If you’re going to get real body armor (not just a fake airsoft vest – which would be my guess) in order to go on a shooting rampage, you’re probably going to go for a military-type vest with plates (a stolen IBA or IOTV (issue gear) would work perfectly)…

Nothing anyone will be concealed-carrying in a theater will go through SAPI plates – the ‘test-spec’ for that armor is a 30-06 AP (black-tip) rifle round (think M1 Garand)…. Most pistol rounds wouldn’t even produce the ‘baseball bat’ effect against that sort of hard-plate armor either. Among service rounds, the bigger the round (*cough* .45 *cough*), the less effective it will be…

Add in CS gas & panicked innocents, and you’re not going to get a clear shot, let alone be in any condition to take it due to the gas…

Of course, I’ll still be carrying in the theater this weekend – just like anywhere else…

I’m still willing to bet the ‘body armor’ is really just a toy ‘combat vest’ that airsoft-kiddies wear because it makes them look like a ‘real Soldier’… Real body armor – even the ‘hotter than black leather seats in death-valley’ kind – is really, really expensive…. Then again, we did have that guy up here in WA who killed his family & then stood off the cops in a bunker he built….

There is one major difference between ‘a plane’ and *anything else’ – there is NO access to a plane in-flight from the outside…

This means that if hijackers manage to get weapons on-board a plane, there’s nothing we can do about it (in this post-9/11 era where a hijacked plane is a potential improvised cruise missile), other than shoot the plane down.

Ignoring the lib arguments from idiots who watched ‘Goldfinger’ and think a pistol being fired in a plane will cause it to crash….

The fact is, not enough ‘ordinary citizens’ carry, to present a reasonable deterrent, and there is no chance of any armed person NOT on the plane being able to intervene (short of a fighter pilot shooting the whole thing down).

If you allow broad categories of people to carry on a plane, you simply ensure that every terrorists will ‘adapt’ by making sure they have guns too…

So you’ll go from ‘weapons parity’ with fists & improvised devices (which has worked in our favor for Flight 93 and every attempted airline attack since, now that people are aware that ‘Play nice & wait for SWAT to save you’ doesn’t apply anymore), to a ‘best-possible-case’ of ‘weapons parity with firearms’ & whatever else can be brought through the new, less-stringent security… And a more likely case of armed terrorists & unarmed passengers….

Resulting in no improvement in security, and a very likely loss of it.

‘Not even a nail-file on a plane’ seems to have worked so far…

There are plenty of places we presently don’t allow concealed weapons, but commercial aircraft aren’t one of them.

My position on this is based on ‘the numbers’ – namely the number of people that have carry-permits and regularly (eg, every day and everywhere they’re allowed to) exercise their right to bear arms…

This sort of stat isn’t an issue in an ‘open environment’ (which is pretty much every environment except (A) prison, and (B) an airplane in flight), because the ability of people to come and go allows for a ‘herd immunity’ effect…

The environment of an airliner in flight (closed aluminum-fiberglass tube, no way on/off, close quarters, no cover of any kind) means that you are looking at roulette-odds of an ‘armed citizen’ even being on the plane, let alone (a) having the skills to intervene, and (b) recognizing the need to do so before the bad guys take over the plane. This makes the ‘clean room’ approach logical.

Now, I’m *for* arming pilots… And I don’t have a problem with the air marshal program or even a very limited list of specially-trained LEOs being able to carry while flying.

I do NOT want the security system ‘opened up’ to the point where anyone can bring weapons of any kind (Yes, I support the ‘check your Gerber-tool’ rule) on a plane (or where the credentials are easy enough to forge that AQ could obtain a fake ‘permit’ and walk on).

If we relax security, we are trading the possibility that a good guy MIGHT have a gun on a plane, for the CERTAINTY that the next hijackers WILL.

But there’s an easy fix:

Disband the TSA and give the contract to whatever firm the DoD hires to pull gate-guard in that region.

EG, SEATAC and PDX would get ‘DPS Security’ (the folks who pull gate-guard for Lewis-McChord).

You’d get competant, professional armed-security guards, rather than the idiotic public-union retards (who wouldn’t last a week working for Wakenhut in a Target) we have now…

The ‘find rate’ would go up to acceptable levels, complaints would go down (apart from the ignorant idiots who think white skin & a cross around your neck should be a free pass through security) – everything would improve….

T-bone (of ‘Only people who vote like me should be allowed to vote) fame, is arguing that he shouldn’t have to be screened, based on (presumably) an age/nationality/ethnicity profile.

You’re supporting him.

I’m arguing that AT BEST (if we ignore the use of women & the unwitting/coerced terror issue) the profile is ‘male’ unless/until we come up with a ‘Magic Muslim Test’….

And unless T-bone is female, he thus fits the profile.

Now, I’ve got my beefs with the TSA as an agency… But not with or because of the screening process….

Rather, because the TSA’s hiring/training standards are so abysmal that the majority of their employees aren’t qualified to be Paul Blart – much less to wield arrest powers or pro-actively catch a terrorist… And that the folks devising security measures simply aren’t creative enough to outthink the enemy (making our security reactive, not pro-active)….

Which is why I favor re-privatization of airport security….

It will never be perfect, but it is better than nothing…. And unlike profiling, it actually can work…

Of course, I’m more accepting of interior-security measures in society than you are (While I do consider TSA to be the ‘clown-car of security operations’, I don’t consider them to be depriving anyone of any rights as they bungle their way through trying to secure our air travel system)… Difference of beliefs & all…

My solution, is to use the contractors that currently guard military bases for airport security – with the same hiring and training baseline that it takes to be a gate-guard at a major installation. If there is no military base contract in the region, than use whoever the DoE hires for nuclear plant security.

The gate-guard contractors are well trained, professional, & not being a felon is mandatory since they are all armed (plus a more stringent background check because of the importance of their job)…

Expand that program to airports, and you have a winner for ‘better quality security’.

As a bonus, it would probably cost the same or less as the TSA, due to the fact that private security generally isn’t unionized.