Do you really believe that the security at the airports makes your flight any safer? The TSA and the "Patriot Act" haven't given you security only the illusion of security. And it came at a cost to your rights. Men with guns make flying safer in the form of Air Marshalls.
As many others, I've been following this thread with great interest. A lot of very salient and thought provoking points being made. In this arena, I think I have relevant experience and I think it has parallels to this discussion and is illustrative of the degree to which a massive cultural shift can happen toprevent human tragedy. Since 1995, I've had my butt in commercial airline seats as a passenger for slightly more than 3MM actual flight miles and have spent more time in commercial airports and airplanes in a few dozen countries than I care to recall. Just this week I've gone through US airport security 4 times - statistically, I interact with TSA more in a few weeks than a lot of folks do in their lifetimes.
The Sky Marshal program was created in the 1970's. It was ramped up after DB Cooper. It was ramped up again after the creation of the TSA a couple of months after 9/11 and then again after the Air France Shoe Bomber in December of that year.
Higher prevalence of armed marshals - while fun to try and identify - were a minor blip in the overall increase in US air travel security. Prior to 9/11, you could turn up @ the airport 30 minutes before your flight, no real ID, a walk through a POS metal detector (the reason knives with blades shorter than 4" were allowed in a carryon was because the detector tech at the time couldn't reliably ID them) manned by a (often lowest-bidder and marginally qualified) private company with little skin in the game.
Go back another 20 years and you didn’t have to show ANY form of ID, and the 'security check' was, quite literally, the check-in agent 'observing the passenger and evaluating their mental state by looking for telltale signs of distress or exhibiting odd behavior'.
Within 2 months After 9/11:
- TSA was created, and 60,000 agents were hired and deployed to every US airport, which was the largest single mobilization of the Federal Government since WWII
- Pre-Screening was introduced, backed by high technoogy, and taken seriously (to the point of overreach at times).
- Advanced monitoring techniques were implemented in the airport
- MANY items were banned from airline cabins. A lot of them were (and remain) somewhat frivolous, but nonetheless, no more baseball bats, 4" bladed knives, liquids over 100ml, etc, etc, etc
The American people, via our congress (and it warrants noting that it was an 'R' congress) said 'No more' and the TSA was created. It happened rapidly because there was just NO way the US was going to stand for another event like that. And it has unequivocally worked in terms of preventing a hijacking or a weaponized airliner in this country. It has also cost our country hundreds of Billions of dollars in real and opportunity costs. Is the TSA a 'crack squad'? Far from it - there is substantial data proving that their efficacy at certain threat detection is poor. But - the simple act of going to the airport now places limitations on our rights that were deemed necessary to prevent a massive tragedy. And, again, that has worked.
More 'good guys with a gun' on a plane was a very small part of a massive, transformational shift in the way we treat commercial air travel in this country. I recall travelling to Tel Aviv in 1996 and being shocked at what the Israelis had in place for security to board a commercial aircraft. In retrospect, it was basically equivalent to what we have in the US today.
Note that I'm not necessarily advocating for a similar transformational shift in our school security or to our 2A protections, but I do believe that post-9/11 airport and airline security is a valid lens to the scale of the problems and the willingness (or lack thereof) of the American public to accept repeat events. As one more analogy - many travelers were (and continue to be) very upset about taking their shoes off, arriving early for a flight, perceived and real invasions of privacy, losing all that time, limitations on their rights, etc, but we were the huge minority.
