Originally Posted by Bart

I don't necessarily disagree with the gist of your comments. I agree that the pendulum has gone too far in the direction of risk avoidance as opposed to stopping somewhere in the middle where risk management resides. By the way, nail clippers, corkscrews and certain butter knives are not prohibited, so you'll have to update your rhetoric some.

Statistically speaking, terrorist attacks only affects a very minute fraction of the entire flying public. You stand a greater chance of being struck by lightening than you do of being victimized by a terrorist attack. You stand a greater chance of being killed in an automobile accident than you would in any sort of aviation mishap, accident or terrorist attack. Heart disease and complications brought on by high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other related conditions will probably kill you more than any sort of terrorist attack, be it against aviation or something as simple as blowing up a shopping mall.

However, to dismiss the terrorist threat is simply naive. They are a determined foe and want to bring harm to us. The question is: should we accept terrorism as our European neighbors do and blame it all on simply having the bad luck of drawing the statistical short straw? I don't think that's possible. As a society, we value human life to such a degree that we will do what we can to avoid the death or injury of even one life no matter how remote the odds of a certain event. We put warnings on children's toys even though the number of toddlers who accidentally swallow small parts is a fraction of one percentage point. We require by law that people wear seat belts and that cars be equipped with seat belts even though there are people who can drive safely and avoid accidents without ever wearing a seat belt. We outlaw smoking in public areas because of our concern for second-hand inhalation of cigarette smoke.

I don't think the terrorists necessarily caused the overreaction you describe. It's in our nature. It's our culture to react in such a manner. Not to sound callous, but the 3,000 people who were murdered on that horrific day was, statistically speaking, no different than the number of people who die in a given week of any cause, the majority of those resulting from highway deaths. Yet to us, this is unacceptable, and we do what we can to take precautions and minimize the risk of death or injury.

A lot of it has to do with the horrific nature of these deaths. We simply find that intolerable and demand that something be done about it. I don't think it's panic even though we were panicked to such a point that it took over a year before the public gained confidence in flying again.

As I said, I don't disagree that TSA can tone it down some and come up with a more reasonable risk-management strategy. However, I think you need to look at the nature of our society, the nature of our political system and the value we place on human life to prevent harm no matter how remote the threat.