Originally Posted by
WillCAD
Actually, I'm going to disagree with you on that point.
But of course. Be my guest.
First, blunt force trauma can be inflicted with a fairly minimal swing. Straight up and down with a heavy, solid object, a person could inflict serious, possibly fatal damage, in just the length of their arm; so, in an aircraft cabin, just raising your arm up to ceiling height is enough swing space.
Raising your arm to the ceiling of the average plane is not within the range for the average adult. As in, they won't have enough room to do it. Long, thin objects require space in order to build up speed and, thereby, energy. Unless the person wielding it really knows what they're doing.
Second, lucite is not one of those fragile, brittle plastics like those used in child's toys.
Actually, yes, Lucite is quite brittle unless extra stuff is added. No doubt such stuff is used in this instance, given its use, but that may or may not include an ability to "load" it with lateral impact energy. Lucite is seldom a good choice for that task.
A solid lucite rod of that size actually would be every bit as effective a weapon as a solid oak rod of the same dimensions.
On that I have a little experience and I'm going to disagree with you. Oak, whether red or Japanese white, is a very different beastie from lucite. Oak has flex and density, two things that lucite is missing.
The issue, for me, is not whether the cane could be used as a weapon, since it clearly could, but whether it poses any greater danger than any of the other millions of wooden and metal canes which are permitted on aircraft by TSA without any further examination or determination necessary.
Indeed.