Sports equipment such as billiard cues,
ski poles, hockey sticks, Lacrosse sticks and golf clubs will also be allowed. I guess none of the smart guys ever heard of
the damage that the pointed end of a ski pole can do, and that golf clubs,
hockey sticks, Lacrosse sticks and billiard cues can be used to whack a person in
the head, break a limb, and if you jab someone hard enough with one of those things,
well, you can kill.
Have I been watching too many CSI
episodes perhaps?
The specifics are that passengers will
be able to carry-on knives that are less than 2.36 inches long and less than
one-half inch wide. Do the smart guys
know where the jugular vein is located?
Do the smart guys know how close the jugular vein is to the skin? Do the smart guys know that an eyeball can be
pierced?
Maybe I have been reading too many Lee
Child, David Baldacci, Brad Thor, Steve Martini, and Jeffery Deaver novels. (Not that any of them might have written of
passenger jet hijackings, but you do get a whiff of versatile and effective
manslaughter techniques.)
What is the TSA thinking of? Oh, that’s right. They are not thinking.
They are not remembering what happened
on 9/11; and, as a side note, although it
was widely reported that the 9/11 hijackers used box cutters in their attack,
the weapons were not recovered, and investigators believe other types of knives
were used.
TSA maintains that the new regulations
will allow them to better focus efforts on finding "higher threat items
such as explosives.” Higher
threat? They do not think that the
danger of a slit throat or two falls under the category of “higher threat”?
They go on to say that the newly-permitted
items are “unlikely to result in catastrophic destruction of an aircraft,” and that
policies already in place, such as hardened cockpit doors, federal air
marshals, crew members with self-defense training, reduce the likelihood of
passengers breaching the cockpit. Let us
say that potentially you have half a dozen guys on one plane bent on creating mayhem
with their sticks, poles, and knives: I
for one would not care to gamble that heartbreaking destruction is impossible.
Theoretically, the new rule will allow screeners to focus on finding
explosive device components and other things that can be
"catastrophic" to a plane, speed trips through security checkpoints,
and "address the hassle factor."
Sure, we all bemoan the inconveniences
of flight security. The need to arrive
at the airport an hour and a half to two hours before flight time is a real
pain. Ask yourself seriously, though, to
weigh the lesser of the inconveniences:
arriving an hour earlier for your flight, or finding yourself on an airliner being aimed towards the closest tall building.
Now I am the last person who wants to
live in a police state, and I believe our individual freedoms are important to
maintain. However, when I get on an
airplane, a train, a boat, I want to know, not feel that I am, but know that I
am as safe as possible from the even remote possibility of a repeat of 9/11.
TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez said that
removing small knives and some sports equipment from the list prohibited items
“will help align TSA’s list with international standards and help decrease the
time spent rescreening or searching bags for these once prohibited items.” International standards? Has the TSA ever heard of El Al? An Israeli airline, and with
all that can be implied with it being an Israeli airline, El Al is about the
safest way you can fly. When was the
last time El Al reduced its security efforts?
"It's
as if we didn't learn anything from 9/11," said George Randall Taylor,
head of the air marshal unit of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers
Association (FLEOA). "Flight attendants are going to be sitting ducks.” A union representing 90,000 flight attendants
called the measure "a poor and short-sighted decision by the TSA." "Continued prohibition of these items is
an integral layer in making our aviation system secure and must remain in
place," the Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions said in a statement.
We Americans seem to have conveniently short memories,
and we want it all: we want to be safe, yet we do not want what we
regard as our freedoms to be affected. I
ask you, what harm is it in demanding and requiring that a
passenger not carry a knife, or any other weapon, on board a plane? Yes, some will say that you erode one
freedom you erode them all. But, remember,
being a passenger on an airliner, just as with driving a car, is not a right;
it is not a freedom. It is a privilege
(which we may pay a lot for these days in dollars and cents, but a privilege
nonetheless).
Is the purpose of this relaxing of weapons
carry-on truly due to the desire on the part of TSA to make our lives
as travelers easier? I doubt it. If anyone in the government was really
serious about making flying easier they would enact legislation requiring wider
seats in every class.
TSA just recently signed a deal to spend
$50Million on new uniforms. All the
budget cuts currently under review, the rampant fear-mongering about reduction
in social services, and the TSA has $50M to spend on uniforms! This reeks of the same bile as Senatorial
vacations and perks.
Wait a minute, with the reduction in TSA
security, the current number of agents won’t be needed right? What will they do with the money left over
from the uniform budget? Return it?
Maybe the money should be set aside
for a contingency terrorist victim relief fund.
Until the next time, LL&P!
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