gang together on one flight, etc.) that also increases their footprint for detection by our intelligence/security forces: good. Displacedjim
 
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Thomas3    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/27/2006 5:55:27 PM
What about Air Vice Marshals ??????
 
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FJV    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/28/2006 7:31:45 AM
A hijack would have to take a very different form today. Before 9/11 the standard advise to those being hijacked was to keep a low profile. The hijackers would eventually land somewhere and make their demands. Negotiations or a rescue attempt would ensure that most passengers would survive. Which was what the 9/11 passengers did except for the one plane that got news of what the terrorists were really up to. 9/11 changed all that. NOW when you are being hijacked, you better kill those sons of bitches, because they are going to crash the plane into something and kill everyone. This means that anyone foolish enough to hijack a plane will be immediately attackeded by ferocious passengers fighting for their lives.
 
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Yimmy    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/28/2006 11:57:12 AM
Personally I would rather not see Joe public with firearms on planes. But out of curiosity, what sort of firearms are air marshalls issued? Shooting a hole in the plane may not suck people out, but regardless it isn't a good thing - what calibers are used?
 
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flamingknives    RE:IMHO, Air Marshals Aren't Enough   5/28/2006 12:23:15 PM
A few points, if I may: 1) Armed passengers would only be possible on flights internal to the US, and possibly not all of them. You seriously would not want to try waltzing into most countries with a concealed firearm. AIUI some American states do not have concealed carry legislation either. 2) As FJV notes, hijacking is a very dicey business these days. The only weapon that would work would be a handgrenade or similar explosive that would doom the plane if an attack was mounted on the hijackers. Knives and handguns would not stop a determined rush.
 
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Ashley-the-man    The Failure is in not Connecting the Dots   5/31/2006 5:39:04 PM
"2) As FJV notes, hijacking is a very dicey business these days. The only weapon that would work would be a handgrenade or similar explosive that would doom the plane if an attack was mounted on the hijackers. Knives and handguns would not stop a determined rush. " Counters to airline hijacking is a game of measure counter-measure. The only thing certain is the next terrorist will take into account present measures to deter the hijacker and evolve a new imaginative course. The greatest of all terrorist bombers, Ramzi Yousef gives faint hope that a true determined diabolical genius can be deterred. Ramzi used his training at al-Qaeda bomb school and his college chemistry and electronics lab to fashion the 1,500 pound bomb that he used at the WTC in 93. He failed in his attempt to topple the building into the other killing 250,000. Instead of going for bigger bombs, his Bojinka plot to bring down a dozen 747 airliners went 180 degrees. Hearing on CNN how detectors at air ports could sense electron devices down to an inch or two off the ground, he hollowed out a shoe and concealed two 9V batteries that would be missed by the scanners. A Casio wrist watch was used as a timer and for an electronic switch Yousef found a tiny silicone-controlled rectifier SCR. Wires ran to a flashlight bulb that he broke to expose the filament. He carried an innocuous bottle of contact lens cleaner – filled with diluted nitroglycerine. Into the bottle he stuffed a plastic bag of cotton balls already soaked in nitric acid to create nitrocellulose or gun cotton – aka dynamite. Inserting the broken bulb and wires into the bottle he had a bomb, although much too small to bring down a plant like the Pan Am over Lockerbie. Yousef had not so much designed a bomb, as a blasting cap. To test his theory, he boarded a Philippines airliner and placed his devise under seat 26K, a place he believed to be directly over the wing and fuselage fuel tanks. He departed the plane and on the next flight the bomb went off. To his frustration the plane failed to crash because he had misread a diagram of the plane and the center seat over the wing. Yousef was ready to modify his plan when a fire in his apartment in the Philippines nearly resulted in his arrest. Retreating to Pakistan he was eventually caught, but not before he had discussed his Bojinka plan with his uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed – plus the initial planning of training suicide pilots for an attack on the WTC, and other US government and private buildings. While on trial, Ramzi needed something dramatic to cause a miss-trial. An airliner brought down by his Casio bomb device would be ideal as he felt it would prejudice the jurors and cause his case to be retried. While in prison Yousef was being permitted by the FBI to make outside calls to members of al-Qaeda – in hopes by the FBI of obtaining further intelligence. Coincidence! During the trial TWA flight 800 crashed off the coast of NY with an explosion to the center fuel tank. Did Ramzi get through to his successors? Only history will tell. The next terrorist hijacking will probably come from an area and angle that we can only contemplate with dread. Perhaps the next generation hijacker will eschew bombs, and attack an airliner via electronics. Something to disrupt airliner circuits, computers or readouts. The downside for al-Qaeda and its imitators is that in the past successful attacks have come from the cutting edge of individual imagination and initiative. For every Yousef, and Shaikh Mohammed, there are a million ants that are no more than meat bombs. Having an air marshal on board each hijacked jet on 911 may have saved the day. Having hijacker proof pit doors may have saved thousands of lives - two dots that were not connected along with several others that day. Yet there were more than a hundred dots that were not connected in the twelve years before 911. In footfall if you allow a team to set up for the winning touchdown on the one inch line, give them nineteen angry men and all you have for defense is eleven undersized players including women, you have a situation not unlike 911. What stupidity would allow for a team to set up like that? What was the FBI, the State Department, NYPD, three administrations doing that allowed nineteen hijackers to set up on the one inch line? Only history will tell
 
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Thomas3    RE:The Failure is in not Connecting the Dots   6/1/2006 3:16:21 PM
I think it is fair to say the possibility for a highjacker to succeed is much less, as facing a crowd not fighting for their own lives (they were aware they were dead), but of others is not a proposition to be taken lightly. On a lighter note: Has anyone been offered a discount to the "Freindly skies" if he/she were qualified in unarmed combat? What I don't understand about the shoe-bomber: Is it not madatory for a muslim not to die with his shoes on? Have they tried recruting among foot-models?
 
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