Originally Posted by
Spiff
Your statements are illogical. Knives are not credible weapons. Pilots do not open the cockpit door and they land the plane at the first sign of trouble. Passengers also would attack any idiot who tried to hijack or destroy a plane with a knife.
It is a complete waste of time and resources to even search passengers for knives at the checkpoint, let alone get one's panties in a wad over their presence in the sterile area.
a) Pilots do open the cockpit door. Yes, when they do it the area should be secured by a beverage cart, but to imagine a determined group of individuals would never be able to get in a cockpit is pure and simple naivety.
b) While I agree there is a fair chance passengers may attack a hijacker, the
average passenger neither trained nor equipped. Not to mention, it may not be one hijacker or ten hijackers -- able-bodied passengers may very well be overwhelmed.
c) um, what exactly would make it a "secure" area if passengers were allowed to carry knives?
So, yes, I will continue to get my, as you so elegantly put it, "panties in a wad" over passengers carrying weapons.
I know that expressing any defence of actions taken by airport security is akin to walking into the lion's den here -- I find it a real shame that (as has been lamented before) only one viewpoint is allowed in this forum, one that many of us silently view as rather extremist. But I find it the height of folly to insist that knives and boxcutters aren't dangerous on a plane. That's a chance I'm not willing to take, with my life or anyone else's.