Originally Posted by Sancha

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.