-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I'd be asking why did they do this? What did we do to provoke this? Why were we a target? What constructive steps can we take to address the root cause of the issue? I don't believe in an eye for an eye etc. It's a stupid policy that can only lead to more nastiness. Sure there are baddies out there that need to be dealt with, but it's best done covertly, quietly, intelligently. You forget I've lived all my life with the very real and demonstrated threat of terrorism. It's been through the onset of constructive negotiation in the last ten years that progress has been made in one of the longest running, most bitter disputes on the planet - Ireland. The threat to that is that the rule of the gun will swing around again if the talking stops and more people will get killed. That's what you have in the US now. No one is talking. Still I digress. I maintain that arming the pilots won't help guard against an organised "terrorist" cell planning to hijack an airliner. Nothing really can or will. We may as well accept that the price for the freedom of flying is the very small chance of such an event and move on. Screening (Properly done), well run security and new identification technologies are all positive helpful steps. Guns in cockpits is just political rhetoric and a distractor to flight safety. I'd still be interested to know how the weapons would be handled in the event of an armed pilot flying into say Europe. Surely they must be kept somewhere secure? I'd like to see a special branch officer relieve them of their weapons before they disembark the aircraft and return them to the crew when they embark. That in itself is a security nightmare. Uncontrolled weapons floating around a secure area...It's just a nightmare. David On Tuesday 03 Dec 2002 9:07 pm, www.joepries.com wrote: > David, > Lets try this- we'll have some terrorists hijack 2 BA 767s and 2 757s, > crash 2 of the 767s into downtown London, have a 757 crash in a field on > the countryside and another one crash into buckingham palace. Then we'll > see about being unpopular pal. BRING ON THE FIREPOWER. The only way to > deal with terrorists on commercial airliners is one- kill them where they > stand. G-d Bless America and our rights to protect ourselves > Joe > > > "David J. Wallace" <katana.flyer@telinco.co.uk> wrote: > > Can't think why the US is so unpopular around the world when people spout > phrases like 'bring on the firepower' as freely as some do. > > ----- > > > Joe Pries Commercial Aviation Photography > Serving the airline industry with quality photography > AOL IM AIRLINE72 > http://www.joepries.com > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE97TZkKsvwCXwmAPgRAin5AJ4vtXN0iMACL85Kvc4HaCf+g9KQ1ACbBXJh dTRw+04t+e3MxADS0A7Fe5M= =Ncs0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----