Posted on 09/28/2001 12:03:07 PM PDT by Antiwar Republican
September 28, 2001
Wall Street Journal
Commentary
Only Guns Can Stop Terrorists
By John R. Lott Jr. Mr. Lott is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2000).
President Bush yesterday unveiled a plan to tighten airline security, ranging from employing the National Guard at airports to place more marshals on flights. Those are important steps, but they won’t be enough, especially since no one knows where the terrorists will strike next. The only adequate response is to encourage more ordinary, responsible citizens to carry guns, as Israel has done.
Screening at airports, while important, will always be inadequate; terrorists will always figure some way to circumvent the controls—for instance, by bribing airport employees. Strengthening cockpit doors is probably a good idea, but given current airline design it may create dangerous differences in air pressure between the cockpit and cabin. In any case, the door must be opened sometime, to allow pilots to go to the bathroom or get food.
The marshals program is more promising. Empirical research by Bill Landes at the University of Chicago found that between a third and a half of the drop in airplane hijackings during the 1970s could be attributed to the introduction of armed U.S. marshals on planes and an increased ability to catch and punish hijackers.
But to put just one marshal aboard every daily flight in the U.S. would require at least 35,000 officers—far more than currently work for the FBI, Secret Service and U.S. marshals combined (17,000). And one marshal might not be enough to foil a whole gang of hijackers, of the kind used by Osama bin Laden. Clearly it will take a long time to deploy enough marshals.
There are things we can do in the meantime. There are about 600,000 active state and local law enforcement officers in the U.S. today. They are currently forbidden from bringing their guns on airplanes. That should change. They should even be given discount fares if they fly with their guns. Most pilots have also had military experience. The request of their union to arm pilots should be granted; this is what El Al has done for a long time.
Fears of having guns on planes are misplaced. The special, high-velocity handgun ammunition used on planes packs quite a wallop but is designed not to penetrate the aluminum skin of the plane. Even with regular bullets, the worst-case outcome would simply be to force the plane to fly at a lower altitude, where the air pressure is higher.
The use of guns to stop terrorists shouldn’t be limited to airplanes. We should encourage off-duty police, and responsible citizens, to carry guns in most public places. Cops can’t be everywhere.
In Israel, about 10% of Jewish adults have permits to carry concealed handguns. To reach Israel’s rate of permit holding, Americans would have to increase the number of permits from 3.5 million to almost 21 million. Thirty-three states currently have "right-to-carry" laws, which allow the law-abiding to obtain a permit if they are above a certain age and pay a fee. Half of these states require some training. We should encourage more states to pass such law, and possibly even subsidize firearms training.
States that pass concealed handgun laws experience drops in violent crimes, especially in multiple victim shootings—the type of attack most associated with terrorism. Bill Landes and I found that deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shootings fell by 80% after states passed right-to-carry laws.
Passing right-to-carry laws might even deter terrorist attacks. True, some terrorists are suicidal, but they still want to cause maximum carnage. They know the "return" on their terrorism would rapidly diminish to the vanishing point if faced with gun-wielding "victims."
As Dr John Lott has noted in his book "More Guns, Less Crime" and documented before and after his book, when good people arm themselve, the crime rates drop.
In the states with laws that allow good citizens to carry concealed weapons, crimes of violence drop like the RAT ratings after 9/11, when good citizen buy guns and carry a concealed weapon.
We are hearing about a rush in Oregon and other states with cwc laws of good people signing up for a permit to cwc!
This is really bad news for the DemonicRats and their voting criminals, whose profession is robbing and mugging people!
When this 9/11 is over, millions of new Americans will have armed themselves. So whenever the left wing extremists try to disarm them and us, they will lose more votes!
When crime rates drop and the left wing extremists lose votes, that is a big double win for the good people of America!
That statement is not true, regardless of several recent TV items on the subject. All state-of-the-art bullets (including 'Frangible' types) that will adequately disrupt humans will also penetrate aircraft hulls.
So what? All presurized aircraft have leaks around doors and other joints. The presurization system has the excess capacity to deal with a few bullet holes. If pressure begins to drop, the pilots have been trained to decend to a safe altitude.
"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." - Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 
Thank you for flying Liberty Airlines
Have a safe flight.
That's what they were designed to do, the article never says they work =)
What do you mean by "adequetely disrupt"--what if the pilots used a full-size pistol chambered for .25ACP with a 20-round clip? Individual rounds probably wouldn't penetrate the fuselage or stop a terrorist, but you can shoot a terrorist multiple times, and you would have to shoot the airplane twice in the same place.
Exactly! The proper goal is to end the threat as decisively as possible as soon as possible. The Secret Service uses SPEER .357 Sig 125gr Gold Dot Hollow Point ammunition. The FBI uses SPEER .40 S&W 165gr Gold Dot Hollow Point ammunition. Both are excellent choices and chosen because there is no better pistol ammunition available. Period!
Those were words carefully selected to convey the full meaning without describing the blood, brains, torn flesh, muscles, organs and destroyed human life support systems. A highjacked airliner is not the place for 'kinder and gentler' bullets or feeble weaponry.
If a pistol wouldn't have enough firepower, maybe an SMG would be a better solution.
I wouldn't consider a MAC-11 rechambered for .25ACP to be kind, gentle, or feeble.
A P90 firing sub-sonic understrength rounds would also work well, as long as they would cycle the action.
The .25 Auto cartridge was designed for women and otherwise defenseless individuals. It falls into the category, "Never take a knife to a pistol fight". A 1928A1 Thompson Sub Machine Gun would be a much wiser choice. Alas, it's too big and bulky to be concealed. The sub guns also tend to be used in the 'spray and pray' mode too often by inexperienced or frightened folks. It takes much practice to get good with one. I've put over 30,000 rounds through mine and can do some pretty spectacular things with it. Fun, fun, fun!
The firearms the Sky Marshals will use will be chambered in either 40 S&W or 357 Sig. Various conventional ammunition and some exotic experimental loads are currently being tested in a Boeing 757 hull. Stay tuned.
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