Guns in the cockpit?
Thought I would put a little “old” wisdom in this argument, since when BD Cooper did his little gig over OR and WA in the 70’s, I had been flying 121 for nearly a decade.
In the “good ole days” there was no security at all. Then the fun began, some one in Cuba would commandeer a Cuban aircraft, say take me to the US and they were greeted and hailed as a “hero” cause they wanted freedom. Then some one would take over a US aircraft (mostly Eastern AL) and say “take us to Havana” and they were hailed as hero in Cuba. Enter the metal detectors that were a big joke, hardly ever worked. To the flight crew they were some things we just walked around on the way to the gate.
At that time the estimate of the day among the flight crews was that 28 to 30 % of the cockpit crews carried a handgun in the flight bag because there was no way that some hijacker was going to take a plane away from them. I never carried one cause I flew cargo and did not feel threatened and so did not feel the need, but knew lots of guys who did. Got to remember that most of us had come from the military where we did carry a weapon anytime we flew.
Then came the day in 1987 when a former fired airline employee, using an old ID, and a back door got onto a BA 146 at PSA, killed the front end crew then crashed the AC around Paso Robles Calif. After that date the FAA made everybody go thru the metal detectors and there by disarmed the cockpit crews in the US.
The official FAA gospel was “do what ever the hijacker wants you to do” “don’t be a hero” never dreaming that suicide was the order of the day on 9/11. All of this leads us up to the issue that what happened on 9/11 was contributed to if not directly the fault of the federal government and the FAA. Think about it, had one third of the crewmember had a gun would 9/11 have happened? Probably not as bad as it was.
So what about guns in the cockpit? After much opposition and foot dragging the feds have allowed those who wish to retain the “last line of defense” to become trained to use firearms. Remember the federal government idea is to just shoot you down and that is not what I consider a reasonable last line. In passing I feel that the passengers would never let another 9/11 happen so it probably is a moot point. Those who fear that a firearm could be taken away from a cockpit member should be more fearful of one of the sky marshals being disarmed.
To those of you who are anti gunners, over 2.5 MILLION times a year a firearm is used (mostly without becoming put into the paper) to avert a crime. The idea that a gun is 10 times more likely to be used against the owner is completely false. Aldof Hitler disarmed the entire country of Germany and then declared that a new era of peace and safety had arrived. Australia, England and Canada have proven when you take away the guns from law-abiding persons, only out laws have guns and the enormous rise in crime in those countries confirms this.
