If law permitted CCW on Airlines with a 8 hour training course would you do it?

[TXGunNut]

I've taken the course for peace officers flying armed and it was quite interesting. It was only for purposes of transporting prisoners, I couldn't fly armed under any other circumstances. The risk of blowing a hole in the plane and having it suddenly depressurize wasn't the big hazard we thought it was, they seemed more concerned with fire hazards.
I think the big draw of flying armed for qualified individuals is not having to check the firearm in a bag and risk losing a carry gun to a criminal. The possibilty of actually needing a firearm on an airplane are so remote I wonder why I even consider possible scenarios. Retrieving a firearm from my checked bags and getting "dressed" in a rental car office or baggage terminal bathroom is a real PITA.
I don't fly enough to consider it but the idea has merit.....and zero chance of actually happening, IMHO. Just an interesting idea.

 

[JohnKSa]

But, I do believe everyone should have to use Frangible ammo because off risk of hull rupture. Maybe a Basketball size hole at MOST and that is pushing it. They problem is 38,000ft. is a little short on oxygen.

A bullet through the hull makes a bullet hole--nothing more is likely. The pressurization system is more than capable of dealing with a bullet hole--even several bullet holes. Planes are not nearly as air-tight as most folks think. The pressurization system is regulated by a large outflow valves (two valves in some designs) that can be opened wider if the pressure rises too high or closed a bit to compensate for leaks or low pressure.

 

[TylerD45ACP]

:Thanks for the info JohnKSa I figured it wouldnt make a big hole. I just have never seen it happen so cant judge what it would look like. I bet it would be just a hole though like you said. It might not even make it through the hull in some spots. I didnt realize all that about the pressurization system cool info. Well I guess you could just use standard JHP's but frangible might be a good idea.

 

[MLeake]

Tyler, please see post #118. The pressurization issue has been gone into in some detail, by myself among others.

Ok, for those who think carrying on an airliner would be a wise choice, try this next time you go to a range where you can do more than stand behind a line and shoot a single target:

Set up several rows of silhouettes, 3 left side, an aisle space, and 3 right side. Mark them all with big red X's. These are passengers, not targets.

Next, set up a target or two.

Past the target(s), set up several more rows of silhouettes, 3 left, 3 right.

Now, set yourself up in a chair. Put chairs to either side of you. Put suitcases in the chairs, to represent obese travelers to left and right.

Try to engage your targets. Do not hit any red X silhouettes between yourself and the targets. Do not hit any red X silhouettes beyond yourself and the targets.

Have fun with this. (We do this kind of thing in IDPA... it is actually fun. It is not easy, and that's without any stress thrown in.)

After doing this, give an honest assessment of whether you want to see people trying it, in a true threat environment, with only a day's worth of training.

 

[rodfac]

And .... to expand on Mleake's excellent discussion points....while hitting the bad guys, keep any over penetrative rounds and/or misses from hitting the cockpit bulkhead (it's full of circuit breakers that control vital equipment), not to mention the guys doing the flying, control wires, fuel bladders, engines, hydraulic and pneumatic lines etc etc etc.

And while doing all that, be aware that rats travel in packs...there is a good likelihood that the BG you're shooting at, probably has buddies elsewhere on the plane...

The solution for terrorists on commercial aircraft is: keep them off...search the baggage, profile the passengers, do the job that we all know is necessary...anything short of that is not going to work.

Rodfac....Flew for: USAF, Braniff, Air Niagara, People Express, Continental, and UPS. Yep...it was an interesting and tumultuous career.

 

[tyme]

Didnt read the entire article. But wanted to throw my .02 in.

Even after an 8 hour course there are still people out there I dont think should own guns.

Watch these two videos. If I got shot by some over achiever there may a problem with me not returning fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjZY3WiO9s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLN6_s66wTg

A handful of students, who are probably under 21 or for other reasons have not obtained a ccw permit (at least not that I saw reported, although I was not devoting my full attention to the videos), are selected on the basis that they wanted free gun training, offered not by a well-known training instructor but by the local PD. In that artificially constructed scenario where those gun trainees are put in a worst-case active shooter situation in a full classroom, the best the news media can come up with is that they weren't able to prevent themselves from getting killed and they missed a few times?

And while yes, CCWers should be accountable for every round they fire, if heaven forbid an innocent is shot and killed in a scenario with an active shooter, the CCWer might be held civilly liable, but in states with the felony murder rule at least, or even merely relying on the competing harms doctrine, it would be hard to convict the CCWer of some homicide charge. Where the felony murder rule is in effect, the DA gets a scalp to pin the homicide on, so there's little incentive politically to go after the CCWer unless the DA is anti-gun or unless there's some horrible mistake on the CCWer's part that would put his or her actions beyond what was reasonable, and lose him or her sympathy with a jury.

CCW advocates also believe in better training for everyone. What they don't advocate is the government mandating that training as a condition of being allowed to CCW, arbitrary standards based on the idea that every CCWer needs to be able to handle the depicted scenario without getting shot and without missing. I'd be surprised if one in 5 ordinary (non-SWAT) police officers or feds would be able to do that.

If there's any doubt as to the motives or trustworthiness of the people appearing in those videos, please note that that's the Violence Policy Center's youtube channel. The entire scenario was BS, because the (fake) perp was a police officer with weapons training. Compare that to someone like Seung-Hui Cho who had just recently obtained the guns he used, and it's much more likely that any of the students would have been able to disable him.


--Main topic--

I'm ambivalent about CCW on airplanes. Remember the news media tests years ago trying to sneak guns onto airplanes? The TSA's success rate detecting guns wasn't very good. Even if the detection rate is better these days, a dedicated terrorist group with more than few recruits could get someone with a gun onto an airplane eventually, if they wanted to. An armed terrorist on board a flying sardine can, with a small chance on domestic flights that there's an armed LEO on board. Furthermore the group could put an additional unarmed recruit on each attempt, whose purpose would be to create a ruckus and draw out an air marshal if there is one, then have the armed "teammate", if you will, take action.

However, I'm inclined to say the policy of only LEOs-with-special-privileges carrying on planes should continue. Commercial passenger plane hijackings are rare. It is improbable that another 9/11 could occur, even with armed terrorists, since cockpits are harder to get into, passengers are less likely to sit like lambs in the event of a hijacking, and pilots are better prepared and trained (whether or not they have guns in the cockpit) to deal with those situations. Finally, the military will get fighters in the air faster, and where airliners are off course and behaving strangely, assuming they can be intercepted, they will be shot down before reaching major population centers.

I think every terrorist organization with a detectable level of collective brain activity will have figured out by now that even in the best case scenario of getting multiple blade or firearm-armed terrorists onto a plane, the probability of a successful plane-meet-building attack is just about zero, mainly because, even ignoring pilot actions and military actions, other passengers simply will not stand for it, even if they risk injury trying to disarm the terrorists.

The issue really is this: Take the estimated yearly average of passenger injuries and deaths while disarming would-be terrorists, and compare it to the estimated yearly average of passengers getting injured or killed due to CCW fubars... air rage, mall ninjas treating agitated passengers as terrorists, negligent discharges... and when something did happen (and it would), it would not only kill the plane ccw policy instantly, it would not only put all the pro-gun politicians who supported plane ccw on political death row; no, beyond all that, the anti-gunners would use the incident(s) to whip naive people into a frenzy of anti-gun hatred that would set back other pro-gun initiatives.

 

[shortwave]

Sorry, DP

 

[shortwave]

MLeake,

The only additional thing I would add to your fun excersize to put things more into a real life prospective with the topic at hand would be to put a friendly silhouette of a hostage, pressed against your BG target, making your BG target very small.

I've ran many combat/house clearing drills set up simulating hostage situations ....but until you run a few and hit a few friendly's, then start correlating your drills with real life possible situations and knowing you just shot ' little Johnny ' instead of BG, its fairly easy to sit back and say " I can do that". Also remember after you've opened up and shot 'little Johnny' instead of intended BG, you've just pulled the pin for massive casualties. Especially if there's more than one BG.
Also noting, the course's I've ran were not set up with as nearly as many people crammed into such tight quarters as you would find on a plane.

The psycological aspect alone of the most extreme trained person in this kind of scenario, if he would be facing a hostage situation where your facing a BG with say, a kid looking at you crying in hysteria is something many regularly trained LEO's just couldn't take. Let alone the average ccw holder.

What it boils down to is: are you good enough to make that shot.... and do you have confidence that everyone carrying on that plane is also competent of making that shot under those extreme circumstances??
Cause remember the terrorist may just have your loved one as hostage.

I know a few and have witnessed, first hand, the training of some of our state,county and city SWAT LEO's. Not only the physical training aspects but the mental and negotiating training as well. Which CAN be a better weapon than a gun. Given the right situation.

I can tell you that every LEO is just not cut out mentally for the pressure of some of these special units.

The mental stress alone is incredible and can age a fella fairly quickly.

I " Thank " those that are for the incredible job they do.

I just don't see alot of cc people handling this kind of situation in as close quarters as a plane would be, very well.

 

[TylerD45ACP]

Thanks MrLeake and shortwave for your ideas on training. I am going to try that out when I get a chance what you have reccommended. Also I would lay low on a plane if I had a weapon. Even if the people were going crazy I would just try to sit there and clock the situation as well as possible.

 

[wayneinFL]

Still waiting on those who are in favor of cc'ing on airlines.... what plans you have to insuring no legal cc'er thats a hijacker will board your planes in the first place???

What plans to you have to ensure a hijacker isn't boarding a plane now? They're still out there. We're to the point that we have to check underneath everyone's balls for a weapon. The next step is that someone sticks a bomb up his ass, and we have to do a cavity search on everyone who boards a plane.

And let me ask my question again, because it was asked in earnest.

To those of who who oppose carrying on airlines because they're too crowded: What other places do you think are too crowded?

Buses and college classrooms are crowded, too. Are these off limits?

Of course there is an off chance that someone besides a terrorist could be shot by accident, by a cop or someone CCWing. On airliners, buses, or in college classrooms.

On an airplane, the other alternative is a terrrorist killing everyone on the plane by crashing it, or the government shooting it down and killing everyone to avoid hitting the plane reaching a target. In that case, more than any other, I'll take a few people shot by accident to save the entire airliner any day.

 

[shortwave]

What plans to you have to ensure a hijacker isn't boarding a plane now?

Can you site any hijackings that have occured since the system we currently have(although maybe not perfect and a PITA) thats happened?

And let me ask my question again, because it was asked in earnest.

Can't respond for anyone else but, I believe I tried to answer your question in earnest when you asked it. But you still have not tried to answer mine in earnest. Answering a question with a question is a sure sign you've not thought out the whole topic prior to voting.

On an airplane, the other alternative is a terrrorist killing eveyone on the plane by crashing it, or the government shooting the plane down and killing everyone to avoid the plane reaching a target

Have you researched the amount of hijackings in US history that the goal of the hijacker was NOT to fly the plane into a US target.

I also emboldened ' a terrrorist in your statement cause do you really think you'll have a terrorist/hijacker on a plane or multiple terrorists/hijackers to deal with?

If you answer MY question in earnest, please try to include in your plan a scenario such as:

You, MLeake and I are terrorist in which we've successfully boarded a commercial airliner and each of us are wired with explosives that are triggered to go off either by a remote or manual trigger. Maybe one of the couple triggers are wired to sense our pulse/heartbeat(wouldn't that be fun). We are sitting spaced apart through out the plane. Your towards the front, MLeake in the middle section, the I'm towards the tail section.

Our demands are NOT to fly plane into any target but rather hold flight as ransom for(insert any ridiculous amt. of $) and a plane out of the country.
Problem is the only persons you have communicated our demands with is the pilot. Also, since you are the leader of the group, you are the only one thats been positively ID'ed as a hijacker but you've let everyone know you're not alone.

Please explain how if everyone on this plane is cc'ing, that it would help.
Remember the only thing the cc'ing passengers know is that you are a hijacker, your wired with explosives, your not alone. The only other persons that know our demands are money and a plane out of the country is the pilot/co-pilot.

 

[JohnKSa]

Our demands are NOT to fly plane into any target but rather hold flight as ransom...

And, of course, everyone would believe that was the actual goal because the govt. considers hijackers to be honorable people who always tell the truth about their true goals.

The point being that the govt. can't afford to guess wrong. If the plane is taken over it's going to be shot down. There's simply not any room for error. 300 dead and a destroyed airliner is a pretty ugly prospect, but not compared to 2500 dead and potentially hundreds of millions or more in property losses.

It's a new world after 9/11 in terms of how hijackings will be dealt with. If a plane is hijacked and the passengers & crew can't regain control of the airplane very rapidly then everyone aboard will die when the plane is shot down.

In light of that reality, if every innocent person aboard except for the pilot is killed in the process of successfully regaining control of the aircraft then it's a win when one compares that outcome to the outcome of not regaining control before the government acts.

And if everyone dies in the process of attempting to regain control it's no worse than what will happen if the govt. has to act first.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

That point about the political consequences to concealed carry in general is excellent. Let 5 terrorists take over a 777 with permits or even one guy hose a plane and that will make the Gabby situation look like a picnic for gun rights.

You can kiss constitutional carry good bye and concealed carry if allowed will need a PHD from CHL University plus a security clearance far beyond what we do now.

Given the particular nature of the airline environment I see no major gain for allowing carry on the plane. It is NOT the mall.

BTW, is the cockpit secure from gunfire. There are armor piercing 9mms out there for military usage. Can the cockpit withstand those? Going to examine ammo that you carry now?

 

[shortwave]

In light of that reality, if every innocent person aboard except for the pilot is killed in the process of successfully regaining control of the aircraft then its a win when it compares to the outcome of not regaining control before the government acts.

In my scenario, the only positively ID'd hijacker is wayneinFL. MLeake and I are hijackers also but not ID'd to the passengers but the passengers know wayne is not alone and his buddies(MLeake and I) are also wired up. We're all wired with explosives.

If everyone, including the pilot is going to die if waynes trigger(or ours) is tripped, will it benefit the ultimate outcome if everyone on the plane is armed?

The point of my scenario is, if terrorist dedicate enough planning to their skijacking scheme its not going to matter who's armed on the plane once it gets into the air.

Wire the explosives right and if the hijackers die plane comes down just the same as gov't shooting it down. Everybody dies.

Stopping hijacking has got to be done on the ground and the US already has its hands full at present screening everyone the way it is. Suggesting allowing cc'ing on commercial airlines would make an already near impossible job that much harder. If not impossible.

Bad idea!

 

[JohnKSa]

If everyone, including the pilot is going to die if waynes trigger(or ours) is tripped, will it benefit the ultimate outcome if everyone on the plane is armed?

Nope, but it doesn't hurt either.

The point of my scenario is, if terrorist dedicate enough planning to their skijacking scheme its not going to matter who's armed on the plane once it gets into the air.

If it doesn't matter then the hijacking scenario doesn't provide a good rationale for restricting the rights of citizens to carry.

Generally speaking, rights can be legally restricted by our government when the government can show a likely and significantly negative outcome if the restriction is not put in place. In other words, rights are not restricted on the basis that people exercising the right won't necessarily provide a positive outcome but rather on the basis that if they exercise the right in the particular circumstances under consideration it is likely to make things significantly worse.

That's because our nation is founded on the principle that rights and the exercise of rights are already a significantly positive outcome. The idea that we must show that the rights provide other benefits before we can legally exercise them is a concept foreign to the basic founding principles of the country.

 

[shortwave]

If it doesn't matter then the hijacking scenario doesn't provide a good rationale for restricting the rights of citizens to carry

Coupled with the fact that hijackers/terrorist have to be stopped on the ground, if cc was legalized for airplanes, to keep the scenario I discribed or something similar from happening would be probably impossible... in that case...
...Nor the right to carry on a airplane.

Which brings me back to the question I asked earlier:

Of those that think we should legalize cc on commercial airlines,
"How would you stop hijackers from boarding a plane armed?"

 

[shortwave]

Generally speaking, rights can be legally restricted by our government when the government can show likely and significantly negative outcome if the restriction is not in place

Agree and would also say that thats why cc is not legal on airlines. Easy for the government to show significant negative outcome if it were legalized.

 

[Hook686]

If such happened, I'd never fly again.

 

[JohnKSa]

Easy for the government to show significant negative outcome if it were legalized.

Two things.

If this statement is true as it applies to hijackings then the comment that "it's not going to matter who's armed" in a hijacking is incorrect. It can't be both ways at once. If it doesn't matter who's armed then it can't also be true that allowing armed CHL holders aboard will likely result in a significantly negative outcome.

If you mean that there will likely be significant negative outcome in other scenarios not involving hijackings then that's another debate. I was careful to qualify my response so that it applied only to the hijacking scenario under discussion.

 

[shortwave]

I wasn't applying that statement to just the hijacking scenario but rather applying it to the reason cc is not currently legal on comm.airplanes altogether.

The negatives for legalizing it would outweigh the positives.

Especially,again,a successful plan insuring armed hijackers didn't board the plane in the first place... but also negatives such as AD's(who's gonna pay that law suit?), flight rage(road rage in the air) and the fact if you had a flight rage incident, how many people would be shot due to friendly fire in such confined quarters, etc.