On Wednesday 04 January 2006 20:14, Jim Oksvold wrote:
> Stop whining - Take it like a man - Take the Bus.
>
> To the rest I strongly advise all to shun Air Carriers that don't take
> security seriously.
>
> I prefer the freedom to travel in safety.
than you should shun every single air port:
- all practical test done that I know of show quite clearly that with a
minimum of planning it's fairly easy to get firearms past air port
security on to an air plane
- while air port security routinely confiscates 'dangerous weapons' like
nail clippers, or those 2 inch scissors you find in travelling sowing kits,
they also routinely let you pass with all kinds of household chemicals a
lot of which can quite easily be combined/used as small bombs and or
flamethrowers.
here's a small list of items that you can pass airport security with without
problems, and that make great weapons:
- any kind of wire - including shoelaces if they're long enough - makes a
troga, iron wire ones and suffiecient force have been known to decapite
the victim
- umbrella's, walking sticks and the like make creat clubs (there are
martial artist that speciallise in using them)
- a musketton (I use one as a keychain) makes a great boxing bracer
- any kind of pen/pencil or small tubular flashlight makes a good kubaton
- keys make a fairly decent stabing weapon when applied with enough force
(this one is courtesy of the intro talk from campus security we had to
listen to when we visited Baylor university in Texas)
- there's lot of key-chain ornaments you can get made especially to double
as weapons see for example
http://www.keychaindefense.com/html/iteminfo.asp?ItemId=WDG
- any kind of handbag with sufficient weight in it simulates the various
chain weapons used in medieval times fairly well (there's at least one
cool fighting scene which shows this used to great effect in season 7 of
Buffy :), though there's probably not enough room on most planes to use
this effectively
All of the above are in the same range of effectiveness as the knife used by
te 9/11 hijackers. And those are just of the top of my head, without really
thinking about it!
Maybe we should all get on plaines naked, with everything in bagage?
> To those who prefer to travel in a vinged long Aluminium tube way up high
> without any control - Think again.
As I've seen several Americans mention after 9/11, nobody will ever
successfully hijack a plane again with a knife, as they'd get mobbed by the
passengers and crew.
The willingness of enough bystanders to actively get involved, even at risk
to themselves is wat will stop hijacks, not the halfbaked effort at
stopping arms of getting on airplanes.
That willingness would be improved if people are armed themselves, the
amount of people needing to get involved would also be lower.
-> a general arming of passengers with close combat weaponry would increase
safety not diminish it.
> Safety from insane people gives me more freedom :-)
there's no such thing as safety from insane people, even military bases on
high alert in times of martial law haven't ever been able to stop insane
(or courageous depending on your point of view) people from killing,
maiming, wounding and generally doing a lot of damage.
as to more general society, even the most brutal dictatorships/totalitarian
states haven't been able to protect themself from the insane and/or
motivated in the long run.
> I will happily part with my nailclipper at the next airport if it makes
> my fellow passenger it little bit less jumpy.
there's nothing that will stop afraid people of getting jumpy. For an
extreme example see the exploits of John Gilmore, who was on a flight that
got turned around because somebody got jumpy (he was waring a button with a
political slogan, and refused to take it of, court case is running).
--
Cheers, cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis)
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