Re: "Thinking Level" of FAA

["Strickert, Rick" <rstrickert@SIGNATURESCIENCE.COM>]

Herb Gottlieb from New York City wrote:

> Why not go all the way .....  No outer garments
> or checked baggage either... with all passengers
> being X-rayed to be sure that they had not swallowed
> any explosives ????????  Convenient? No.
>
> Effective? No.

Equipment and procedures should continue to be developed that reduce the
possibility of guns and bombs being smuggled aboard planes, for obvious
reasons.  But allowing passengers to carry knives on a plane (or
distributing them to each passenger, to be turned in at the destination)
is something that needs to be considered.  Non-metallic knives or razor
blades are too easy for terrorists to conceal.  With everyone carrying a
knife, the chance of even three or four terrorists taking control of a
plane (provided the cockpit doors are reinforced) or threatening to kill
all the passengers would be much reduced, unless the passengers on a
flight are going to a pacifist convention.

This also raises the issue of whether some kind of combat training (such
as in the military draft we had 30 years ago) would not be a bad idea.
There will always be conscientious objectors, and those (as I saw in
basic training) who are simply incapable of using lethal weapons.  But
it would guarantee a significant fraction of the (flying) population
would have some training if needed in an emergency.  

Rick Strickert
Austin, TX