pilots refuse to fly with gun loons onboard

"Eddy_Down" wrote in message
s.com...


Bill Smith wrote:

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 21:51:13 GMT, Dave Whitmarsh
wrote:


On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:01:03 -0800, Bill Smith
wrote:


On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 18:50:49 -0000, "nick"
wrote:


"Some flights to the US could be grounded after the airline pilots'
union
called on its members not to fly with armed sky marshals on board."

"Airline pilots should not take off with marshals on board, the
British
Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa) has said."

"Capt Granshaw defended pilots' right to take action and said: "Our
advice
to pilots is that until adequate written and agreed assurances are
received,
flight crew should not operate flights where sky marshals are
carried."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3357309.stm



LOL!. They want ONLY terrorists armed! This is, all at once, hilarious
and tragically stupid.
Bill Smith

Your inability to comprehend basic English is a huge concern, Bill old
chap.


"Written assurances". Of what? They want to be told that trained
personnel are going to be used rather than just passing guns out to
the passengers? They want to be told that if they lose control of
their aircraft it will be shot down and there might just be a few
remedies to try before then?


It's called X-ray machines at the airport check-in terminals, doofus.

We have them. Unfortunately, they're manned by low-level personnel, the
scrapings of American society and refugees from the former British and
Spanish Empire's colonies. The FBI and other agencies have proven it's
ridiculously easy to get weapons past them. Two times I've run into
difficulties with flying on a civilian airline were because of stupid, badly
trained, foreign-born flunkies (possibly not even American citizens) who
could barely speak English, and the third was with an American who probably
was in a prison work program.

I can´t believe what I just read.
Didn´t you Americans learn anything from recent history (some school-events
just popped into my mind)?
It just does not work to make even more people carry guns in order to
protect them from potential terrorists.
What kind of logic is that?
You won´t stop terrorists from trying to hijack planes by simply having
armed sky marshalls on the aircraft.
You should increase airport security first and then try to figure out how an
unexperienced pilot can fly all over New York and make a sightseeing tour
around the Statue of Liberty without beeing noticed at all before you think
about arming sky marshalls.
And how impertinent are you to simply postulate a "law" like the above?
I really pay my tribute to the pilots making a statement like that.
It plays in the same league like the major of London who explicitly allowed
demonstrations against Bush in the vicinity of his whereabouts.
Without making the attacks less horrible, but America gets more and more
paranoic.

Thomas
Berlin, Germany

"Thomas Heide" wrote in message
...

What kind of logic is that?


Sound.

Thomas Heide wrote:

You should increase airport security first and then try to figure out how
an unexperienced pilot can fly all over New York and make a sightseeing
tour around the Statue of Liberty without beeing noticed at all before you
think about arming sky marshalls.

Since that's not what occurred, why should we try to figure that out?

The pilot was "noticed" very quickly. In fact, the "problem" was that he
flew into a tightly controlled airspace (class B, in case you're familiar
with this) w/o clearance from the controlling agency. By definition, he
was seen as soon as he did that.

Separate from that - actually, he was probably outside of the controlled
airspace at this point, but it depends upon his altitude - he circled the
statue. Scores of pilots, commercial and private, do this every [fair
weather] day. I did it myself a few hours after this fellow, in fact.

[In fact, I flew a route not too dissimilar to his. The difference: I did
it with approval from Laguardia Tower.]

I'm by no means excusing his incursion into the airspace w/o a clearance.
That's a "no no", and somewhat dangerous besides (there's a reason why this
airspace is more tightly controlled than other airspace). But he was
noticed, he was intercepted, and there's not a damned thing wrong with
circling the statue.

And how impertinent are you to simply postulate a "law" like the above?

Each nation is free to regulate its own airspace. This amendment isn't a
law that affects anything outside our airspace, so I'm not sure why you
think of this as "impertinent". Your country can mandate clowns on flights
through its airspace, should you wish.

I really pay my tribute to the pilots making a statement like that.

From what I've read, the pilots merely want to have established certain
protocols involving C&C. To my mind, that seems like a smart idea. I
assume that the nations already putting armed officers aboard aircraft
already have these established.

- Andrew

Thank you Andrew. Saved me from having to post exactly the same message.

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
gonline.com...
Thomas Heide wrote:

You should increase airport security first and then try to figure out
how
an unexperienced pilot can fly all over New York and make a sightseeing
tour around the Statue of Liberty without beeing noticed at all before
you
think about arming sky marshalls.

Since that's not what occurred, why should we try to figure that out?

The pilot was "noticed" very quickly. In fact, the "problem" was that he
flew into a tightly controlled airspace (class B, in case you're familiar
with this) w/o clearance from the controlling agency. By definition, he
was seen as soon as he did that.

Separate from that - actually, he was probably outside of the controlled
airspace at this point, but it depends upon his altitude - he circled the
statue. Scores of pilots, commercial and private, do this every [fair
weather] day. I did it myself a few hours after this fellow, in fact.

[In fact, I flew a route not too dissimilar to his. The difference: I did
it with approval from Laguardia Tower.]

I'm by no means excusing his incursion into the airspace w/o a clearance.
That's a "no no", and somewhat dangerous besides (there's a reason why
this
airspace is more tightly controlled than other airspace). But he was
noticed, he was intercepted, and there's not a damned thing wrong with
circling the statue.

And how impertinent are you to simply postulate a "law" like the above?

Each nation is free to regulate its own airspace. This amendment isn't a
law that affects anything outside our airspace, so I'm not sure why you
think of this as "impertinent". Your country can mandate clowns on
flights
through its airspace, should you wish.

I really pay my tribute to the pilots making a statement like that.

From what I've read, the pilots merely want to have established certain
protocols involving C&C. To my mind, that seems like a smart idea. I
assume that the nations already putting armed officers aboard aircraft
already have these established.

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
gonline.com...
Thomas Heide wrote:

You should increase airport security first and then try to figure out
how
an unexperienced pilot can fly all over New York and make a sightseeing
tour around the Statue of Liberty without beeing noticed at all before
you
think about arming sky marshalls.

Since that's not what occurred, why should we try to figure that out?

The pilot was "noticed" very quickly. In fact, the "problem" was that he
flew into a tightly controlled airspace (class B, in case you're familiar
with this) w/o clearance from the controlling agency. By definition, he
was seen as soon as he did that.

Separate from that - actually, he was probably outside of the controlled
airspace at this point, but it depends upon his altitude - he circled the
statue. Scores of pilots, commercial and private, do this every [fair
weather] day. I did it myself a few hours after this fellow, in fact.

[In fact, I flew a route not too dissimilar to his. The difference: I did
it with approval from Laguardia Tower.]

I'm by no means excusing his incursion into the airspace w/o a clearance.
That's a "no no", and somewhat dangerous besides (there's a reason why
this
airspace is more tightly controlled than other airspace). But he was
noticed, he was intercepted, and there's not a damned thing wrong with
circling the statue.

And how impertinent are you to simply postulate a "law" like the above?

Each nation is free to regulate its own airspace. This amendment isn't a
law that affects anything outside our airspace, so I'm not sure why you
think of this as "impertinent". Your country can mandate clowns on
flights
through its airspace, should you wish.

I really pay my tribute to the pilots making a statement like that.

From what I've read, the pilots merely want to have established certain
protocols involving C&C. To my mind, that seems like a smart idea. I
assume that the nations already putting armed officers aboard aircraft
already have these established.

- Andrew


The text of the letter outlining the protocol principles is below. as pilots
we should be supporting fellow pilots in wanting to remain in command.
http://www.balpa.org/intranet/Letter2.pdf

after all Part 91 says the pilots is solely responsible. all I can see is
the commanders of aircraft discharging their legal duties.

There is a lot of evidence that shows that violent crime diminishes when
people are allowed to defend themselves (read - arm themselves)
Places that ban handguns usually experience higher rates of violent crime.

Yes, people will always try to do bad things, and wouldn't it be nice to be
able to DEFEND yourself against them? I happen to think so.

One would think that the history lesson is on your side - one of the first
things the fascists did was to disarm the people so that they could not
defend themselves...

"Thomas Heide" wrote in message
...
I can´t believe what I just read.
Didn´t you Americans learn anything from recent history (some
school-events
just popped into my mind)?
It just does not work to make even more people carry guns in order to
protect them from potential terrorists.
What kind of logic is that?
You won´t stop terrorists from trying to hijack planes by simply having
armed sky marshalls on the aircraft.
You should increase airport security first and then try to figure out how
an
unexperienced pilot can fly all over New York and make a sightseeing tour
around the Statue of Liberty without beeing noticed at all before you
think
about arming sky marshalls.
And how impertinent are you to simply postulate a "law" like the above?
I really pay my tribute to the pilots making a statement like that.
It plays in the same league like the major of London who explicitly
allowed
demonstrations against Bush in the vicinity of his whereabouts.
Without making the attacks less horrible, but America gets more and more
paranoic.

Thomas
Berlin, Germany

"Richard Hertz" wrote:

There is a lot of evidence that shows that violent crime diminishes when
people are allowed to defend themselves (read - arm themselves)
Places that ban handguns usually experience higher rates of violent crime.

Yes, people will always try to do bad things, and wouldn't it be nice to be
able to DEFEND yourself against them? I happen to think so.

This is a load of crap. Handguns are very rare in Australia. The
papers here are talking about a gangland war that has broken out here.
Large rewards are being offered by the police to catch the people
involved. This is a result of something like 24 people being killed in
the last 6 YEARS. When 24 people in 6 years is significant, I don't
think the rate of violent crime is high.

Americans seem to have no concept of what it is like to live in a
largely gun free society. They view safety as having a gun, and hoping
that if it comes to the worst they will be able to shoot the other guy
before they get shot. In Australia, you don't have a gun and go around
pretty confident that no-one will get shot at all.

Americans seem to have no concept of what it is like to live in a
largely gun free society. They view safety as having a gun, and hoping
that if it comes to the worst they will be able to shoot the other guy
before they get shot. In Australia, you don't have a gun and go around
pretty confident that no-one will get shot at all.

I do, Andrew, but then again I lived in Canberra for 15 months... an no
Canberra jokes! Yes, it is a bush capital, and yes, they do close all the
restaurants at something around 8:00 PM, but we really liked it there!

I understand what you are saying, but it's pointless to explain it to most
U.S. citizens. The right to "keep and bear arms" was written into our very
constitution when our nation was founded. Which would be fine, except they
authors quite frankly put enough additional and vaugely-worded verbage into
the second ammendment that their true intent will never be fully understood.
As a result, there are fewer hot-button issues for Americans than this one.
It's bigger and far more passionate than Pauline Hanson ever even tried to
be.

You are correct in many of your assertions, of course. Australia, and the
UK, and nearly all other western nations have very strict gun control, and
yet they have basically the same crime rates at the United States. In fact,
total violent crime rates in all these nations is more or less at the same.
People attack one another just as much in Australia as they do here. The
only noticible difference between these nations relates to the number of
deaths caused by such attacks. You are just as likely to be attacked here
in Pittsburgh as you are in Melbourne, but you are far more likely to die as
a result of your wounds. Firearms are the reason behind this difference, of
course, but a good 50% of my fellow citizens will dispute this relationship
until thier dying breath. If you don't believe me, watch what happens in
the replies to this posting.

I must admit that there is a certain logic to the belief that having an
armed populace will reduce crime. The theory beind this belief is obvious
and from all outward appearances, quite sound. But theories have to be
supported by scientific data to be valid, and the data have never really
supported this one.

"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote:

I understand what you are saying, but it's pointless to explain it to most
U.S. citizens. The right to "keep and bear arms" was written into our very
constitution when our nation was founded. Which would be fine, except they
authors quite frankly put enough additional and vaugely-worded verbage into
the second ammendment that their true intent will never be fully understood.
As a result, there are fewer hot-button issues for Americans than this one.
It's bigger and far more passionate than Pauline Hanson ever even tried to
be.

Yes, I understand how Americans feel about this (many of them anyway)
and I don't really expect to convince them. I guess trying to push the
view that everyone needs guns onto other countries is one of my hot
buttons, and I couldn't resist responding :-)