There is a difference between someone instinctively reaching into their bag, and a person actually interfering with the process. People will reach into their bag and say "I know what your looking for" and start digging. They will be told to not touch their items please. Usually that person says "Oh, I am sorry. But my curling iron is in that pocket. (It is never the curling iron that we are looking for, but whatever).Someone interfering will ignore the requests to keep their hands out of their bags, they will not step back when requested, and they try many times to get their hands in their bags. Huffing and Puffing the whole time, making it impossible to do the bag check. You can tell the difference between the ones trying to be helpful, and the ones trying to be a PITA.
I'll agree with all of that, and that most problems are the result of hostile passengers annoyed by crummy rules, and, by proxy, the enforcers of those rules.
I will add that the degeneration from friendly interaction to hostile argument is frequently a team effort.
- A bag check is called. TSO opens bag.
- Passenger tries to "help"
- TSO scolds passenger, later asks about something else.
- Passenger, now somewhat annoyed, again tries to help.
- Either passenger or TSO takes an angrier tone of voice, as does the other party.
- TSO, feeling somewhat threatened by the verbally confrontational passenger, asks him/her to step away from his/her possessions.
- And so on...