Pilot: Feds dragging feet in arming pilots

[Nottingham]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2125856

Pilot: Feds dragging feet in arming pilots
Associated Press

A commercial airline pilot told a national gun rights conference in Houston today that the Transportation Security Administration is continuing to drag its feet when it comes to arming pilots in the cockpit.

"We are being resisted -- the will of the people, the will of the Congress -- by the organization that was given charge of this effort," said Robert Davie, a pilot for 30 years who is a board member of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance.

Davie, who said he wouldn't identify the airline he works for due to the current "political environment," said only a few hundred of the thousands of pilots who have volunteered have received the TSA training necessary to carry a handgun in the cockpit.

"At this point, a long way down the road, we have approximately 200-250 pilots armed," Davie said of the training which President Bush approved last November. "That is a pretty pitiful number I would submit to you."

more....

I trust a pilot with my life when I get on the plane! He might as well be armed! :bounce:

[Bridget Burke]

1. "Armed pilots banned 2 months before 9/11"

"A 40-year-old Federal Aviation Administration rule that allowed commercial airline pilots to be armed was inexplicably rescinded two months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, leading aviation security experts to lay at least some of the blame for the tragedy at the feet of airlines, none of which took advantage of the privilege while it was in effect.

"The FAA adopted the armed pilot rule shortly after the Cuban missile crisis of 1961 to help prevent hijackings of American airliners. It remained in effect for four decades."

www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27647

I've got mixed feelings about pilots with guns but I find the timing of the ban "interesting". Wasn't that about the time Ashcroft stopped flying commercial?

[DoNotRefill]

2. Yup....

we trust them to fly a huge guided missile full of people around, and then don't trust them with a handgun....

There's something REALLY absurd about that. It's kind of like teachers with guns....If you don't trust them with guns, then WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TRUSTING THEM WITH YOUR CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!