Chemistry 101

[filkertom]

Jayzus H. Christ on a bicycle.

Even if you completely buy into everything the Bush Administration has ever said about terrorism, this is just insanely stupid and incompetent. And, if you don't... it's right in line with every other damn thing.

Comments

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I have a better idea. Instead of trying to ban everything, the government should not only allow people to bring weapons on flights, they should encourage it. How many terrorists are going to try anything if they know there might be some Dirty Harry type just ready to say, "Go ahead, punk -- make my day!"?

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes! The "Texas Gunslinger" theory! Or more geeky - "An armed society is a polite society."

That idea has its good and bad points IMHO. Personally - as far as guns are concerned I think it's a bad idea. (0)

If we're talking doing this on a flight then I could see allowing personal blades but having firearms in gun lockers at the back of the plane that make an extremely loud noise when opened and are keyed to the passenger ticket or something.

The personal knives would stop any "box cutter" takeovers. The locker would allow anybody that was going to take action against the hijackers to get their weapon.

Now, just typing this up I find that it's an extremely complicated solution that has a much much simpler one - issue small cans of pepper spray to the passengers as they board and lock the cockpit. What's the worst that could happen? Some hijackers decide to spray anyone they can to subdue the plane but in the fight almost everyone gets sprayed and the plane lands prematurely with a bunch of passengers in a ton of pain but otherwise safe and alive. (Barring the few pepper allergy cases.)

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(0) I'd like to see something akin to MZB's Darkover where anything that is a range weapon is illegal but anything else is fair game. It would make any conflict much more personal and the more personal those conflicts the harder it is for people to deny responsibility or shift blame.