I would say that terrorists entirely caused this horrible event. Just as a drunk driver who runs off the road and hits someone entirely caused that event.

But the person who served him the alcohol can be held partially responsible for the drunk drivers' actions. Why? Because as a society, we've decided that it is reasonable to expect a bartender to know when someone has had enough to drink.

I think the reasons for most tragedies are multi-factorial. An iceberg caused the Titanic to sink. But a whole host of people share responsibility, from the Captain who speeded ahead into an iceberg field to the company officials who put pressure on him to do so, from the telegraph attendants who were too busy to get messages from other ships to the passengers who demanded their personal messages be sent.

The question is what should we reasonably expect that airlines, the FAA, airports, and passengers do to reduce the likelihood that this can occur again.

The terrorists are the only to blame for the incidents which ocurred on Tuesday but now a lot of information has surfaced about the warnings that this was to take place. The security measures need to be changed immediately. The average salary for a security agent is $6 per hour. This is ridiculous. To most, it is just a second job and this is a serious job taken lightly by them. It is sad that something so tragic has to happen for America to wake up and see how bad we are with things that are most important.

That's why I pointed out that no reasonable amount of security could possibly have prevented men with razor blades in their shaving kits from committing this horrible crime.

A bartender couldn't possibly be held responsible for serving a person who appeared sober in every way a non-alocohlic beverage that the person then reacted to in a bizzarre way that ended up in intoxication.

A razorblade was not a shot of Tequila, it was a Shirley Temple.

Terrorists are entirely responsible, and I'll be ****ed if I let my airlines be victimized twice by being held responsible for that which they could not prevent.

Agree with Robb above.

But I also found the timing and announcement of CO's furloughs and service reductions Saturday (followed of course by others, just like fare changes) very self-serving and in extremely poor taste. They could have waited a week or so for travel to get back on track a bit before announcing such dramatic measures.

It's my opinion that everyone deserves, and deserved, a greater degree of protection than has been afforded to them.

Confiscating nail clippers is not my idea of protection - it is merely a gesture.

An airline is an airline, not an international intelligence agency with suspected terrorist profiles and data at its fingertips. An airline does not keep suspected terrorists under surveillance as do some intelligence agencies.

So, in response to the question, "are airlines to blame...?", my answer is, not in my opinion.

Why is it not feasible to pat everyone down?

I travel to Cameroon regularly and in Douala airport, I go through an agricultural and preliminary passport inspection, Air France checkin and passport inspection, pay my departure tax, check for payment for departure tax, security check by Cameroon authorities and a final security check (including bag search and pat down) by Air France security personnel who fly in on the plane from Paris. Happens on EVERY flight.

I still don't think it would deter a determined hijacker with ground crew help etc. but it shows it can be done.

I quite frankly think that everyone is going overboard. They have not eliminated glass wine bottles on flights (yet) and surely those are more dangerous than plastic knives and tweezers that are now being banned.

These guys never do the same thing twice. Next it will be a train commandeered and blown up in a vulnerable place. We are being reactive and not proactive. That is exactly what the other side wants us to do. We plunge into chaos while they just laugh and plunder on.