[thechat] Airlines

isaac isaac at members.evolt.org
Thu Sep 13 19:14:58 CDT 2001


> wouldn't the cockpit be sealed from the inside? i mean, pilots can
> presumably leave the cockpit at some stage (like when the plane
> lands)?

terrorists wait outside with a knife to the throat of a stewardess:

"open the door, pilot, or we'll start killing the crew and passengers -- one
by one."


do you assume that they're going to crash the plane and kill everyone, and
thus ignore the loss of all passengers in an attempt to save a building full
of people?

or do you assume that the terrorists might just want to take the plane OS
where after a stand-off on the runway, most passengers are released
unharmed?



there's an "article" on the open source news site, newsforge
(http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/09/11/2048256), that opensource
evangelist, ESR, thinks the whole situation would be solved if everyone
could carry guns freely on planes:

---
We have learned today that trying to keep civilian weapons out of airplanes
and other areas vulnerable to terrorist attack is not the answer either --
indeed, it is arguable that the lawmakers who disarmed all the
non-terrorists on those four airplanes, leaving them no chance to stop the
hijackers, bear part of the moral responsibility for this catastrophe.

Perhaps it is too much to hope that we will respond to this shattering
tragedy as well as the Israelis, who have a long history of preventing
similar atrocities by encouraging their civilians to carry concealed weapons
and to shoot back at criminals and terrorists. But it is in that policy of a
distributed response to a distributed threat, with every single citizen
taking personal responsibility for the defense of life and freedom, that our
best hope for preventing recurrences of today's mass murders almost
certainly lies.
---

say hello to a personal arms race. once the terrorists are sporting bullet
proof armour and advanced weaponry, should civilians be expected to have the
same?

how would someone armed with a gun stop a terrorist armed with nerve gas
that leaks when his fingers leaves a trigger?



isaac





More information about the thechat mailing list