The troop who had C-4 in his checked luggage is one such example. It is not unusual for young troops to pull knucklehead stunts like this, although most of them do it with M-16 rounds and such. He never had the intent of blowing up an airplane or hijacking it. He probably thought it would be a neat idea to smuggle some of the stuff home so he could show it off to his buddies and blow something up with it like a bridge, backyard porch or playground sandbox.

I'm not suggesting that C-4 should be permitted or that a soldier should be exempted from screening.

What I'm saying that is if one young trooper violates the trust placed in low risk passengers by pulling a stunt like this, then punish the violator not the entire low-risk passenger category. It's an acceptable risk. Besides, he's already in deep-enough kimchi seeing as how smuggling Army-issue controlled material is a major league violation of several military regulations, federal laws and a host of other legalities that's going to overwhelm whichever lawyer is gutsy enough to defend him in court.

However, I'm afraid that if something like this gains enough negative attention, then RBS would be killed for all the wrong reasons.