2002-06-01 Arm the Passengers

2002-06-01 Eric S. Raymond Armed and Dangerous \airport security\gun control\terrorism\citizen empowerment http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=11 Arm the Passengers Arm the Passengers  The recent controversy over arming airline pilots against a possible repetition of the 9/11 atrocity misses a crucial problem that makes arming pilots relatively ineffective: terrorists would know in advance where the guns are, and be able to game against that.

Let's say you are a terrorist executing a hijacking. You know the pilots are armed. Then here are your tactics — you send the pilots a message that you will begin shooting cabin crew and passengers, one every five minutes, until the pilots throw their guns into the main cabin. Just to make sure, you split your gang into an A team and a B team. After the pilots have thrown out some guns, you send the A team into the cockpit. If the pilots resist, the B team kills more people.

Sky marshals can be taken out in a similar way. Your B team, armed with knives, breaks cover and announces the hijacking. The sky marshals (if there are any present; they’re now flying on less than 1% of planes, and can’t be trained fast enough for that figure to go up significantly in the foreseeable future) break cover. Now your A team, armed with guns, breaks cover and disposes of the sky marshals. Game over.

Anyone who thinks either scenario can be prevented by keeping firearms off-board should put down that crack pipe now. Tiger team exercises after 9/11 have repeatedly demonstrated that the new, improved airport security has had effectively zero impact on a determined bad-guy's ability to sneak weapons past checkpoints – it’s still easy. Despite government spin, there is no prospect this will change; the underlying problem is just too hard.

For terrorists to be effectively deterred, they need to face a conterthreat they cannot scope out in advance. That’s why the right solution is to arm the passengers, not just the pilots.

&ldquo;For terrorists to be effectively deterred, they need to face a conterthreat they cannot scope out in advance. That’s why the right solution is to arm the passengers, not just the pilots.&rdquo;   