Posted on 04/04/2008 8:30:10 AM PDT by DaveLoneRanger
Over ten per cent of airline crewmembers in the US are authorised to carry guns onboard, according to a budget document released by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
The Federal Air Marshal Service runs a programme for armed pilots as a TSA agency and estimates that 85,000 to 90,000 pilots and crew are eligible to carry a gun on domestic passenger and cargo flights.
Although the exact number remains confidential the TSA has forecasted the level of eligible pilots will increase to 16.5 per cent by 2011.
The TSA reports it found 16 firearms and four concealed prohibited items at US airport checkpoints last week, as well as dealing with 17 disruptive passengers on flights.
It should be more widely known. It would be a deterrent.
Over ten per cent of airline crewmembers in the US are authorised to carry guns onboard
In other words, and in reality, that means 90% of pilots are unarmed and unable to be armed.
Were I a terrorist, I would take those odds in a flash.
Whats the problem?..
A local Moonbat opined on our local station that pilots should not be armed because; what if one goes crazy, he could kill someone. I guess she missed the obvious counterpoint.
NO problem!
I wonder how this would work if you fly into an area that prohibits weapons like DC or New York. Is this some Federal CCW of sorts?
If you leave the airport ( shoot get off the plane ) are you subject to arrest for carrying. What if you live in an area that is gun prohibitive how do you get it to the airport?
I can see the confusion here leading to political arrests to challenge this rule.
Not enough. Lets go for 50,000.
Im one of them
I guess she also missed that it’d be easier to kill even more people without using the gun just by nosediving the plane...
If moonbats could think straight we wouldn’t call them moonbats. :)
What do you carry?
Yeah: it's not like he would be in control of any other dangerous piece of machinery. What a maroon. (Let me guess: was it a caller to Tom Finneran's show or to Jim Braude's?)
Ten percent?
If a pilot "goes crazy" {United, flight 800} he can just crash the plane and kill everyone, no gun required.
A small, but decent start.
Here is a picture of the gun in question:

Scheduling for pilots to carry this pistol will begin in Summer, 2009.
I think you could argue that the airport is a federal reservation in those cases. But wasn't there also an issue with the Euros over this?
That’s good. The creeps don’t know if they’re on a plane where the pilot has a gun. Just like they don’t know which house is inhabited by a person with a gun.
10,000!
Very nice.
Arming pilots was legalized in 2003 (first repeal of a federal gun control law in history).
By 2005 we had 4,500 pilots armed: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7178784/
And by 2008 we’ve got 10,000 pilots armed, per the article for this thread.
This is most certainly moving in the right direction.
Of course, the humorous part will be watching the permanent haters on the Right and on the Left complaining about exactly this progress!
Just watch!
And at 30,000 feet...there’s nowhere to run from a pilot with a gun. >:-]
A Federal license allows carry in any State, and cannot be trumped by local ordinance.
And nearly 9,999 can do it without shooting a hole in the cockpit.
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