[GailA]

The Commercial Appeal aka Commie Appeal or Comic Appeal

CA

[willieroe]

aka The Comically Appalling in my home....

[Paleo Conservative]

a move that would ... give others second thoughts about flying.

That's the idea. I haven't flown since the 9-11, but I might consider it again when pilots are armed.

[elbucko]

"Carrying a gun gives pilots one more thing to worry about and protect."

I strongly disagree. Being armed is one less contingent to be unprepared for. Were I a commercial pilot, no gun, no fly. As a commercial passenger, I won't fly until the pilots are armed.

[JessicaDragonet]

Carrying a gun gives pilots one more thing to worry about and protect.

You could say the same about cops. Should we strip the police of guns? It's time to stop the "siege" mentality and go on the offense. Pilots shouldn't have to create a bastion in the cockpit. All they need is a "do not enter" sign on the door and a weapon to back up the order.

Common sense may not be dead....but I think it must be on life support.

[Trueblackman]

You know the funnies thing about it all is that the anti-gun crowd leaves out the fact that nearly 80% of all the pilots flying today have pasted military service and know very well how to use firearms.

[spqrzilla9]

Amusing that the editorial lies about who is lobbying for this, the NRA is doing little lobbying for this - it is the Airline Pilots' Association that is lobbying for this. As for the airlines themselves opposing it, since when have the airlines been in favor of anything that increased security? Never. What the airlines want are illusions of security not real security. And they don't want anything that smacks of the airlines taking responsibility for their own passengers.

[dighton]

Allowing pilots to carry guns tells would-be hijackers where a weapon can be obtained in-flight. And police annals are filled with accounts of officers killed with their own weapons or bystanders shot with guns wrestled away from overpowered officers.

Cripes. "People must not arm themselves because somebody might disarm them."

3,000 people got killed last year when some PLANES got "wrestled away" from their crews. I'd prefer giving crew a chance to USE their guns, STOP a hijacker, and SAVE their aircraft, passengers, and selves.

[ErnBatavia]

Re thread title....I'm still trying to categorize; which one has a higher barf alert rating? "XXX Puke Alert" or "Projectile Vomiting Alert"....

[gc4nra]

Keep the friendly skies free of boxcutters, arm pilots!

[gc4nra]

"And police annals are filled with accounts of officers killed with their own weapons or bystanders shot with guns wrestled away from overpowered officers."


So we should disarm the police?

[lodwick]

[Shooter 2.5]

As a spokesman for the 50,000-member Association of Flight Attendants put it, before that organization reversed its position on the issue: "A gun locked up behind a reinforced door does nothing to protect people in the cabin."

This is hilarious since now the Attendents are demanding to be armed.

[Lazamataz]

Memphis, Tennesee has a newspaper that is alarmingly leftist in its positions.....

........ who'da thunkit.

[Puppage]

Carrying a gun gives pilots one more thing to worry about and protect. It is a distracting presence that could interfere with the operation of a large, sophisticated piece of machinery and endanger lives.

Then, if this is true....will someone PLEASE tell me why there are Fire Extinquishers in the cockpit? Because if they're too busy fying a plane, and can't use a gun to thwart a hijacker at the same time..surely they don't have the ability to fly a plane & put out a fire either. So, WHY ARE THERE FIRE EXTINQUISHERS IN THE COCKPIT?

[Joe Bonforte]

Anybody opposing guns in the cockpit for such nonsense reasons fails to understand one of the most important axioms of violence, and that's this:

The more uncertain a potential aggressor is of being successful, the less likely it is that they will commit aggression.

This explains everything from why CCW laws deter crime to why alliances deter wars. It's a simple fact of human nature to avoid doing things in which (1) you are putting your entire existence at risk, and (2) there are factors beyond your control that dramatically increase the risk of failure of achieving your goal. The main purpose of arming pilots is to put more uncertainly factors into play that are beyond the control of a highjacker.

Only an utterly incompetent highjacker would ever plan to take over a plane by stealing a pilot's gun. He doesn't know (1) whether the pilot even has one, (2) where it's kept, (3) whether other armed pilots will shoot him as soon as he gets it, etc. etc.

A highjacker may be completely prepared to sacrifice his life kamikaze style, but not for nothing! He wants to go out in a blaze of glory, not as another armed defense statistic.

Anyone who claims the danger is increased by armed pilots is failing to take any of this into account, and is obviously unqualified to judge risk in the real world.

[Leisler]

"Carrying a gun gives pilots one more thing to worry about and protect. It is a distracting presence that could interfere with the operation of a large, sophisticated piece of machinery and endanger lives. "

Well, now that I have heard from Mr. Limpwrist Milquetoast (Expert-at-Large), I agree.
All Marine Corps fighter pilots, Army Blackhawk pilots, Air Force Pilots please turn in your sidearms. Yes, I know you have been carrying them for nearly 100 years without incident. That you have been doing this through the flack of Nazi Germany, or dive-bombing Imperial Japanese aircraft carriers in the middle of the shark infested Pacific. Surly, while dodging telephone pole size, homing missiles over North Vietnam , Thud pilots must of said it would be easy if it wasn't for that pistol; But a liberal/leftist has spoken and that outweighs practical experiences. < sarcasm very not off >

[RogueIsland]

Wow. This sounds like someone who pees himself at the sight of a firearm. Sad.

[MainFrame65]

To the editor, Commercial Appeal:

In the decades that I have read - and occasionally, commented upon - editorial opinion in this newspaper, I cannot recall a more perverse and wrongheaded opinion than your Sunday lead, "Keep the friendly skies free of guns". Other than the few general facts presented, plus the quotations and their attributions, you are wrong in every particular, in every recommendation, and in every conclusion you draw. You, not your opponents, rely on emotion and ideology for your arguments. Congress would not have acted as it did without overwhelming public support for the policy, and the NRA, while supportive,
had little to do with it.

The opponents quoted - every one of them, including Fred Smith - have a parochial interest in keeping pilots disarmed. As a former pilot, Mr. Smith ought to be ashamed of himself. He and the rest of the airline executives just don't want to surrender any of their authority, even to save their airplanes and crew.

Remember the twisted reason for the hijackings - to take control of the plane in order to transform it into a missile raining death on the ground. The crew MUST win any battle for the cockpit, and reinforced doors might delay, but cannot prevent penetration. The armed cockpit crew is the last possible line of defense short of an F16, a solution beyond all hope. And as for distraction, being dead certainly interferes with concentrating on flight protocols.

Every commercial flight has at least a pilot and a copilot, and may include a navigator. An equal level of coverage from air marshals would require more of them than the FBI has agents, each one on the federal payroll, occupying an unbought seat, and carrying a gun IN THE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT. Would they try to protect the passengers? Probably, but that would mark them as a weapon source. And how safe are the passengers after that? Armed federal, state, and local officers fly all the time, IN THE CABIN. Pilot's guns would ALWAYS be in the cockpit. New guns in the wrong place? Idiotic.

Much has been said about so-called nonlethal weapons. These are unreliable, defeatable by various means, and actually dangerous in a cockpit full of sensitive electronic equipment. But they might be appropriate for the cabin crew, where their capture would not give advantage to a hijacker.

Finally, some ridiculous numbers have been advanced for the cost of the program. Pilots already know the aircraft and flight procedures. Most of the pilots are current or former military, and are already adept with firearms. Since they would NOT leave the cockpit, little additional training would be required. Even for the neophyte, the number quoted is several times a realistic amount.

You seem to believe that because an editorial is opinion, you are free to say anything, no matter how poorly conceived. But you really owe your readers reasoned argument, not emotional claptrap selectively culled from your ideological soulmates. That is a serious abdication of responsibility.

[muir_redwoods]

Ummm, Hello? This is an article about some Americans exercising their rights under the 2nd amendment. In this instance the Americans in question are responding to a documented and proven threat. Their exercise of their rights has the side benefit of protecting others.

And for the record, when I'm armed, there is one LESS thing for me to worry about.

[MainFrame65]

GailA - thanks for your efficient coverage of Tennessee newspapers. You don't miss much of importance (none at all that I could testify to!)

Yesterday the CA did publish most of the letter (post #27) that I included in this thread, along with a number of other very critical letters about their puerile editorial. They left out the paragraph about Fred Smith, the local business hero who founded Federal Express, but surprisingly did include the opening and closing paragraphs, which were highly critical of the paper itself. Not much, but be we slipped in a few words for the opposition.