They still get LEAP which is nothing to sneeze at. 25% of base salary for what?

The same can be said for TSA employees "needing" firearms.

Not sure what base is now days....but you are correct...it's nothing to sneeze at.

Even an ICE/DHS SA at a GS9 makes good money....

But, as stated, most of what they get comes from their per diems while flying....and it ticks them off when that cash isn't flowing in as well.....

OTOH, many TSOs are vets, so they're used to wearing that stuff and doing far trickier jobs in much much worse conditions. Diddling pax and checking IDs and watching an xray would be a doddle for anyone whose been in combat, toting a much heavier load.

I vote no on the weapons. Way to much room for one of my arschloch coworkers to be playing around in the break room or dropping it while taking a crap or even leaving it hanging on the back of the stall door. Bring back the LEOs to the checkpoints, this is their area of work. How about a $500k reward for the first person to take the shooter down? Seems like our society is adopting a wussyfication of run and hide.

It seems to me that real LEO's don't need a "dead or alive" reward to do their jobs.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

This kind of thinking is exactly why TSO's shouldn't be carrying firearms.

~~ Irish

It was reported that TSA had a reward system in place for certain finds and such at one time. That may help frame the thinking of tsadude1.

FAM's I would guess would be in the range of GS-10 to GS-12 on the TSA equivalent pay scales. Figure in locality pay and LEO. A DFW area GS 11-5 makes $68771, kick in 25% LEAP and that takes it up to 85,963. Throw in per diem and I would bet they bust $100,000.

OPM pay scales are available to anyone.

http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-overs...alaries-wages/

edit to add:

The figures above are from the DFW locality LEO salary table.

I have no knowledge of any rewards incentive that you are speaking of. I was simply stating that something be put in place like this for anybody at any location, not necessaily the airport. I dont think that a attacker would do to much damage on a aircraft with the thought of survival on the passenger and crews mind, óso why is it different at the checkpoint?

I'm a little late to this thread, but let me add my own answer to the impressive pile of "Oh, HELL, no!" already out there.

There are already scores of armed government security employees at every airport. They're called "police".

LAX has so many police it needs its own police agency. They even have their own SWAT team.

LAAPD was on site in seconds. LAAPD SWAT was on site in a few minutes. The entire incident lasted maybe 3 minutes, and the shooter never even got through his first magazine. I'd call that pretty impressive police response, considering that a call for an active shooter in a shopping mall, school, or place of business will typically result in cops showing up 5-20 minutes later, establishing a perimeter, and failing to enter for as much as 30-45 minutes while the shooter continues his rampage.

It is simply not necessary to arm TSOs. They already have armed police protecting them.

There is nothing "wussyfied" about "run and hide" if you are unarmed while facing an armed opponent or if you are armed but out-gunned by an opponent. It seems to me that even if I were armed (highly unlikely in an airport situation), I would seek appropriate cover from which to open fire just in case I missed the target.

Attorney General Eric Holder has spoken against the idea of arming TSA, per this link:

http://situationroom.blogs.cnn.com/2...iref=allsearch

And since real, honest-to-goodness law enforcement police officers have been getting into issues like this, can you imagine how much mischief armed TSA employees could get into?

I agree with Holder. No guns for TSA.

On this one issue, I also agree with Eric Holder.

<aubuk> Sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little, there...