HEADLINE:
FEELING THE HEAT THE; DECISION TO ARM PILOTS IS
BEING FORCED BY POPULISM, AND ABETTED BY ELECTION-YEAR POLITICS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY: A survey of 1,000 Americans claims 68 percent want their pilots toting
guns in the cockpits. Since this is an election year, by a vote of about 3 to 1,
the House dutifully passed a bill to arm pilots.
Heat-packing pilots, according to the survey by
Wilson Research Strategies, would make air travelers feel safer. And 20,000
pilots wrote Congress saying loading handguns is just what they want to do when
they go to work.
The image comes to mind of the
stagecoach driver wildly shooting at the bad guys, trying to keep control of the
horses, the coach from overturning and the hysterical passengers out of the line
of fire.
There is so much evidence that guns in the
cockpit are a bad idea that the pro-gun Bush administration backed down from
such a plan six weeks ago. That just further fueled the shootouts-in-the-skies
advocates who are sure Congress will put guns in cockpits.
In their rush to go along with the presumed public mood (polls are only
as good as the questions they ask and who wouldn't answer they'd rather have
pilots in control than terrorists), the House failed to quell a lot of
doubts.
The lawmakers brushed aside serious issues
about training, storage of guns, guidelines for use and safeguards against bad
pilots, such as the Egyptian pilot Gamil al-Batouti, whom the U.S. government
blamed for causing the crash of EgyptAir 990 in October 1999, killing himself
and all 216 others on board.
John Magaw, the former
Secret Service ace with 40 years of law enforcement experience who now heads the
new Transportation Security Administration, decided after serious consideration
that guns on planes are a bad idea. He is convinced air marshals, bulletproof
cockpit doors and more careful screening of passengers are better ways to
protect the flying public since Sept. 11. The idea is for a pilot to remain
focused to get the plane on the ground as soon as possible or to maneuver the
plane to knock a potential hijacker off balance.
Norman
Mineta, head of the Department of Transportation, is convinced that Tasers or
stun guns would be a better deterrent to violence on planes because they
immediately mobilize an attacker with an electrical charge and keep innocent
bystanders from being hit by stray bullets.
Once upon a
time two of the GOP's top guns in the House, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, both from
Texas, were leery of what DeLay called "cowboy pilots." Armey favored stun guns
over firearms; DeLay said, "I don't want any cowboy pilots going back to fight
hijackers and leaving the plane unattended."
Then the
National Rifle Association began lobbying to arm pilots. The two Texans had an
amazing epiphany. Both voted to arm cockpits.
Originally, Congress seemed ready to vote for a two-year experiment,
permitting about 1,400 (out of 120,000 commercial pilots) to be trained,
deputized and given guns. The other day the House decided that didn't go far
enough and voted to let any pilot be trained and made the experiment permanent
without waiting for results despite a cost of up to $500 million a year. That
wouldn't even count the liability of the federal government if a pilot shot an
innocent passenger.
The airline with the most stringent
security measures in the world -- the Israeli government's El Al Airline --
interrogates passengers before flights in a way that would be illegal in the
United States but does not arm its pilots. No hijacking in 34 years.
Some flight attendants say guns would provide a false
sense of security. The flight attendants say they want self-defense training
before pilots get guns since they are the first line of defense and have gotten
minimal training in how to prevent a hijacking.
One
pilot, scheduled to fly the plane that crashed into the Pentagon Sept. 11 two
days later, asked in frustration, "What good will a gun in the cockpit do if
terrorists are killing people in the cabin? To believe that pilots have nothing
with which to defend the cockpit, as some advocates of arming pilots have
asserted, is to ignore pilot skills, the availability of a crash ax and/or a
fire extinguisher, a reinforced cockpit door and the courage and resolve of
passengers and flight attendants alike."
Some people
worry about bullets flying around cockpits, possibly shattering windshields and
causing the pilot to lose control of the plane. They also note it would be
difficult for a pilot, strapped in and facing forward, to get quickly into
position to fire a gun.
The gunplay now goes to the
Senate, where advocates and opponents of arming pilots are riding herd on the
undecided. It is to be hoped the Senate will realize the skies are not the Wild
West and that guns are not the answer to every security problem.
NOTES: Ann McFeatters is
National Bureau chief for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio. Her
e-mail address is amcfeatters@nationalpress.com.
Document 46 of 142. 
