Perhaps this published article will explain a bit more than I am allowed to say:
From the Charlotte Observer:
http://www.charlotte.com/409/story/588670.html
Bureaucrats + guns = BANG!
Officials who don't want pilots to have guns created a safety hazard
The author of this commentary asked to be anonymous to avoid running afoul of the Transportation Security Administration. We thought the topic was of sufficient interest to grant an exemption from our policy requiring authors to be identified. -- Editors, The Observer
As a Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO), firearms instructor, and advocate of the "Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act," I'll describe how politics made it inevitable a pilot would eventually blow a hole in his airplane.
At the risk of broaching what the Transportation Security Administration calls "Sensitive Security Information," understand the TSA's first director, John Magaw, balked at arming pilots, adopting the program only when enacted by Congress.
Forced to administer something they opposed, bureaucrats hamstrung it by requiring pilots to transport firearms in lock boxes weighing 10-plus pounds in idiotic little bags. Just because pilots safeguard the lives of millions, after all, doesn't mean they can be trusted with guns.
Add requirements that applicants not only be unpaid, but also use vacations to trek the hinterlands of New Mexico -- three hours from commercial airports -- for required training (at their own expense), and the resulting program neatly discourages participation.
Instructors and Federal Air Marshals (FAMs) who now control the program understand, unlike politicos, the hurdles overcome by pilots who comprise the largest federal law enforcement arm and routinely thank participants.
So how did the bureaucrats set up the accident?
I was thrilled when, after years of complaints, they replaced the lockbox I'd been lugging -- until I saw what replaced it.
Ignoring FAM recommendations to keep guns on belts, their brainstorming produced a 1950s-vintage thumb-snap holster with a hole through the trigger guard to accommodate a padlock. When leaving cockpits, FFDOs remove holstered guns from belts and insert locks.
That sounds fine if you don't know anything about guns. No other law enforcement agency requires such gun handling, especially in turbulence and darkened, cramped cockpits. And although holsters cover a handgun's trigger to prevent accidental discharge, TSA sages elected to put a hole in that cover.
Even that pales beside the stupidity of placing a metal bar against the trigger of a loaded gun. I once made a video wherein I fired a pistol with a trigger lock engaged. As in my video, along comes the pilot who, unaware his shoulder harness has accidentally unsnapped the thumb-break, removes holster from belt. The gun having slipped slightly out of the holster, he installs the lock, its bar in front of the trigger. Next he shoves it into the bag, and --
BANG!
Beyond this snafu, there's the recurring problem of lost guns. While our masters admonish us not to leave them lying around, it apparently eludes them that the best way to avoid losing something is to keep it attached to your body.
The solution is simple: As with other law enforcement agencies, guns should stay on belts at all times. FFDOs should receive weapons retention training and use snatch-resistant retention holsters.
Doubtless, bureaucrats will take years debating this, if they get the chance: U.S. Rep. Shirley Jackson Lee, D-Texas, chair of the Homeland Security transportation subcommittee, is already foaming at the mouth to terminate the program.
So as pilots defend against terrorists plotting to use aircraft as weapons of mass destruction, politicians and bureaucrats plot to deny you that defense.
For The Record offers commentaries from various sources. The views are the writer's, and not necessarily those of the Observer editorial board.
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