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President Obama’s Plan To Kill Armed Pilot Program

By: Brian Darling (Diary) | February 15th, 2012 at 07:15 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

The President’s wants to end the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program (FFDO), also known as the armed pilots program. If Congress were to follow President Obama’s recommendation contained in his $3.8 trillion FY2013 budget proposal, they would be making a huge mistake. This anti-terrorism program has been a success and a cost effective means to protect the cockpits of commercial aviation from 9-11 style terrorism.

The President’s budget lists the FFDO program as one of the few “cuts” to federal spending. They have reduced the program from the $25 million they received this year to $12 million for FY2013. This massive cut to the program would destroy it. Consider this evidence that the Obama Administration would be more happy to rely on intrusive screening procedures being applied to toddlers, the elderly, and Senators, rather than pilots with guns to provide a last line of defense to aviation terrorism.

There is a saying in sports that the best referees are the ones you don’t even notice. Not many Americans understand the breadth and effectiveness of the armed pilots program, because the program has been scandal free. Our nation has not experienced another 9-11 style terrorist attack thanks in no small part to armed pilots in the cockpits of commercial aircraft to stop terrorists intent on using planes as weapons of mass destruction.

According to the Obama Administration’s budget proposal the goal of security at airports is to ”mitigate the highest amount of risk at the lowest cost.”

The voluntary FFDO program was created as a “last defense” layer of security at a time when comprehensive aviation screening and other physical security measures were not fully developed or deployed on a system-wide basis.

This claim is false. The Obama Administration is arguing that the FFDO program was to be a band aid until the federal government could set up screening to prevent another incident of aviation hijacking and terrorism. They are wrong, because a rational screening and security regime would include a last line of defense for pilots if other security measures fail.

Look at the history of the program if you need more evidence of the fallacy of this claim. On September 5, 2002, Senators Bob Smith (R-NH) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) teamed up on an amendment to the bill that created the Department of Homeland security. The amendment passed overwhelmingly and created the armed pilots program while increasing anti-terrorism training for flight attendants. These ideas were supposed to be permanent programs to provide a last line of defense to terrorism for flight attendants and pilots.

This program is large. The numbers of pilots in the program is considered secret, yet USA Today reported in 2008 that one in ten pilots were armed and cleared to carry a firearm while flying.

More than one in 10 of the nation’s airline pilots are cleared to carry a handgun while flying, and the number will continue to grow, according to a Transportation Security Administration projection. The TSA, which has declined to disclose the number of armed pilots, revealed in a recent budget document that 10.8% of airline crewmembers were authorized to carry guns.

The fact that a large number of pilots are in the program today is evidence that it is working quietly to protect passengers and the public. A bipartisan majority in the House and Senate supported the creation of this program in both 2001 and 2002, yet both the Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration have been hostile to this program. This idea by the Obama Administration will put Americans in harms way and it should be opposed.

According to the Obama Administration in the justification to cut FFDO the following:

Since 2001, however, there have been a number of enhancements to aviation security. TSA now conducts 100 percent screening of all passengers and their carryon items, has overseen installation of reinforced and locking cockpit doors on aircraft that operate in U.S. airspace, and has increased passenger and flight crew awareness to address security risks. Combined, these improvements have greatly lowered the chances of unauthorized cockpit access and represent a comprehensive and redundant risk-mitigation strategy that begins well before passengers board the aircraft.

For a President who proposes $3.8 trillion in spending next year, it is odd that he has targeted the one program in the TSA that is scandal free and providing a quiet deterrent to terrorists planning future attacks. If President Obama is successful in killing this program and winding it down, he will be to blame if a pilot is attacked in the cockpit of a commercial aircraft. This is a terrible idea and one hopes that Members of Congress do not follow the Obama Administration’s recommendations on this very important national security issue.

Tags: Armed Pilots, Federal Flight Deck Officer Program, FFDO, Gun Control

COMMENTS

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Ausonius

When you add this to the huge cuts in research and development for future weapons systems, to the 80% reduction in nuclear warheads, the reduction of forces across the board in the armed services, one can only conclude that BIG BRObama wants to place a “Kick Me” sign on Uncle Sam’s back.

Robert Kagan wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal last Saturday on the ignorant-of-History, wishful, and downright dumb thinking behind any foreign policy theory where America retreats, either to show how nice we really are via leftist pacifist theories of international behavior, or to follow some libertarian dream of isolationism.

So is eliminating armed pilots supposed to show that we are beyond terrorism, that the War On Terrorism is over, or is it a way to hire more unionized, lower-class airport screeners, slow down air travel even more, and hurt the profits of airlines, because airplanes pollute, and people should be walking to their destinations anyway?!

openeyes

Where, praytell, do you get your misinformation about “huge cuts to R&D for our over-proliferated future weapons” or an “80% reduction on nuclear warheads?” We could only WISH for such highly needed budget cuts within our overbloated military industrial complex…..which goes against heavy warnings of at least five founding fathers. The USA spends more than half the world combined on what is wrongly deemed “defense”….war and weapons do not quite “defend our nation” From what? You’ve been biten by the media manipulation bug and the alarmist bells of superhyped up “terrorist” threats….when in fact each of us Americans are like 12,000 times each more likely to die of cancer from environmental pollution than any “terrorist” attack. While “terrorism” has always been a threat, it is not nearly as much an issue as you people feeling we need to be surrounded by yet MORE weapons of mass destruction or fighter jets, neither of which should be in any future budgetary plan. Are you also under false impression Iran is such a threat we need to attack or “arm” ourselves for the ready? Another false flag operation to fuel the angry masses into self-perceived need for war and weapons. We’ve spend multi-trillions in this direction needlessly over past decade, causing this self-inflicted recession. It’s looking quite anti-American. Let’s move onward, evolve rather than revolve around past false bravados. Here’s an article to read. LEARN. Think outside the box of American imperialism, our era of hegemony is over. http://terri-lynn-sullivan.suite101.com/911-a-decade-later–lessons-learned-and-unlearned-a387499

Dave_A

‘War on multiple distributed stateless and state-seeking international organizations’ just doesn’t resonate with the average American voter, who spent their history & government classes asleep or oggling the next weekend’s date…

As for weapons systems, the ‘military industrial complex’ garbage should be left *in* history – not taken out of the context of what Eisenhower experienced presiding over the invasion of Europe & the defeat of Nazi Germany by a bunch of pacifist volantaryist idiots in the ‘End All Wars – Vote Ron Paul’ movement….

Yes, we spend tons of money on our military (Personally, I prefer Department of War to Department of Defense – may be a bit old fashioned in that sense) – but that’s an entirely constitutional use of government power – and a needed one if we wish to retain the quality of life we have.

If you look through history, there has rarely-if-ever been a nation that was able to be an economic leader without being a military leader as well. The US Dollar is the world’s reserve currency not because of any unique facet of our civillian economy, but because it’s ‘backed’ by the world’s most powerful armed forces.

As for ‘weapons of mass destruction’ – that is a specific term referring to a group of weapons that with one exception – nuclear – the US does not posses. And while we do have nukes, we have not done anything to modernize – much less increase – our stockpile in decades. In fact, we have been gradually reducing our warhead-count in cooperation with the Russians.

Fighter jets? That comment shows your extreme ignorance – aircraft have a distinct airframe life in terms of hours of service. Once a plane is ‘timed out’, it’s DONE – the reason for this being accumulated metal fatigue, something that can’t be ‘patched’ or ‘fixed’. Even without new technologies that make our aircraft more vulnerable to enemy fire, the fact is that designs which were created in the 1970s and early 80s (the F-15 and F-16) presently form the backbone of our Air Force, and they are rapidly reaching the end of their service lives.

A few years ago, there was a re-occurring problem with F-15s crashing due to in-flight airframe failure, cause being metal fatigue. These planes can’t keep flying forever, they absolutely have to be replaced with something. Originally, the F-15Cs were supposed to be replaced with F-22s, but since that order got cut short, we now have no real option but to buy the more-expensive (yes, it was originally supposed to be cheaper) and less-survivable F-35.

As for your rant about ‘arming ourselves’, YES we absolutely do need to arm ourselves in advance… You don’t go running to the gun store WHILE someone is burglarizing your house… Same applies to international thuggery – weapons take TIME to develop and manufacture these days – wars take far less time than the average R&D-to-fielding cycle, which means we absolutely DO need to have weapons ready for the next war…

Peace is an illusion created by threat of irresistible force. There is no other way, ’till Christ returns & sets us all straight. I should know – I’ve seen & fought the current enemy first hand… They do not want peace, they want to win – and by winning obtain personal & political power… And they will do anything to achieve that end.
Ausonius

Accusing me of lying or being misinformed is always a BAD idea, punk!

Allow me to quote from Joanne Carney’s report for the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

Chapter 5
p.p. 59-60

“? For the first time in recent years, the Department of Defense (DOD) R&D budget would decline, with a proposed decrease of over $5.1 billion or 6.2 percent to $77.8 billion (see Table II-2) from FY 2010….

“DOD Science and Technology (S&T) spending, which includes basic research, applied research, medical research, and technology development would fall 11.8 percent or $1.7 billion to $13.0 billion (see Table II-5).

? In contrast to previous years, the research-oriented Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) would not do as well with a total request of $2.98 billion in FY 2012, the same amount enacted in FY 2010 (see Table II-3). DOD weapon development, on the other hand, would decline 5.2 percent for a total of $63.5 billion.”

See:

www.aaas.org/spp/rd/rdreport2012/12pch05.pdf

Many thanks to Dave A for his well-written comments against the claims of “OpenEyes.”

deVere

I get the feeling Obama doesn’t care about my safety.

funwithknives

with each and every one of us since 1/21/2009. The Collective and The Dialectic are his aims, and incrementalism, and what passes for public education, is his ally.
How much proof does “Boobus Americani” need? Until it comes up,slaps them in the face in a very personal way, and Hurts as a Mental Mile Post, will the American Public do anything meaningful.
{Meanwhile ,what’s on ‘American Idol’, to-nite…..? How about that Lin guy, huh…?}

Tbone

as a matter of policy. He hates America, Americans, Western Civilization and is a blatant.

He funds our enemies and insults are friends. If this were really still the United States of America he would be impeached and arrested.

Does any thinking person believe he would not prefer to be a dictator rather than President. Chavez is his role model.

He is scum.

greyeagle

I could not agree more!
dudette

that we have forever turned our backs on the day when we could impeach a treasonous president or judge? or lost the will thru PC brainwashing that we cannot fight a war and win decisivley? PC has to be fought at every level. It is a long fight and hope we can engage more Americans to shed the brainwashing and think constitutionally. I can only hope.

statenislandcon

Has there been a single incident in which an armed pilot used his or her firearm to prevent a terrorist incident?

If the answer is no this program shouldn’t just have its funding cut, it should be eliminated entirely as a waste of money. Pilots should certainly be allowed to arm themselves in the cockpit, but I can’t imagine why the rest of us should spend millions of dollars on that.

Tbone

The answer is obviously no, so the prodigious effort it must have taken to make you literate was a waste of money that the rest of us had to pay for.

statenislandcon

I’ll just be over here shaking my head while you, and those like you, “justify” millions in spending with insults and appeals to emotion.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Envisioning when all the conservatives stop support spending without benefit.

http://stevemaley.com Steve Maley

It is impossible to know how many incidents have been deterred by the combination of hardened cockpits and potentially armed pilots.

The cost is pennies per airline passenger, and not personally intrusive like the TSA’s colorectal screening.

As for your head, shake away.

http://MichaelHarrington.org creinstein

It only would take 1 gun to stop the terrorists, and one tap to the head and one to the chest.

That would be the one last time terrorists tried to hijack aan American plane, and we will have won that one.

goodolboy

Why not just say all pilots can carry guns? Have they not already passed a background check to be a pilot for the airline? Why does common sense cost money…unless it ain’t so common in the government?

irishpol

If it’s a voluntary program, let the airlines or the pilots themselves purchase the weapons. The airlines could require that the pilots to have specific safety training and that would be that.
But notice that, not only in this site, but writer of this story and everyone in general simply assumes that the government must be involved with a bureaucrat on every doorstep for anything to work. Wow; no wonder this country’s in trouble.
rickc

but you have no idea what the FFDO program is and what it entails. Nobody, not even our pilots, and I am one, wants UNTRAINED pilots carrying weapons on our aircraft. What is not being said is that each pilot that carries goes through and intense training program designed specifically to teach pilots how to defend their aircraft. THIS is what costs the money. Its called training. I am also a CCW holder but had never been trained in tactics to deal with terrorists on board an airplane. Believe me, the training is intense, well designed, and worth every penny the flying public pays for pilots to go through it. Enough said.

funwithknives

Carrying concealed stops untold thousands of potential crimes before they ever start, because potential offenders have doubts,and wish to see another day.
FAA regulations demand the training,and if ticket rates have to go up to fund this pittance, so be it. Part of Barry’s budget raises per arrival/departure fees on each airline flight . Allocate some of this revenue and Problem Solved. Or use some-a that Lucre from the TSA budget and maintain what has been successful by evidence,and example.
The Precautionary Principal is used so often to waste untold Billions it is a cryin’ shame. {Yeah, that-there E P A gets it right 100% of the time!}The insult Sir/Madam, is you and your pitiful attempt at Reducto-ad-absurdum. If you or yours would be involved in a future attempt,and harm would result, what would your outcry be then?(how often do you and yours fly, anyway?)
*Solydra* would have financed this for a good long while and would have been” justified”, but “not gonna happen”. Not while bundlers abound, and hay is to be reaped.
Go , and shake your head.The resultant motion may be good for what ails you. Stranger things have happened.
Here’s to: A Happy Accident
ihateliberals

If all cockpits were known to be armed there would be a minimal need for any other type of screening. The TSA couldn’t prevent a serious hijacker if they really tried hard. A serious hijacker would just take the plane or the crew or even the TSA agent hostage. TSA screeners are not armed and anyone entering the airport could easily take them hostage and then take over a flight. If that shuld happen even an armed pilot couldn’t do much about it. The only recourse then would be to shoot the plane down if it were to be allowed to take off. The real bottomline is that if someone with enough money wants to hijack a plane they are going to do it and TSA armed pilots nor any other method will prevent that.

sulmak

That he himself appears to have abandoned.

After all a nuclear weapon has never been launched against us, so keeping some as a deterrent is just fiscally irresponsible.

If the 911 pilots had been armed, do you think they would have been able to take the plane with boxcutters?
davesinsanantonio

Has the EMS prevented a single heart attack?

Here are two actual facts for you. Those communities who pass mandatory homeowner gun ownership laws see their crime rates drop amazingly. Those communities which pass no-gun laws see their crime rates rise drastically.

It is called deterrence. If the bad guys know you may be armed, they will probably not attack you, unless they are insane, stooopid, or have a death wish. In which case a gun may save your life. Especially if you have been trained properly in how to use it.

Since we know that Muslim terrorists may have a death wish being armed against them is prudent. The purpose of the federal program is to insure that the gun in the cockpit does more good than harm.

If you suddenly found out that your seatmate on a flight was intending to storm the cockpit, would you be glad you had supported Obummer’s disarm the pilot budget cuts????
pilotguy40

one child who died in a school fire since the 1960′s so its time we end all the useless things in schools like fire alarms, sprinklers, fire extinguishers, fire rated materials in the schools, fire drills, etc, etc, etc.
longpond

I think your reasoning is flawed as this program is defensive and like all defensive programs will only “prove” itself if attacked. Similar to issuing body armor and weapons to police since the vast, vast majority of police are neither shot at or ever have to use their weapon.

That being said, I do not understand what the expense is for? How much does it cost to give permission?

edintexas

The problem is the Bush Administration was also opposed to this program. But subtle about the opposition (which may have come from the DoJ). Rather than simply relying on the background checks, etc, which commercial pilots go through, the Bush Administration decided that the pilots who decided to voluntarily be armed must complete a course of instruction in handling a handgun. And not just any course, but a course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (IIRC, this was implemented at the western center, not the Georgia center – but I could be wrong about that). But I was thinking I remembered that the pilots had to pay their own way there. At least their travel, I’m not sure about whether they had to pay for living expenses – but I suspect they did as Federal Agencies sending LEOs to these centers are required to pay for the training and living expenses while in training.

Just background checking would have been too simple when you are opposed to the idea to begin with. This administration is just even more hostile to the program than the Bush administration was.

Brian Darling

Dear Statenislandcon,
You are wrong.
One of the purposes of the program is to be a deterrent to terrorists planning 9-11 style attacks. When you eliminate the program, then you are eliminating the deterrent. The fact that no armed pilot has had to deploy a firearm to protect the cockpit against an attack is not evidence that the program should be cut. It is evidence that the program is working.
The program serves two functions.
1. To provide a deterrent. Bad guys don’t know which pilots are armed therefore they can’t plan an attack based on which flights are protected v not protected. 9-11 happened because pilots were soft targets. They will be again if you and President Obama disarm pilots again.
2. If bad guys try to storm a cockpit, then an armed pilot is enabled to use deadly force to protect against hijacking.
rick57

The money is needed for training, do you even realize the degree of profiency required to accurately fire a weapon inside an airplane? No you don’t, you are most likely some anti-gun libereal nut. You need to know where the bullet is going to impact inside an airplane for obvious reasons the foremost of which is cabin pressure loss should the firer miss his/her target.
len_kc

Exactly how many terrorists have been intercepted by the Granny groping TSA thugs?

I see……

funwithknives

had his cholestomy bag torn? Did he violate the 3 ounce rule?

hmichaelh

According to what you have said here, we should get rid of our local fire dept. because I have never had a fire at my house. You don’t spend a lot of time thinking things through, do you?

znjs

Because if not your example doesn’t hold.
lapert

You do realize that the fire department isn’t acting as a deterrent against fires and has a record of extinguishing them, right?

It is virtually impossible to determine if armed pilots is an additional deterrent to terrorists – we had so few incidents of terrorism that involved storming the cockpit before this was put into place that we would need decades to determine a statistical correlation let alone have any confidence in causation. For my money, I think securing the cockpit door suffices as the necessary and sufficient step for deterrence against 9/11 like acts of terrorism..

That said, I agree with others who have suggested the cost can be born directly by the airlines if they wish to arm a subset of their pilots.

ihateliberals

but a punishment for the person that did it. The thing with armed pilots is that once a terrorist gets access t a plane the pilot can take out the terrorist. Not necessarily a deterrent but a solution.

lapert

The argument here was that its role of as a deterrent was a big factor in its value as policy.

Frankly, if the purpose is just to have someone who can take out a terrorist than why do we need both this and the air marshal program?
David123

Terrorist gets lead poisoning if either there is an armed pilot or an air marshall on the plane.
lapert

Not every flight has an armed pilot. Do we need more air marshals? Maybe, I don’t know but I don’t see why we need redundant security layers – particularly if one may very well be funded by the airlines on their own if the government got out of the way.
openeyes

My Lord “ihateliberals”, are you justifying the death penalty as a proper “punishment” for an alleged murder? Then by your standards, we should then administer the “dealth penalty” to the murderer that just murdered the alleged murderer, hey? Apart from the fact that in the USA where there is no liberty and freedom for all, only some with our legal system , financial system and political system so corrupt…there are high statistics of innocent women and no less sad men being administered the “death penalty” And don’t say “we would need to know for sure that person is guilty”…..our system does not always come to truthful conclusion with all the legal pay outs going on. It never ceases to amaze me how the same people naive enough to believe in all this overhyped “terrorism” to point of believing the USA is ‘”fighting for its country” or somehow “protecting its freedom and security”….in other words, believing in war which is mass murder itself….also believe in the death penalty. Those same hypocrites tend to be so anti-abortion. What is the sense in bringing that beautiful little girl and no less terrible little boy into this world if our corrupt leaders would ask them to “fight for their country” as the spin goes? Nobody should be put into harms way for nothing but political and financial unrest, or oil reserves. No, I am not “liberal” or a “pacifist”, just an open eyed American aware of the big picture analysis. We don’t even KNOW for sure if a bunch of “terrorist” tried to breach the cockpits on 9/11 and “hijacked” airplanes…it’s theory, while several highly credible sources bring evidence of internal plotting, either way should we have spend trillions on wasted wars/weapons? NO. Stop being so pro-kill, pro-guns, alarmist and look within our own country for the possible bigger threats
Dave_A

War is like gravity – it exists, weather you believe in it or not….

So, ‘openeyes’, you’re a 9/11 truther, anti gun, pacifist…

What the hell are you doing on a conservative website?

War isn’t mass-murder – although that has happened at some points, it’s something we & most civilized nations go to extreme lengths to avoid – putting our own forces at risk rather than harming innocents… Our enemies, not so much…

Here at home, the death penalty is the only rational response to the sort of criminal who, without a doubt, cannot be reformed or rehabilitated. Certain offenses are so henious that they indicate a complete inability to operate in civil society – and for those offenses death is the only humane punishment (life without parole is still a death sentence, after all – however the means of execution (confinement until suicide or death by natural causes) is far slower & more painful)…

And there is NO credible evidence for ‘internal plotting’ on 9/11 – all evidence points to Osama Bin Laden & his organization trying to pull off a coup-de-grace, believing that such a massive attack would cause us to abandon the middle east & make way for Osama’s usurpation of the Saudi throne….

By the way, we put ourselves in harms way, voluntarily… No one put a gun to my head & forced me to sign my contract… I’m proud of what I’ve done, too – to include every round of ammunition fired. You can keep your head in the sand & try to wish the bad guys away (both the enemies-of-the-US variety & the more mundane stateside criminal types), but the fact is they’re really out there & they will kill you if given the chance… Unless someone like me kills them first….

But of course, to you, I’m just a murderer in a nifty uniform, right?
Scope

We should just designate an island large enough to house the worst of the criminals, including murderers and rapists, and child killers. No buildings, no food, no medicines, no anything. Let them kill each other off.
jdw4america

It was war which freed our ancestors to build the greatest country the world has ever known.

It was war which freed the Americans enslaved and brutalized in the plantations and mansions of the gentry who grew fat and rich on the labor and oppression of others.

It was war that freed Europe, North Africa and ultimately the world from the tyranny of the Nazis.

It was war that made it possible for the people of South Korea to stave off the communist monolith which terrorizes and represses their brothers in the North.

War did these things. It was not soft words and heartfelt sentimentality. It was not a ridiculous assumption that violence is always a response to injustice. It was not a childish, churlish, naive belief that if we play nice so will everyone else. It was not a pathetic group of pampered cowards trying to sound enlightened and superior to the rest of us.

Men have bled and died in this country and all over the world to secure for you the right to speak condescendingly to the great unwashed masses like us. They’re still bleeding and dying – for their own families, for ours, for yours. They don’t talk down to you for disagreeing with them; they don’t tell you that you’re stupid. They don’t even ask for a thank you, although they deserve that and much more. They keep us safe, and people like you need to remember that the only thing standing between us and the evil that never stops hoping to crush us is those men; the ones who have prepared for war.

Dave_A

Mainly because there hasn’t been a situation where a terrorist has tried to breach the cockpit door, post 9/11. That doesn’t invalidate the program.

The cost of the program is not merely issuing guns, but the training & certifying of each armed pilot as a federal LEO & qualifying them to engage targets safely on a crowded aircraft (one of the worst possible gunfight scenarios, in terms of collateral damage concerns)…
David123

No.

We deterred the Soviet Union.

Dave_A

I support the FFDO program, for exactly that reason….

Now, we don’t have to worry about hijackers siezing planes & using them as missiles…

AQ has moved on to just blowing the planes up, a tactic which has so far failed largely due to successful actions by US and UK security services in discovering & disrupting plots before an attack could be made (most of the cases), one case of passengers kicking the bomber’s butt (Richard Reid), and one case of crappy bomb-making (Underbomber)….
Tbone

What, you don’t think Stalin didn’t notice the implications of those mushroom clouds on whatever he had planned for Europe? You think that wasn’t one of the considerations in the White House to drop the bombs?

Try to catch up.

openeyes

deVere….war and weapons do not bring you or any of the American people “safety”. And, in fact, just the opposite. The USA has had its freedom, liberty, justice and national security diminshed dramatically over past decade since 9/11 BECUASE of spending mulit-trillions in this high Hitler style negative direction, bringing our country down to a deep recession, making us less safe, less free. “terrorism” is extremely overhyped……your clear and present danger is closer than you think. Our Pentagon is an extremist regime in and of itself, and war torn America cannot play perpetual global cop anymore. Our era of hegemony is over, the American Empire has self-destructed…….don’t worry, the USA would never be destroyed from the outside even if we reduced our horrifically overblown “defense” spending by at least 50%….we would still emerge as the worlds “military power”, if that is something to be “proud of”. Many of us find that attitude downright anti-American and very unpatriotic, since, as five of our founding fathers warned, our MIC being fed by financial elite on Wall Street have brought our country down. Stop worrying the small stuff…..and become more concerned with NOT reducing spending on war/weapons so that we don’t become a 3rd world nation. We are already much closer than you think….9 nations with more freedom, 81 nations with more peace due to our wars/extolling “virtue” over weapons and killing. Even if 9/11 was a flat out “sneak attack” from outside (highly unliikly) rather than at least partially plotted within and known about like Pearl Harbor to fuel negative war profiteering) we still should never have gone to war. Like our history, we have always gone to war for totally spurious reasons. READ: good book “The American way of War” by Eugene Jarecki
dougrodrigues

It’s the government! The armed pilot program only requires that the pilots buy their own weapons, get some training, and start a paper trail with the TSA. I can’t imagine anything that would be cheaper in government than the armed pilot program. If the government choses to spend money making the program un-necessarily expensive, then get rid of the bureaucrats who don’t know how to run a program without spending money un-necessarily! The armed pilot program is the best and most logical way to keep cockpit invasions from happening. It’s so simple an idea that works, it makes one wonder why Obama would want to get rid of the program? There is something else here going on besides the expense of the program. Considering the trillions of money spent (thrown away) by the government, the armed pilot program costs shouldn’t amount to a speck of dust on a financial sheet of paper the size of a football field!

(Pilot & Ret. Law Enforcement)

grandfathered

I agree with your notion that a last line of defense is a nice thing to have, and realistically 12 or 13 million a year is nothing in terms of the federal budget.

What I don’t agree with is saying that the reason we haven’t had another 9/11 is “in no small part to armed pilots in the cockpits of commercial aircraft to stop terrorists intent on using planes as weapons of mass destruction.”

That’s just pure speculation. In all likelihood there it hasn’t prevented a single terrorist attack. If you can figure out a plan where you’re getting onto a plane and in a position to access the cockpit, presumably armed, you’re not going to abandon your plan because there’s a one in ten chance the captain has a gun. That’s just terrorism 101 right there.

Brian Darling

Yes, I am engaging in pure speculation, but it is logical that armed pilots have deterred the bad guys. It is impossible to prove, unless if we are provided some communications between terrorist organizations where they discuss this very subject.
The Department of Homeland Security proposed budget for next year is $39.5 billion. The FFDO program cost $25 million last year. This is a cost effective program.
The monies are used to screen pilots and to train them. They are mandated to get retrained and they have to get a certificate to continue in the program. The Obama plan is to slow the training and retraining until the Obama Administration ends the program.
So short sighted. This is a big big mistake and not unique to the Obama Administration. The Bush Administration was also hostile to the program, yet they never proposed budgets that would starve the program of necessary money.
For whatever reason, the Obama Administration has targeted national defense and armed pilots for cuts, when he wants to spend more money on solar panels and green cars.
edintexas

Deterrence is always impossible to prove. I can’t prove that our nuclear arsenal deterred any country from attacking us, or our allies. I can’t prove that “Uncle Joe” Stalin didn’t just take over all of Europe, after we demobilized, in large part because we had “the bomb” and the capability to deliver it (the B-29, which Stalin did eventually copy – rivet for rivet).

But to suppose both are in fact true is more reasonable than supposing that neither is true. In this case, we know that the program was widely publicized. In fact, it probably is true that the public thought there were more pilots armed than were actually armed. It had to be contemplated, by any potential aggressor, that the cockpit might have an armed pilot. Even terrorists aren’t keen on bringing a box cutter to a gun fight. He doesn’t want to find out that it isn’t 72 virgins, but a 72 year old virgin!

joeyjojoshabadoo79

my two cents.

hayekwasright

But I don’t get why this voluntary program shouuntil we deal seriously with entitlemd cost taxpayers $25 mil. Yeah, I realize that $25 mil is just a sneeze in the general direction of a distant bucket until we deal seriously with entitlements. training them should not be the job of the federal government.
rickc

to go through the training required to learn combat tactics within an aircraft in flight. I should pay in order to learn how best to protect YOU in the event of a terrorist attempt to hijack my airplane. So using your logic police and firemen should have to pay for all the training they go through as well. Amazing.

znjs

Police and firefighters work for the city/county/state, so the city/county/state foots the bill for training them..

I’d say make the airlines pay the bill. Federal marshals we’ll pay for, but not the pilot.

funwithknives

In many jurisdictions, Potential recriuits have to have a backround in Law Enforcement, at least a college certification before they are considered. Gov’t does not pay for this requirement and it is not reimbursed.
rickc

it or not but if you fly, you already pay for the pilot and his training. Had the pilots of FLT 93 been armed they would not have crashed. Simple fact. If the pilots of the other flights had been armed the World Trade Centers would still be standing and 3000 folks would not have lost their lives. It is amazing to me that some here think it perfectly Ok to pay for a program to feel up Grandma or the kids but not one to actually defend the airplane once it’s airborne. he only change I would make is to make it mandatory for ALL pilots to attend this training.

znjs

Making it impossible (or at least very unlikely) to gain access to the cockpit would’ve done the trick. In fact I’d say that more likely – before 9/11 I don’t doubt many pilots would suspect they were only going to be taken hostage not flown into a building, and would’ve risked that rather have taken the risk of firing their weapon. And who’s to say if the pilots even would’ve had a chance to get their weapons out on that terrible day – it’s possible they were taken completely by surprise. That seems like the more reasonable plus cost-effective way of handling terrorists that get past the scanners.
Dave_A

Had an always-cooperate-with-terrorists policy.

The ‘playbook’ was to give the bad guys what they want, so they don’t hurt anyone before they land the plane….

No one considered a hijacking for the purpose of suicide-crashing…

darl444

Have you noticed that there is a federal ‘tax’ on each airline ticket, so the government collects from the passengers, and then pays for security programs. Perhaps we should just let the passengers decide if they would prefer to fly on an aircraft where one or more of the pilots are trained and armed to fight off a terrorist. The training is far more intensive than just how to shoot a gun, but also includes techniques to physically defent the cockpit as well.

I prefer to have a well trained pilot, not only in flying the aircraft, but also to defend the cockpit. The training the pilots receive is far more intensive than that of a TSA screener. Last I knew, the pilots pays for nearly all the travel and living expenses to take the training. The training facility, and Fed Trainers is about all the government pays for.
Dave_A

Which is what the program does.

FFDO – Federal Flight Deck Officer.

They’re not just pilots with guns, completing the program makes a pilot law enforcement… Hence the cost.

znjs

But unless there’s more to this then you’re pointing out, I don’t see any no reason they couldn’t pay for people to receive the training.

icesweeper

If you click on the USA today link, it details the program funding is for one week of training and equipping the pilots/flight engineers with a .40 cal semi auto.

Cool….

Hope they are giving them a couple boxes of hollow points coated in pig lard also……

Yeah, it’s insensistive, suck it up, buttercup…..

sulmak

also smell funny.

davesinsanantonio

nt

rick57

My sentiments exactly, and as the terrorist lies on the floor of the pplane bleeding out lean down and tell them the bullet was coated in pig fat, or bacon. Now THAT WOULD BE COOL.!!!!!

sulmak

nt

davesinsanantonio

n/t

http://www.timothy-bladel.com/ center77

I am sorry about the thread jack Brian, but I need to vent.

My text book states this “As we know from modern political polling, the South has continued to lag behind the rest of the nation in support for Civil Rights while continuing to favor return of power to the states at the expense of the national government”
No data on this modern polling, nothing to back up this claim,

The south lags behind on its support for civil rights that would make sense; it is the sought after all. While it is true many in the south favor devolution, is should not always be put in context of civil rights. The way it is written, one would come off believing the two are related, which is not the case.

Yes, if a racist wanted to limit civil rights, using the tenth amendment would be a method that could work, but that assumes that the people in that state would go along with them. This is just liberal garbage textbook, well at least so fat it is.

davesinsanantonio

If you want to be a success at communication or journalism, use automatic spell checking, and then proof read your writing twice as well. Nobody will take your ideas seriously if you have glaring errors in the text; they will think your thinking is as sloppy as your typing.
audax

It’s easy to do and fun! Then no threadjacks are necessary.

texasref

I can’t wait for this nightmare to be over.

(But please not with Romney)
Archer

Any shooting a pilot does would be at extremely close range as someone is trying to break through the door. If you put a pilot through a training program once, that should be sufficient to hit targets at less than five feet away. Then just require the pilot, at his or his employer’s expense, to show up to a gun range and re-qualify every few years like law enforcement personnel do.

And honestly, couldn’t the government have asked for volunteers to teach the training courses like retired police or the NRA or tasked people the government is already paying like trainers for the military/FBI/CIA rather than paying for gun training courses for pilots? Pilots are flown around the country for free by their employer, I don’t see why the pilot couldn’t lay over at a city near Virginia, DC, or some military base for training from a soldier/agent who would have been spending his day training someone anyway.

I don’t have any problem with the government paying for the actual gun in the cockpit. For inexperienced shooters, it’d be a big help for the guns to be standardized so if they change planes they don’t in an emergency situation have to fumble around finding the safety and take a moment to get familiar with a different weapon. But that gun purchase is really a one-time expense, isn’t it? Airlines grow their fleet of planes very slowly and many airlines shrink their fleets. The government shouldn’t be buying more than a hundred more guns a year even when the economy is good.

If the government was spending as much as an extra hundred thousand dollars a year on this program after it got off the ground, the program would be full of fat that could be cut. If they’re spending $25 million or Obama’s requested $12 million as mentioned in the first post, either of those is sums is ridiculous. I expect the government set up some agency to watch over the program, hired a director, secretaries, a staff, bought extensive office space, then continually generate useless reports and paperwork.
Red_in_SC

Those who say that this program has not worked are overlooking the obvious. Using the logic that, since there has not been an incident, the program has not worked, is illogical.

Consider this. I have not had a single incident of someone breaking into my house, so why don’t I just disconnect my burglar alarm and leave the doors unlocked? Obviously, because the alarm and locks are a deterrent. Without them, I would be robbed in no time at all.

One of the factors contributing to no 911 type hijacking of aircraft is that terrorist now know that the crew might be capable of effectively resisting a take-over of the flight deck. $25 million in the federal budget is not even a rounding error; cutting this to “save money” is totally disingenuous, and foolish. Don’t be an idiot, lock your doors and equip your flight crews with the means for defending themselves.
renl57

…9-11 was a sucker punch. All subsequent attempts to hijack airliners have failed, largely due to irate passengers who fixed the terrorist’s wagon (cf. Richard Reid for example).

If we’re going to be attacked by terrorists again (likely), it won’t be by the same methods.

So I no longer fear airplane hijackings. I fear airplane bombings and shoot-downs.

icesweeper

Actually, it changed that morning, on flight 93.

obamney2000

that there is even a program like this..

If it is effective , it should be done by the private sector, no point in using 25 mil or even 12 mil of our tax dollars to do this. The airlines could raise prices by less than a dollar and purchase each pilot a brand new handgun on each flight. problem solved.
Patriot’s Tool Box

Where is this 25 million dollars going? You could buy every pilot in America 2 guns for less than that so where is this money actually going?

Brian Darling

There are no public estimates as to how many pilots volunteer for the FFDO program, but I would estimate that there are about 15K active right now. The federal government puts them through background checks, training, then retraining. They pay for the gun and they force the pilots to carry the firearm in a lock box. All of these costs are born by the taxpayer, yet this program is cost effective when you compare it to other TSA programs.
According to the fiscal times, the federal Air Marshal program was cut by 4% or $36.5 million. This Administration just doesn’t get it.

Archer

yet again? Pilots were vetted thoroughly before they were allowed behind the wheel of a commercial airliner before this program ever started as a bright idea in someone’s mind…unless hiring procedures have changed in the six years since I last worked for an airline.

A gun and a box are one-time expenses which should have been paid long ago when the program was just started. Training could be easily done at no additional cost to the taxpayer as I pointed out earlier in the discussion.

Just the idea of a gun in the cockpit is a deterrent. With the new cockpit doors which are tough and time-consuming to break through AND a gun in the cockpit, the controls of the plane are fairly safe from hijackers. As for the passengers, if all the terrorists wanted were hostages, there are much better places to take hostages than an airliner.

If they’re spending $25 million or Obama’s proposed $12 million on the program, they’re wasting the money on new bureaucracy and new office space, not spending it on something which produces more security. This is an administration job that could be handled by one part-time staffer or intern with a laptop and a spreadsheet containing the pilots’ names and a blank space to checkmark to fill when notified that the pilot’s training is complete.
Tbone

and wants us dead or subjugated. Now where have I heard that before?

Russ Martin

He can’t admit that armed and trained people deter violence. The very fact that this program is seen as successful means that it MUST be cut and ultimately eliminated. Otherwise, people all over this country would be clinging to their guns and, God forbid, their religion.

edintexas

Can’t have the public thinking there is any real use for a firearm, particularly a handgun. Makes it so much harder to demonize firearms and firearm owners if the public thinks there might be a reason for other than government people (military and police) to have firearms.

pilotguy40

and the Democrats in Illinois and especially Chicago know that an unarmed populace, except for gang bangers, is best. Also I believe that police carrying off duty should be made illegal because they might shoot themselves in the eye or something. Medical personnel that carry first aid kits should be made illegal because they are part of the evil 1% and only want a tax break they don’t deserve. (sarcasm) The rest of the 56 states should follow our wonderful example.

acat

funding the opposition to Illinois’ concealed carry laws .. although it’s rather against his will…

Mew

p.s. Illinois does not want Obama back… maybe Hawaii will take him?

pilotguy40

The sooner the better

rj145

If this is such a great money saving idea, let’s carry it a step further by disarming the Secret Service assigned to the POTUS, and reducing their numbers by 50%.
norris

We have not had a president shot in 30 years. Should we disarm the secret service presidential guards?
fisk2521

There may be a much larger question than whether pilots can get Obama’s permission to carry a gun to protect themselves and their passengers from being murdered.

Why do they need his permission?

Dave_A

The Constitution ONLY restricts GOVERNMENT, not private parties…

And EVERY SINGLE airline would then independently prohibit firearms on aircraft – violators would be considered trespassing on private property.

That said, the 2nd will NEVER be held to permit you to carry guns *everywhere* – you can’t take a gun into a prison visitor’s room, for example… We all understand why.

The Court will consider the ability to check your gun as baggage to be ‘sufficient’, and rule the no-guns-on-planes law non-infringing, if it’s ever challenged.

As for ‘but if the passengers had guns, the 9/11 attack would have been stopped’ – no, if the passengers had guns, the terrorists would have had them too. The difference, is that *every* terrorist would have had a gun, and at most a handful of passengers would be carrying (based on CCW stats – both how many get a permit, and how many who have a permit carry on a daily basis).

The ‘critical flaw’ on 9/11 was not the lack of guns in the cabin – it was the standing ‘give the terrorists what they want’ policy (airline version of the ‘do not resist a robbery’ policies of retail stores) held by every airline & recommended by pretty much every security professional prior to 9/11.

kowalski

If anyone would like to read the most probable antecedent of this move, you can find it right here.

It’s the article in Vanity Fair just prior to Christmas.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/12/tsa-insanity-201112

kowalski

Bruce Schneier expressed his opinion in Vanity Fair that the firearms were unnecessary, the cockpit doors were the most important reinforcement (and one of the only worthwhile ones) and that any future terrorist on a plane would be stopped by a “Let’s Move” kind of action.

And now, just about two months after that article was published, we are now seeing the policy change. Let it never be said that Vanity Fair isn’t a predictor of liberal policy in terms of airline security or anything else, for that matter.

kowalski

Is to take the guns.
kowalski

I don’t recall from the article what his views on the cockpit guns were.

kowalski

The day I read the article in VF (it was linked on Drudge) you knew there was going to be policy fallout from it because the writer actually consulted a real expert and wrote a serious article about the TSA. This is the first shoe to drop (publicly) – get rid of the program that lets the pilots have the firearms.

talgus

that Obama (and his minions he associates with) do not like. Just like the education vouchers in DC. If a program promotes reliance on the government, the budget is increased. Best is the debt, as we all are being enslaved by the increasing “drag us down” weight of debt.

znjs

That doesn’t make any sense.

websmith

It would be interesting to see what would happen if a terrorist started killing passengers one at a time until the pilot opened the door and gave up his gun. Pilots are the kind of guys, mostly, who would not open the door. Let them keep their guns. so a few of them would come out the door blasting. On the other hand, we have almost 10,000 nukes. If we had 2,000 nukes we could still destroy the world if we wanted. Why do we need to pay for 10,000 giving us 8,000 more chances to make a mistake like the Nukes that were put on a plane wing and sent to North Carolina?

http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

Ah, Paultards.

arthurjake

9-11 cutting funding for this seems retarded. The only good things that came out of an overhaul of security were strengthened cockpit doors and armed pilots. One could maybe also argue more armed sky marshals. After that it is not the worthless screening system that has been set up to board planes. All we have given up with that is more personal freedom and common sense. I have read studies that only about 20 percent of explosives and weapons are found when they do tests of government run security screeners. In the few cities where security is still run by private employees the numbers jump to 40 percent and higher. So considering all we have done is spend a fortune to be less safe and less free all at the same time why cut one of the few changes to the program since 9-11 that might actually add to a travelers safety.

Dave_A

Point-blank: The problem with the screening system is not the methods, but rather the poor quality of people hired to implement it.

Federalizing the security screening process was demanded by an overwhelming majority of the population after 9/11, so it’s no suprise that it happened…

However, the result was the creation of a whole bunch of union jobs, and the hiring of a bunch of folks who wouldn’t last a week at G4S, Securitas, DPS or any other major private security firm.

The rationale behind screening is simple: Attack vectors (I use this term because the person carrying the bomb or weapons doesn’t have to be part of the attacking cell – hell, they don’t even need to know they’re doing it) come in every ethnicity, both genders, and every age group. So profiling (Beyond ‘acting suspicious’ and such) is out the window… You have to screen *everyone*….

The problem, is the federal government’s unionized TSA workforce isn’t up to the job.

What should be done, is this: Take whatever private security firm has the DoD contract for military base gate-guard in the region (if there is no military base, then use whoever the DoE contracts for nuke plant security), and give them a contract for airport security too.

We’ll pay less, get a much higher caliber of security personnel (armed guards, many ex-military & ex-police, no union) – all win…

pilotguy40

of airport security. They have never had one airplane taken over.

Dave_A

People very quickly forget that Israel’s threat comes from a separate and distinct group: Palestinian Arabs.

AQ doesn’t attack Israel, and the Palestinians haven’t attacked US targets since the 80s… Trying to lump them into the same category, and use the same tactics against both just because both groups are Muslim, is insane & doomed to failure.

To contrast, we haven’t had an ‘Arab’ attack one of our airliners since 2001; Our threat is too diverse to use Israel’s model.

Possible threat vectors include radicalized white natural-born Americans (John Walker Lindh), naturalized US citizens (Portland, Fort Hood, etc), friendly-country foreign nationals (Richard Ried – of Jamacain/white-British descent), and unknowing dupes (such as the British woman who’s Muslim fiance packed a bomb in her luggage, as she was flying to meet his parents, back in the 80s)…

Thus, since anyone could be carrying a bomb (knowingly or unknowingly), we have to treat everyone as a threat & screen accordingly.

The problem isn’t the methods, it’s the talent pool.

sulmak

Israel claims they don’t train to racially profile. They claim they train their agents in reading facial and voice expressions.

They have agents question everyone while they wait in line, yes everyone, and at the agents discretion they hold or search them. True, they could do this by racially profiling, but palestinian jews and palestinian arabs don’t look that different if a palestinian terrorist bothers to shave and put on different clothes, not a hard thing to do. So there is far more to it than racial profiling.

On top of that Israels biggest strength is a policy of refusing to negotiate with hijackers in combination with armed pilots nearly all of whom are ex-military who are behind armored cockpit doors.
jamesm

Israel is threatened with extinction. AQ is an off shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Israel has fought three wars. Their threats come from more than just Palistinian Arabs, Islamist’s hate Israel and America. They want to kill the saturday people (Jews) first and then the sunday people. (Christians) Profiling has worked for Israel. Muslim extremist’s are the greatest threat. The West needs to wake up. TSA needs to get their priorities straight.

Dave_A

Which is that while Islam is used to motivate the troops, so to speak, both Israel’s & our war are about separate, earthly goals…

The Palestinians are in it for land…

Al Queda was in it for political power (I say was, because we’ve killed most of the folks behind the original plan, namely to sieze power in one or more Sunni-Arab nations – and to attack the US enough that we leave the region & thus clear the way for them to strike.)…

The Taliban are in it for political power (becoming the government of Afghanistan again).

Which is why we aren’t threatened by Palestinian groups – we aren’t on the land they are trying to aquire – the Israelis are…

Similarly, while babble about Israel may excite the masses, getting involved in that conflict does nothing to further Al Queda’s goal of becoming the new government of the Middle East. The same applies to the Taliban and Afghanistan…

Which is why the US has a problem with these groups, but they generally do not operate in Israel.

Trying to lump all ‘Islamic Extremist’ groups into one pot, and make this a global religious war, is the height of ignorance.

Profiling, beyond body-language, DOES NOT WORK against our enemy – there is no profile for ‘radical Muslim’, as the diversity of the folks who have attacked or tried to attack us has shown.

jamesm

They would chop off your head if you don’t convert to Islam. Your ignorance is amazing. It is about their religion. Your argument based on your secular western thinking completely ignores the reality. They don’t think like americans. Being an apologist won’t work. Your argument is nothing but propaganda.

Dave_A

I’ve traded machine gun fire with them (Taliban)…. They’ve tried to blow me up, too, with RPGs and IEDs… Never was really worried about getting my head cut off, though…

The reality on the ground, with the Talis, is that it IS a secular war. The overwhelming majority of Afghanistan – especially outside Kabul – is conservative-Muslim – both the guys trying to kill us over here, and the ones fighting alongside us.

They’re not doing this because of their religion (there is little disagreement on that subject between the sides) – they’re doing this over who should be in power over whom.

Weather the Karzai government wins, the Taliban win, or someone else does, most of the country will still live under Islamic law, and order/justice will be dispensed by the family hierarchy of the involved individuals.

The fight is over what group gets to be the biggest/baddest, and thus control power & influence – and with it the immense graft – in society… It’s essentially a mafia war on an international scale.

Yes, they use Islamic messages to further their cause – but since all indigenous sides are Islamic that’s not really surprising.

While it’s very true that their version of ‘power politics’ is extremely different from ours, none the less, thirst for power & profit is a universal human trait. Their politics runs along family, tribe & ethnic lines whereas ours focuses on aligning with individuals who have power & money…. They also see what we call ‘corruption’ – graft, influence peddling, and such – as a normal part of life…

But that doesn’t change the issue, and that is that the senior Taliban leadership thinks they are the rightful government of Afghanistan, and are willing to kill whoever they want to to regain it… It is also a very ‘local’ war, as the major sides are all from the same tribal background (both the Karzai government, and the Taliban, are Pashtu) – a ‘foreign fighter’ is more likely to be a Pakistani than an Arab these days… Also, there’s quite a bit less suicide attacking, and far more ‘I want to live to shoot at you tomorrow’ hit-and-run tactics…

In Iraq, Al Queda was a foreign invader trying to force their brand of Isalm AND hereditary government on the far more secular population of Iraq – THAT was a 3-way (sometimes 4-way) fight between Queda, Iran, the US, and the Iraqis. Which is again somewhat distinct from the other conflicts.

In case you’ve missed it, there have been no Taliban attacks against the US outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and none against Israel.

There have been no Fatah or Hamas attacks against US targets since the 80s, and none on US soil – they focus on Israel, and rather than attack us, use the American desire for peace (and the false-narrative that it is their little war that is causing all of our problems in the region) to try and influence Israel.

Al Qaeda INITIALLY focused their efforts against Saudi Arabia, then turned their focus to us after the 1991 war (because our presence prevents them from seizing the Saudi throne) and now repeatedly attacks the US and the west both on our soil and abroad, but does not attack Israel.

You have 3 separate wars, the third of which is tangentially linked to the 2nd by the fact that it’s happening because the Taliban allowed Al Qaeda to base out of Afghanistan.

The fact that our enemy is Muslim doesn’t unite all 3 conflicts into one… Al Queda and the Taliban are still discrete and separate enemies with different victory conditions. Hamas and Fatah are still 100% Israel’s problem. Iran and their various proxies are stil an entirely separate hostile power, with entirely different motivations from any of the above (Iran’s desire is to be the ‘top dog’ in the Gulf – again all about money & power rather than faith)…

jamesm

Taliban, Taliban, Taliban, Taliban, etc. I do not think the infighting between various groups in Afghanistan has much bearing on the discussion. Nor between shia and sunni muslims. Nor between Fatah and Hamas. The issue is the threat posed by Islamic states and/or terrorist’s getting a nuclear weapon. Al qaeda has been decimated. Good! Most if not all of these muslim states unite in their hatred against Israel and the United States. In fact they hate Western Civilization. Granted not every person over there feels that way but a majority do. Removing dictators will just allow a Islamic state to arise.

Tbone

from the head injury you don’t remember sets off the buzzer at the airport. At least I hope you are this vapidly stupid from a trauma to your head as opposed to being born without the capacity of common sense.

The plus factor is that when a Muslim does cut off your head for religious reasons it will not affect the quality of your life.

raf456

This is typical Obama. Anything that works, we must cut. Anything that fails, we must double down on. Obama is out of his league and has no idea what he is doing. He hates guns, hence this is a bad program. Obama needs to go in November, plain and simple.
wumingren

Anti-firearm propaganda is challenged by the success of a program that arms citizens and keeps them and others safe. It must be terminated in order to mend the tear in the wool pulled over the Leftists’ eyes.

RS

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