Support Pilots Who Volunteer to be Armed

The House of Representatives, on July 10, 2002 passed the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act by an overwhelming vote of 310-113. The bill would allow airline pilots to carry sidearms on commercial flights in order to defend their cockpits and passengers from violent attacks. To obtain permission to be armed, a pilot would have to take special training and be deputized as a "Federal Flight Deck Officer." The training would be comparable to that received by federal air marshals.

Showing due attention to flight safety concerns, the House bill also called for standards for training, the types of weapons and ammunition to be carried, and such questions as how pilots are to interact with air marshals, store their weapons, and the like.

Without this bill, we have few choices for ensuring that commercial airliners are not used for another September 11 style attack. We can barricade the pilots in the cockpit and hope that no terrorist finds a way to get through the doors, or commits atrocities against passengers or flight attendants to gain admittance.

We can hire and train 100,000 federal air marshals and hope that four or five terrorists won't find a way to overcome a single armed person sitting in the passenger compartment. We should surely pray that this huge federal force, directly under the control of Transportation Security Administration head John Magaw, is never used for un-American purposes. Magaw, for those who have forgotten, is the former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He is famous for presiding over that agency's prolific abuses of civil liberties.

And of course we can continue to plan for the Air Force to shoot down any plane that has been taken over by terrorists, deliberately killing hundreds of passengers and crew members. Unfortunately, this will have to remain the very last resort in any air security plan, since an aircraft in control of terrorists is a danger to thousands, not hundreds, of Americans. The goal should be to make it as unlikely as possible that this nightmarish scenario will ever be fulfilled. Arming pilots is the measure that is most likely to meet that goal.

Airline pilots overwhelmingly favor being armed in their cockpits. Polls show that American citizens overwhelmingly favor it as well. Now the House vote shows that both Republicans and Democrats in that body overwhelmingly support it. Included among the "yeas" in the vote was our own Democrat Representative Baron Hill. So it's a lead pipe cinch, right?

Unfortunately the answer is "no." The liberal Democrat leadership in the Senate, along with the Bush administration, stands in the way of final passage of the bill. This is only natural. The current course of action is guaranteed to increase the size and power of the federal government. Liberal Senators and the president welcome opportunities to do that.

It is possible to break through the resistance in the Senate, but it will take a commitment from the majority of citizens who favor the common sense exhibited in the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act. The Senate version of the bill is S. 2554. Our senators need to understand that the people are watching, and that we want this bill to pass. Letters, phone calls and e-mails are the order of the day.