Obama Quietly Ends The Armed Pilot Program
This isn’t incompetence. It’s a criminal disregard for the safety of the American people:
After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings.
Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.
So….the guy piloting a multi-ton aircraft containing several hundred passengers can be trusted to fly the plane and get it safely back on the ground but can’t be trusted to defend it if something far fetched, some scheme from terrorists – oh, say, some dudes with boxcutters wanted to take it over and crash it into buildings occupied by several thousand people – were to happen.
My God.
Who is Obama listening to? Is he being kept completely out of the loop on what is happening in the world by advisers with their own political agenda, or is he actually this incompetent?
Or (and I asked this question yesterday) are he and his gang deliberately setting out to damage this country beyond repair?
Well, it’s a good thing he’s decided to disarm those pilots, isn’t it? I mean, putting guns in the hands of college educated, highly responsible people, many of whom have military backgrounds….what were we thinking?
This isn’t going to end well.
I wonder why guards in prisons aren’t allowed to carry guns?
Any guesses? Would you think that “something far fetched, some scheme from terrorists” wouldn’t include incorporating the pilots gun into the hijacking? Do you think that the pilot would be willing to shoot through the child that the terrorist is holding in front of him?
The armed pilot walks out of the cockpit with the terrorists 225 feet ahead of him with 300 people between them. How many shots will it take to kill him, or them. How many are there, and where are they. The program is only a ruse to make the would be terrorists think there is security on the plane. The real security is the passengers. More terrorists have been taken down by the passengers than the pilots.
Another brilliant move by the top idiot.
this is the best news i have heard since 2003.
We ought to make it that while the plane is in flight the cockpit door cannot be opened. If we want somebody armed to be on a plane, which I personally think would be a poor use of resources, than get an air marshall.
I don’t understand this move…it will be interesting to learn more as time progresses.
But Carrick, for arguments sake. What does a pilot do if a Terrorist comes to the cockpit with children or passengers as human shields? Why not just give them tazers or rubber bullets?
Obama does not worry about airline safety. He flies Air Force One. As for the rest of the common people – the suckers, the dupes, the rubes, the voters – Obama wants you to keep working and paying your taxes. That’s as far as his thinking goes; your safety is not on his list of priorities.
Also this is just another personal thing for Obama. Former Pres. Bush started the armed pilot program, and Obama ends it.
In prisons moron, not on top of prisons. If you can be touched by a prisoner you can not have a gun. But you know that anyway.
In playing Devil’s advocate, what is the “upside” to changing this rule?
We don’t have reported gun mishaps, we haven’t had a hijacking where the pilots gun was taken or used. We don’t, to my knowledge, have any applicable data to judge the merits for or against the armed pilot rule. That, in it’s self, can be a form of data, because nothing has happened, I suppose.
Still, what is the upside from removing the guns? I’d honestly like to see a compelling arguement for it.
Buzz:
I dunna. Why not ask this guy?
The math is simple: armed pilots=no crashes into the Twin Towers or the Pentagon on 9/11. Even govt school educated lefties can do that math.
You know, as a pilot, I’m a little confused. I’ve been hearing this “gun ban” story. Yesterday, I heard “do you hear what Obama is planning” from my copilot. As he asked that question, my Colt was in my bag in the compartment above my head. (I know, I should keep it with me, but it digs into my hip when I sit down.)
This afternoon, I’m in a hotel room with my laptop. (We don’t fly out for another four hours.) I’m reading this story everywhere, but it all seems to track back to the Washington Times. That, and other blogs, are the only sources I’m finding.
In my email, there’s nothing to tell me that my gun can’t go with me. Don’t even have one of those twice-a-week emails telling me that there’s new paperwork I have to fill out.
And then I found this on Fox News.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/18/federal-officials-deny-report-pilot-gun-program-end/
I’m thinking that somebody at the Moonie Times got his wires crossed. There doesn’t seem to be anything to this story.
The firearm is the first line of defense. If the terrorist has gotten within close quarters combat range, there’s already a problem.
Buzz….it’s NOT the pilot’s job to go out into the plane and play rescue ranger. It’s his job to use that weapon to keep the cockpit in the hands of the right people.
If they somehow manage to breach the secured cockpit door, THEN the gun comes into play.
The armed pilot does NOT leave the cockpit. Clear it up any for you?
Not that I would wish for another hijacking to happen, but if it does and it can be proved that the pilots could have prevented it if armed … buh, bye, Obambi.
This makes as much sense as having law enforcement officers disarmed. In fact it is the equivalent as the pilot (or Captain) of an aircraft is the law while the aircraft is in the air. What’s next? I know, let’s cut back or end the sky marshall program.