If law permitted CCW on Airlines with a 8 hour training course would you do it?

[shortwave]

What plans to you have to ensure a hijacker isn't boarding a plane now?

Can you site any hijackings that have occured since the system we currently have(although maybe not perfect and a PITA) thats happened?

And let me ask my question again, because it was asked in earnest.

Can't respond for anyone else but, I believe I tried to answer your question in earnest when you asked it. But you still have not tried to answer mine in earnest. Answering a question with a question is a sure sign you've not thought out the whole topic prior to voting.

On an airplane, the other alternative is a terrrorist killing eveyone on the plane by crashing it, or the government shooting the plane down and killing everyone to avoid the plane reaching a target

Have you researched the amount of hijackings in US history that the goal of the hijacker was NOT to fly the plane into a US target.

I also emboldened ' a terrrorist in your statement cause do you really think you'll have a terrorist/hijacker on a plane or multiple terrorists/hijackers to deal with?

If you answer MY question in earnest, please try to include in your plan a scenario such as:

You, MLeake and I are terrorist in which we've successfully boarded a commercial airliner and each of us are wired with explosives that are triggered to go off either by a remote or manual trigger. Maybe one of the couple triggers are wired to sense our pulse/heartbeat(wouldn't that be fun). We are sitting spaced apart through out the plane. Your towards the front, MLeake in the middle section, the I'm towards the tail section.

Our demands are NOT to fly plane into any target but rather hold flight as ransom for(insert any ridiculous amt. of $) and a plane out of the country.
Problem is the only persons you have communicated our demands with is the pilot. Also, since you are the leader of the group, you are the only one thats been positively ID'ed as a hijacker but you've let everyone know you're not alone.

Please explain how if everyone on this plane is cc'ing, that it would help.
Remember the only thing the cc'ing passengers know is that you are a hijacker, your wired with explosives, your not alone. The only other persons that know our demands are money and a plane out of the country is the pilot/co-pilot.

[JohnKSa]

Our demands are NOT to fly plane into any target but rather hold flight as ransom...

And, of course, everyone would believe that was the actual goal because the govt. considers hijackers to be honorable people who always tell the truth about their true goals.

The point being that the govt. can't afford to guess wrong. If the plane is taken over it's going to be shot down. There's simply not any room for error. 300 dead and a destroyed airliner is a pretty ugly prospect, but not compared to 2500 dead and potentially hundreds of millions or more in property losses.

It's a new world after 9/11 in terms of how hijackings will be dealt with. If a plane is hijacked and the passengers & crew can't regain control of the airplane very rapidly then everyone aboard will die when the plane is shot down.

In light of that reality, if every innocent person aboard except for the pilot is killed in the process of successfully regaining control of the aircraft then it's a win when one compares that outcome to the outcome of not regaining control before the government acts.

And if everyone dies in the process of attempting to regain control it's no worse than what will happen if the govt. has to act first.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

That point about the political consequences to concealed carry in general is excellent. Let 5 terrorists take over a 777 with permits or even one guy hose a plane and that will make the Gabby situation look like a picnic for gun rights.

You can kiss constitutional carry good bye and concealed carry if allowed will need a PHD from CHL University plus a security clearance far beyond what we do now.

Given the particular nature of the airline environment I see no major gain for allowing carry on the plane. It is NOT the mall.

BTW, is the cockpit secure from gunfire. There are armor piercing 9mms out there for military usage. Can the cockpit withstand those? Going to examine ammo that you carry now?

[shortwave]

In light of that reality, if every innocent person aboard except for the pilot is killed in the process of successfully regaining control of the aircraft then its a win when it compares to the outcome of not regaining control before the government acts.

In my scenario, the only positively ID'd hijacker is wayneinFL. MLeake and I are hijackers also but not ID'd to the passengers but the passengers know wayne is not alone and his buddies(MLeake and I) are also wired up. We're all wired with explosives.

If everyone, including the pilot is going to die if waynes trigger(or ours) is tripped, will it benefit the ultimate outcome if everyone on the plane is armed?

The point of my scenario is, if terrorist dedicate enough planning to their skijacking scheme its not going to matter who's armed on the plane once it gets into the air.

Wire the explosives right and if the hijackers die plane comes down just the same as gov't shooting it down. Everybody dies.

Stopping hijacking has got to be done on the ground and the US already has its hands full at present screening everyone the way it is. Suggesting allowing cc'ing on commercial airlines would make an already near impossible job that much harder. If not impossible.

Bad idea!

[JohnKSa]

If everyone, including the pilot is going to die if waynes trigger(or ours) is tripped, will it benefit the ultimate outcome if everyone on the plane is armed?

Nope, but it doesn't hurt either.

The point of my scenario is, if terrorist dedicate enough planning to their skijacking scheme its not going to matter who's armed on the plane once it gets into the air.

If it doesn't matter then the hijacking scenario doesn't provide a good rationale for restricting the rights of citizens to carry.

Generally speaking, rights can be legally restricted by our government when the government can show a likely and significantly negative outcome if the restriction is not put in place. In other words, rights are not restricted on the basis that people exercising the right won't necessarily provide a positive outcome but rather on the basis that if they exercise the right in the particular circumstances under consideration it is likely to make things significantly worse.

That's because our nation is founded on the principle that rights and the exercise of rights are already a significantly positive outcome. The idea that we must show that the rights provide other benefits before we can legally exercise them is a concept foreign to the basic founding principles of the country.

[shortwave]

If it doesn't matter then the hijacking scenario doesn't provide a good rationale for restricting the rights of citizens to carry

Coupled with the fact that hijackers/terrorist have to be stopped on the ground, if cc was legalized for airplanes, to keep the scenario I discribed or something similar from happening would be probably impossible... in that case...
...Nor the right to carry on a airplane.

Which brings me back to the question I asked earlier:

Of those that think we should legalize cc on commercial airlines,
"How would you stop hijackers from boarding a plane armed?"

[shortwave]

Generally speaking, rights can be legally restricted by our government when the government can show likely and significantly negative outcome if the restriction is not in place

Agree and would also say that thats why cc is not legal on airlines. Easy for the government to show significant negative outcome if it were legalized.

[Hook686]

If such happened, I'd never fly again.

[JohnKSa]

Easy for the government to show significant negative outcome if it were legalized.

Two things.

If this statement is true as it applies to hijackings then the comment that "it's not going to matter who's armed" in a hijacking is incorrect. It can't be both ways at once. If it doesn't matter who's armed then it can't also be true that allowing armed CHL holders aboard will likely result in a significantly negative outcome.

If you mean that there will likely be significant negative outcome in other scenarios not involving hijackings then that's another debate. I was careful to qualify my response so that it applied only to the hijacking scenario under discussion.

[shortwave]

I wasn't applying that statement to just the hijacking scenario but rather applying it to the reason cc is not currently legal on comm.airplanes altogether.

The negatives for legalizing it would outweigh the positives.

Especially,again,a successful plan insuring armed hijackers didn't board the plane in the first place... but also negatives such as AD's(who's gonna pay that law suit?), flight rage(road rage in the air) and the fact if you had a flight rage incident, how many people would be shot due to friendly fire in such confined quarters, etc.

[MLeake]

From a pilot's perspective, the negatives greatly outweigh the positives.

1) Since 9/11, unarmed passengers have done quite well at stopping breaches of the flight station.

2) Since 9/11, doors have been reinforced, and crews trained to not allow access to the flight station once the airplane is away from the gate. Hi-jackers aren't getting in without breaching charges.

3) Since 9/11, flight crews have a different mindset about the negative impact of letting a hijacker take control. They won't allow it.

4) Due to the nature of an airliner, way too many innocents are crammed into a very tight space; the odds of executing a clean shot (or, more likely, clean shots on multiple targets) in such a scenario are extremely poor. Odds of hitting an innocent, or damaging a control component or fuel line, or even hitting a flight crew member, will be higher than odds of hitting a legitimate target for the vast majority of CCW holders.

5) As pilot, I would not accept a flight that authorized random CCW types to carry on my plane. I'm pretty sure my friends in the industry, and this includes a lot of FFDO's, would feel the same.

[praetorian97]

Mleake. All great points.

[BGutzman]

The negatives for legalizing it would outweigh the positives.

Life is a big positive, if you are alive because you were allowed to excercise your right to bear arms that would probably be a good thing in the minds of most people.

Are you to wait for a single Air Marshall and pray that your plane is one of the 5 or 10% that has one onboard? What if the Air Marshall is the terrorist?

I understand that arguement that passengers have stood up for and faught valiantly and sometimes even successfully to stop a hijacker, I also understand at times it didnt work out so well.

Do your rights end simply because you get on a plane? I understand the government has a concern for the passengers and for whatever the plane could be flown into but does that arise to the level to negate or in someway modify the 2A? At some point should not the honorable citizenry be able to be trusted by its government to act honorably?

A lot of tough questions and I dont pretend to have all the answers but in the end at some point we have to be able to trust at least some citizens to be able to act lawfully and if we cant then the problem with the planes is really small fry. Are we to go from a nation where you are innocent until proven guilty or become (continue to be) a nation where you are guilty and never capable of being proven innocent concerning if you can be trusted to be responsible...

Weighty questions indeed..

[MLeake]

BGutzman, passengers stopping hijackers is a new dynamic. Prior to 9/11, the paradigm was that hijackers wanted to go someplace, make a statement, and/or demand a ransom. Common wisdom was to just ride it out, and let it be dealt with on the ground.

September 11 changed that.

Flight station doors will no longer be opened. Why is this a big deal? On Flight 93, the passengers fought back but lost - as the fight was going on in the flight station. Jam a body or two into a control yoke or the rudder pedals, (or even a body part, or for that matter a pencil) and you'd be amazed at how an airplane will come out of the sky.

If a knife is held to the throat of a flight attendant, these days, that door will still not open. The bad guys gaining access to the flight station is expected to kill everybody, now - so that access simply will not be given.

Without access to the flight station, terrorists need either cutting tools (in the sense of cutting through reinforced doors, not box cutters) and the time to employ them while the passengers and flight attendants are trying to stop them; explosives (blow the flight station door, or just blow up the plane), but those aren't easy to sneak aboard - and passengers are looking for it; or firearms (could handguns be used to get through the door - I doubt it, but suppose things are possible; they could definitely be used against critical aircraft structures).

Allowing people to bring firearms into the cabin with a certificate for proof of training actually would enable the bad guys. Unlike in your normal city or countryside, gun control can actually be made to work quite well in a vehicle that requires security checks for all who enter.

Note: at the time of 9/11, the box cutters the terrorists used were legal to have on board.

So, since 9/11, name one occasion where passengers have tried to stop a problem aboard the plane with bad results, BGutzman.

[BGutzman]

Well we have the 911 incident as you have mentioned that heroically failed and as I understand we have had disruptive passengers and the underwear and/or shoe bomber who were stopped.

Now we can argue symantics but Im not arguing symantics what I do argue is under the Bill of Rights and Constitution of our nation you are to be innocent until proven guilty, its not a government option it is the law.

I also argue that the government has an obligation to be able to show that it can trust the citizenry to be honorable citizens, I can think of governments in history that did (or do not) not trust the citizens and we dont want to be any of them.... (U.S.S.R, North Korea, Nazi Germany, Communist Eastern Europe) further given our rights as citizens we should not be treated in such a manner.... Its not politics it rights, and they are guarnteed in our founding documents.

Maybe what we should require is background checks on all passengers and maybe we should ban anyone and everyone whos ever been convicted of a crime of any kind from flying. (As obviously they have shown bad judgement in the past) We could also as a matter of policy shackle passengers until they deboard the plane at the destination. The point I am making is there must be balance in the governments approach, certainly we must seek to protect our nation but in doing so we must not become a police state..

IMHO the needs of a nation to protect its people is at the very heart of 2A and even with its liabilities is what the founders intended.

We have a nation the was created with rights as its founding principles and in some way we must find a way to honor those principals even at the airport. I certainly dont think our government is acting with ill will but history has shown how even the most honorable governments and people can make mistakes that world simply cannot forget...

We have no guarntees but our rights and one of those is to bear arms for our defense.... even if others dont like it...

Further it does not require that a terrorist is even able to enter the cabin of an aircraft; hydraulics and such could be overriden outside the cabin. Fortunately the enemies of our nation tend not to be that bright...

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Just arguing for something that increases risks terribly for an absolute view of rights is just not supportable. The BOR isn't a suicide pact.

I suppose one could argue that the right to keep and bear arms implies that a private citizen could own a nuclear bomb and take it on the plane also.

Why not grenades?

We've had folks argue here that the Constitution supports owning such. So toss one down the aisles at the hijacker.

Mleake nailed it.

[Talin342]

Heck, I'd be happy if they let me take my pocketknife on the plane again.

[BGutzman]

I suppose one could argue that the right to keep and bear arms implies that a private citizen could own a nuclear bomb and take it on the plane also.

Why not grenades?

We've had folks argue here that the Constitution supports owning such. So toss one down the aisles at the hijacker.

You have a good point and one that I appreciate but regardless of if arms are ever allowed on board as a CCW we do need to find a point where the government sets some standard as to what citizens can and should be trusted.

Even people with background checks can betray the public trust and John or Jane Q citizen has a right to be treated with a certain level of trust unless they have proven otherwise bad characters in the past.

Israel certainly has security concerns and they dont employ security in the same manner we do and yet they do a very good job of stopping the BGs. I do not know all the measures they do use but it would certainly be worth researching.

As far as firearms on planes in CCW mode, I know its not going to happen anytime soon. I do (and I believe you would agree) that people have the right to some sort of defense even on planes.

[shortwave]

Wikipedia has a nice list of hijackings dating from 1950-2010.

Might be a good idea to review some of those listed that were done with guns.

I'd think there has been enough to warrant our current 'no cc' on plane gunlaws.

We can't just focus on the tactics/reasons used on 9-11, but rather the entire history of hijackings and what weapons were used in ALL of them.

Heck, I'd be happy if they let me take my pocketknife on the plane again.

There were some done with knives too.