Posted on 09/05/2002 10:15:24 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate overwhelmingly backed a measure on Thursday that would arm airline pilots on a voluntary basis in a dramatic security step aimed at preventing a repeat of last year's Sept. 11 attacks.
Gun control advocates from the Democratic party joined conservative Republicans in passing the measure 87-6, leading supporters to declare they had the momentum to overcome the remaining hurdles to making the plan law.
A similar bill already has passed the House of Representatives by a wide margin, and while the Bush administration does not like the idea it said on Thursday it would implement such a plan if Congress passes one.
"This is a package that will make our skies safer," declared Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill along with Sen. Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican.
Allowing qualified pilots to carry guns in the cockpit would give them the "means to mount an effective last-ditch effort against terrorism and hijackers," Boxer said.
"This is not a cowboy idea," Montana Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, another co-sponsor, said at a news conference outside the Capitol before the debate.
"Those who want them and can use them and understand them should have the right to carry weapons," Burns said. "I never got a lot done using a broomstick. You've got to have something that's lethal."
In the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York, four commercial airliners were commandeered by hijackers with knives who stormed the cockpits and took control of the planes.
ADMINISTRATION SAYS IT WILL WORK WITH CONGRESS
The Senate measure was approved as an amendment to a bill creating President Bush's Homeland Security Department. But that legislation that may not come up for a final vote for several weeks.
Then, assuming the Homeland Security bill passes, House and Senate negotiators would need to work out the differences in the guns-in-the-cockpit measures before sending a final version to Bush with the request he sign it into law.
Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill also would provide self-defense training for flight attendants. Several dozen of them rallied outside the Capitol Thursday to back the measure.
The Bush administration had been flatly opposed to arming pilots, but on the eve of Thursday's debate it signaled that it would consider arming a limited number of pilots.
As Thursday's debate was underway, transportation officials released a letter outlining all the complications with arming pilots, but said the administration was willing to work with Congress to implement such a plan if it became law.
James Loy, director of the Transportation Security Administration, said it would cost the government up to $900 million to establish the program to train about 85,000 pilots in weapons use.
He said pilots, not airline crews, would have to keep and maintain weapons and transport them in lockboxes. Each cockpit would be equipped with special sleeves to hold the weapons.
Boxer said Loy's letter "didn't lose us one vote."
One of the bill's chief critics, Sen. Ernest Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat, agreed to vote for the measure after sponsors agreed to include a provision requiring cockpit doors to be secured and locked during flight.
Boxer said she knew people were surprised at her support for the bill, since she was an advocate of gun control.
"This isn't about guns in the hands of criminals. This is about a trained pilot, who volunteers, most of whom have training in the military," Boxer said.
Al Aitken of the Allied Pilots Association, which represents pilots at American Airlines, said supporters were grateful to lawmakers and said the large margin of victory in both houses reflected the sentiments of thousands of airline pilots who believe in lethal force as a last line of defense.
"From the legislative standpoint it is pretty compelling and makes it a lot easier to get a meaningful bill passed through the conference committee," Aitken said. "We will be continuing to ask the president to support this and sign it into law when it gets to his desk."
Boxer herself carries, so I presume there is another reason for disarming the law abiding citizenry.
So pilots are not going to be able to use the bathroom or flirt with stewardesses during a flight?
Hollings is a complete moron.
Looks like those folks in Washington might have a smidgeon of common sense.
We Americans do have the Right to carry weapons.
That issue was settled at Yorktown some 200+ years ago.
The only problem is the failure of our government to recognize that Right (along with a host of others).
How do you justify that leap? Perhaps, you aren't aware that it is going to cost $900 million to allow pilots to carry?
So? 9-11 cost New York City ALONE up to 95 BILLION dollars, and that doesn't count what it is costing America as a whole.
Perhaps you haven't read that al-Qaeda was planning a SECOND wave of terrorist hijacked planes for early 2002.
I don't know where you're from, but it ain't over yet, and some pilots definitely want to have a last resort to defend themselves and their plane and passengers the next time someone blows up the door to the flight deck and comes in to cut their throats.
Once when I was flying alone as a kid of about 14, the pilot called me up to the flight deck on a 747 and let me sit in the jump seat for a while during cruise.
Another time I was flying with my Dad to England on British Airways. He is a former Royal Air Force fighter pilot of WWII vintage and so he sent his business card up to the captain with his squadron number written on the back. Of course the captain was a former RAF man too, so we both got invited up to sit in the jump seats for an hour and watch the Great Lakes roll past as my dad and the pilots bullshitted about the old RAF days.
Those days are sadly gone.
-ccm
hmmm... logic?
"This isn't about guns in the hands of criminals. This is about a trained pilot, who volunteers, most of whom have training in the military," Boxer said.
You see, there are criminals and there are pilots. Presumably, since I am not a pilot, I am a criminal.
No. I'm just not willing to credit them with common sense, especially when allowing pilots to carry is going to cost $900 million!
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