Copyright 2002 Journal Sentinel Inc.  
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)
March 17, 2002 Sunday ALL EDITION
SECTION: CROSSROADS; Pg. 04J

LENGTH: 794 words

HEADLINE: Want safer skies? Arm pilots

BYLINE: JOHN R. LOTT JR.

BODY:
His timing wasn't the best.

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

Though there have been repeated promises that all flights into the capital -- with its many vulnerable targets -- would be guarded, the true number, pilots say, 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 are fewer than 1,000 across the nation and that only a fraction of those are available on any given day. With most marshals apparently working in pairs, fewer than 1% of the 35,000 daily commercial flights in the United States are protected -- hardly what we would have hoped for six months after Sept. 11.

With improved screening measures and heightened passenger awareness, planes today may be harder for terrorists to take over. But the reward for terrorists also would be greater. Airlines still are suffering massive losses; another successful attack would destroy confidence in air travel. And, while Mineta's decision to rely on screening, strengthened cockpit doors and air marshals is a good start toward preventing terrorism, it is not enough.

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

In recent weeks, knives, box cutters and long scissors have made it through security. As accused shoe bomber Richard Reid demonstrated in December, tiny amounts of military explosives such as C-4 are easy to hide.

When screening fails, armed marshals can help prevent hijackings. Bill Landes of the University of Chicago found that between one-third and one-half of the reductions in 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 marshals is slow and expensive. To put marshals on most planes, according to pilots' unions, the marshals program would cost $10 billion per year and "require a work force the size of the U.S. Marine Corps." It takes a long time to attract and train new marshals. And the program has a problem retaining them. 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. If there were enough hijackers on a plane, they could overpower two marshals.

Nor does strengthening cockpit doors guarantee safety. They 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 would not be to police the entire airplane; it would be to defend a single, narrow entrance to the cockpit, a much more limited responsibility.

Of the two pilots' unions, 83% of the Allied Pilots Association and 73% of the Air Line Pilots Association support arming pilots. Seventy-eight percent of the members of the non-unionized Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association feel the same way. More than 70% of the pilots of 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 thick clothing or rubberized shoes can foil the weapons.

Fears of bullets piercing an airplane's skin and causing it to lose pressure are misplaced. Specialized bullets could guard against these possibilities. And even if a regular bullet penetrated the skin, it's unlikely that there would be any noticeable change; an air outlet at the back of the plane, which draws air through the cabin, would automatically shrink to compensate.

Banning guns does not ban violence. Law-abiding citizens obey the rules, not terrorists.

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John J. Lott Jr. is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime." This column originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.



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