Originally Posted by
klevin99
If everyone is low risk, how come TSA keeps finding things that are clearly not low risk?
There is a difference between
people who are low risk and
things that are low risk. Not every person who has a high risk item is, themselves, a high risk. And items that appear to be low risk can be, in fact, high risk when wielded by the proper person.
Originally Posted by
klevin99
If everyone is low risk, why have security checks? I'll answer this one. There was a time when we did not have checks. unfortunately a fair number of planes were hijacked. Were the hijackers low risk?
Yes. The "fair number of planes" that were hijacked was infinitesimal compared to the number of planes that were not hijacked.
We have fewer hijackings today. But most of that can be explained by two changes: (1) locking the door to the cockpit, and (2) changing the SOP that called for flight crews and passengers to unconditionally submit to a hijacking. Neither of those changes has anything to do with the changes in screening that have occurred over the last 20 years.