[Ciexyz]

Way to go!

[Feiny]

If Boxer believes that arming pilots will make the skies safer; I wonder why she doesn't think arming citizens will make the streets safer.

[GOPcapitalist]

I'm surprised Boxer didn't tack on an amendment mandating plains to be equiped with an onboard abortion clinic as a prerequisite for pilots getting to carry guns.

[Mulder]

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.

So pilots are not going to be able to use the bathroom or flirt with stewardesses during a flight?

Hollings is a complete moron.

[Marine Inspector]

PING.

Looks like those folks in Washington might have a smidgeon of common sense.

[Mulder]

"Those who want them and can use them and understand them should have the right to carry weapons," Burns said

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).

[ccmay]

Tangentially, one thing I will miss is the occasional cockpit visit.

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

[cricket]

Hope these pilots are 'armed and ready' soon. . .

[Las Vegas Dave]

Anyone know who the -6- are?

[Ohioan]

It is about time. The pity is that there are still those who have so little understanding of the American tradition--which depends upon individual responsibility at every level of Societal interaction--that it took so long for people to begin to wake up.

It is enough to make the hair stand up on the back of one's neck, to realize that there were dysrons in the Administration, who actually would have imagined that it was less dangerous to have to depend upon an airforce jet shooting down a passenger jet, rather than allow a Flight Captain the ability to use ready at hand, lethal force, to thwart a takeover. While the original obstacle in the Bureaucracy has been removed, it appears that right up to the end, there were those who tried--and are still trying-- to compromise common sense.

For the issues and principles involved in the traditional policy of having a well armed citizenry, see The Right & Duty To Keep & Bear Arms.

William Flax