There are clearly going to be several turning points in which years from now, we will look back and point it back to this day. What do you think will change from this aftermath? -The most obvious: Airport security. It will take us much longer to get through the gates. Technology will be stepped up and training will be stepped up. There are too many stories of people actually bringing weapons aboard. Certain knives are allowed on board. One morning talk show guy said he brought an unloaded pistol aboard on his carry on. This weak security has been know for quite some time. The feds have proven this, but only with red tape preventing any actions. They have made this public. What has this accomplished? It told millions throughout the world what a joke of a security we have. I foresee plane design changes. I foresee "air marshalls". I foresee random searches, targeted towards races. Perhaps remote detonations? -Terror activity: Whoever did this has popped Amercia's cherry. We are now like the rest of the world. It WILL happen again, and more frequently.(maybe not to this magnitude) -MaCarthism: Terror threats will not be treated as a joke anymore. It will possible become a federal offence to make jokes refrencing this. It will be a civilians responsibilty to report suspected people, regardless where; home, work, observation, internet, ect ... -New Method of Terrorism: No longer will planes be hijacked for terror; Only one purpose - A flying bomb. There will be no warnings. They will kill the crew and kill the passangers without a first thought. -Acceptable losses: This is a major point. Before, hollywood has depicted "acceptable losses" Do not shoot the plane down till "the point of no return", testing our theory of a "zero tolerance" for terrorism. It will be tested! From here on out, all hijacked planes will be escorted by figher jets, crosshairs on it all times. Before, it was unnacceptable to lose 1 american life to a terrorist. Now if a plane is brought down and crashed by a pilot, he will be hailed as a hero, and a terrorist attempt thwarted. -Special Tactical Terrorist Operations: We have the NSA and CIA for this. I feel they will open up a new agency to handle this, much like NASA took over the Military operations of space exploration. These guys will take constantly keep track of all know terrorist and suspects. People like Bin Laden's whereabouts will be known at all times. Its clearly becoming terrorist is the war of the future. No more having confernce calls, discussing what time we will meet for a weekly fight, no more aggresive fighting. Its about defending innocent civilians.
Space Ghost- Nice Post One thing that needs to change very quickly is to have the people who man the x-ray machines as you pass to the gate be trained and educated. I cannot tell you how many times I go through and the guards are sitting there talking to each other and waving me through. I think the airports are going to have to step up to the plate and pay these people more than minimum wage if there job is to protect the public.
This is going to sound crazy, but how about a change in the law that would permit people to carry guns onto planes IF AND ONLY IF THEY PASS A DEEP BACKGROUND CHECKS (MAYBE EVEN RESTRICTED TO US-BORN CITIZENS). 3-5 knife wielding foreign-national terrorists would have had a tough time if they encountered 10-15 gun carrying passengers and maybe a Marshall as well. The hardest truth is that we would have to be accustomed to losing 1,3, 5 or more passengers for the sake of saving the balance of lives on that plane and perhaps some on the ground. Citizens will be very reluctant to start the bloodbath. I don't blame them.
Are you referring to a counter-terrorist organization like Rainbow Six? I imagine the government has something like this already. We just don't know about it (like Ah-nuld's Omega spy group from True Lies). The CIA DOES gather intelligence (hence, Central Intelligence Agency) and, until early this year, HAD known about bin Laden's whereabouts. They lost track of him, though.
Oh joy. That's what I want. Ten-15 gun toters riding onboard with 3-5 knife-wielding (foreign national?) terrorists. Nothing like a war at 30k feet. Please keep your guns on the ground. It's hard enough to control their use down here; the last thing I want to worry about is a herd of people trying to be heroes in the air and blowing holes in the cabin and thereby blowing cabin pressure, resulting in a crash.
LOL DOD. I've heard this a couple times. Even troops carrying weapons. But it seems everyone forgets that one hole through the window and the whole plane is gone.
I don't want ANYONE having a gun on a plane. No matter what the background check. Sometimes people simply snap. Any way, on a plane even a well-intentioned gunshot could be lethal. Smarter to overpower a terrorist manually.
I bet when this shakes out there will be NO MORE cary on luggage. What is the need of it anyway, just takes up space and wastes time. Sucks for those who feel the need to carry their luggage on, but I guarantee carry on days are over.
Then the terrorists accomplished their mission. 1. They killed US citizens. 2. They've changed the way Americans live. Don't give them number 3. We can't reduce ourselves to a neo-McCarthy attitiude. We need to beef up security, yes. But if we do this at a cost of basic civil liberties then we've just played into the terrorists hands. I'm all for waiting in lines, if my safety depends on it. And we better educate and motivate the darn X ray guys. They barley pay attention, much less investigate anything out of the ordinary.
I saw an idea on the news, I forget who said it, but that each flight have a police officer assigned to it as a passenger, not as part of the crew. I thought it was a good idea. Anyone know how severe a bullet hole, or a blown out window is to a passenger airliner? How high is too high to recover, or is being too low worse? Can a plane still land, or is one hole enough to bring the whole thing down?
Yeah, that's a law that would pass, people can carry guns on planes if and only if they pass an extensive background test, and they're American. Wow.
I forget where I read it, but Israeli airline El Al has two sets of bullet proof doors that must be passed through to enter the cabin, as well as 2 armed guards protecting the cabin. They haven't had any problems with this setup. Also, I think that to some degree, had people percieved that planes could act as weapons, crews, flight controlers, pilots, and passengers would have acted differently. I believed that they all just assumed that the planes would land at an airport where there would be some sort of hostage negotiations. I doubt that the pilots would have considered handing over the planes if they had any idea what might happen. This is why I doubt that bin ladden will attempt his next attack by air. If crews and pilots were faced with the exact same situations tomorrow, without any changes in conditions other than knowledge of what happened on the 11th, I believe that the outcomes would be quite different.
No takers huh?! I'm not sure it is as simply devastating as you all make it sound to have shots fired in the air. They get away with it in movies; I would like to have a better answer though. RM95: Did you like Tuesday's outcome better? There's nothing wrong with giving US-born Americans privileges. You have to be one to be elected president, you know. If we train the terrorists that kill our innocent civilians, maybe we should reserve the right to blow their heads off when they threaten us again. Just an idea.... Why does everyone want to equate gun-carrying with cowboyism? Ask all the dead people on that plane and their surviving family members if it wouldn't have been nice to have some armed men and women on the plane to deter the hijacking. I'm afriad that you guys aren't very good at thinking outside of the box or surpressing your knee-jerk liberal reactions.
yeah let's go by what is possible in movies. tim mcveigh was a US born citizen and probably would have passed a background check. maybe the marshalls can use rubber bullets? mace? tasers? stun guns? chinese throwing stars?
outlaw. Really! Don't be so literal about the movie citation. However, it would seem that they are more accurate than what the critics here have suggested. They are now talking about arming the pilots and posting Sky Marshalls so errant shots fired must NOT bring down planes de facto as some have suggested above. If we make background checks RENEWABLE then Tim McVeigh's permit could/would have been revoked because of his involvement with the organizations with which he affiliated. What if we had a system to distribute firearms to the qualified citizens at the point of boarding? That way the background checks would be up-to-the-minute and they couldn't falsify documents. Maybe we could require specific training schools effectively making a large posse of deputized sky marshalls who get deep rate discounts. They are thus NOT cowboys and not professionals. We have to think about cost-effectiveness. I know that I am reaching here, but guess what... these have instantly become desperate times where many safe assumptions will have to change. Some of our solutions might be a bit scary but the threat around us is even more terrifying. Rather than just dump on novel ideas, why not help shape them towards a better reality. Just an suggestion; get creative.
Det: so what happened is preferrable? Something has got to change. What would you suggest? People want and need to fly and they must be made to feel safe. Why is it worse to have guys/gals our YOUR side with weapons to deter crime? Rather than take cheap shots, why not try to contribute something intelligent or constructive to the conversation? Make the idea better if you can.
The idea is so bad that it cannot even be made better. Of course, what happened is not preferrable. But the idea to let people carry guns on planes after "background checks" is just so ridiculous that it is not even worth discussing. One could consider having an armed officer, but I don't really feel that even this could prevent what happened. Another thing to consider would be to shield the pilot's cabin, so that even if terrorists killed everyone in the back of the plane, the pilot would have strict order to keep course. Sorry, but it is not a cheap shot, your idea is just crazy, as you said, and it evidently is so far from making any sense that there is no point discussing it. I don't mean to offend you, but I guess others would confirm my statement. Everyone can be wrong once in a while, so no offense. I guess terrible events like the one yesterday do leave people in a confused state of mind.
We'll see. I think we will see the sealed, bullet-proof cockpit. And I think in time we'll see something along the lines of what I'm suggesting. Undetectable resistance is a great deterrant to wrong-doers. The idea is worth discussing and I don't consider plainly calling it stupid as a discussion. New problems call for new solutions. If the problems are radical so must be the solutions. You're mighty cocky. Is it hard to be right all the time-- without even a discussion?!
