Schneier on Arming Airplane Pilots (was Re: CRYPTO-GRAM, August 15, 2002)

[R. A. Hettinga]

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My sister-in-law had a brilliantly simple answer to the problem of
hijacking which was, close, but, um, no spliff, :-), to Vin
Suprynowicz's notorious "Ganja and Guns Airline" column of a few
years back.

She said, on September 12 or so last year, "Why don't you have a
certification on your concealed-carry permit that allows you to carry
on an airplane?"

That means, like a hazmat certificate on a commercial driver's
license, you've been trained. You know how to shoot on a plane: what
kinds of frangible bullets to use, who to shoot at :-), and so on.
At check-in time, the firearm owner pulls out her concealed-carry
license with the cabin-carry certificate, shows someone the frangible
ammo she's using, and is checked through to the gate.

I figure if even Tim May thinks armed passengers are a bad idea, :-),
and Bruce thinks even arming the *pilots* is a bad idea, I'm
certainly leaning into the wind a bit here, but, I think it's a
*great* idea, myself.

It doesn't matter if someone smuggles a *machine gun* onto the plane,
they don't know *who* is on the plane, with a gun, and *qualified* to
take them out.

Think of it as statistical process control for the rest of us.

Or evolution in action.

Or geodesic warfare.

Cheers,
RAH

PS: I think we're going to *need* counter-attack scenarios on the
net. Like Whit Diffie said, "infowar" will be fought between
businesses. Governments are too slow, and not, paradoxically, nearly
ubiquitous enough to do the job. All we need is bearer cash, :-),
and, someday, machines even can handle it themselves...

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At 3:53 PM -0500 on 8/15/02, Bruce Schneier wrote:


>              Arming Airplane Pilots
>
>
>
> It's a quintessentially American solution: our nation's commercial
> aircraft  are at risk, so let's allow pilots to carry guns.  We
> have visions of these  brave men and women as the last line of
> defense on an aircraft, and  courageously defending the cockpit
> against terrorists at 30,000 feet.  I  can just imagine the
> made-for-TV movie.
>
> Reality is more complicated than television, though. Sometimes,
> security  systems cause more problems than they solve.  Putting
> guns on aircraft will  make us more vulnerable to attack, not less.
>
> When people think of potential problems with an weapons in a
> cockpit, they  think of accidental shootings in the air, holes in
> the fuselage, and  possibly even equipment shattered by a stray
> bullet.  This is a problem,  certainly, but not a major one. A
> bullet hole is small, and doesn't let a  whole lot of air out.  And
> airplanes are designed to handle equipment  failures -- even
> serious failures -- and remain in the air.  If I ran an  airline, I
> would worry more about accidents involving passengers, who are
> much less able to survive a bullet wound and much more likely to
> sue.
>
> The real dangers, though, involve the complex systems that must be
> put in  place before the first gun can ride along in the cockpit.
> There are major  areas of risk.
>
> One, we need a system for getting the gun on the airplane.  How
> does the  pilot get the gun? Does he carry it through the airport
> and onto the  plane?  Is it issued to him after he's in the cockpit
> but before the plane  takes off?  Is it secured in the cockpit at
> all times, even when there is  no one there?  Any one of these
> solutions has its own set of security  vulnerabilities.  The last
> thing we want is for an attacker to exploit one  of these systems
> in order to get himself a gun.  Or maybe the last thing we  want is
> a shootout in a crowded airport.
>
> Second, we need a procedure for storing the gun on the airplane.
> Does the  pilot carry it on his hip?  Is it locked in a cabinet?
> If so, who has the  key?  Is there one gun, or do the pilot and
> co-pilot each have
> one?  However the system works, it's ripe for abuse.  If the gun is
> always  at the pilot's hip, an attacker can take it away from him
> when he leaves  the cockpit.  (Don't laugh; policemen get their
> guns taken away from them  all the time, and they're trained to
> prevent that.)  If the guns remain in  the cockpit when it is
> unoccupied, we have a whole new set of problems to  worry about.
>
> Third, we need a system of training pilots in gun handling and
> marksmanship.  Guns require training to use well; how much training
> can we  expect our pilots to have?  This is different from training
> sky
> marshals.  Security is the primary job of a sky marshal; they're
> expected  to learn how to use a gun.  Flying planes is the primary
> job of a pilot.
>
> Giving pilots guns is a disaster waiting to happen.  The current
> system  spends a lot of time and effort keeping weapons off
> airplanes and out of  airports; the proposed scheme would inject
> thousands of handguns into that  system.  There are just too many
> pilots and too many flights every day;  mistakes will happen.
> Someone will do an inventory one night and find a gun  missing, or
> ten.  Someone will find one left in a cockpit.  Someone may  even
> find one on a seat in a terminal.
>
> El Al is the most security-conscious airline in the world.  Their
> pilots  remain behind two bulletproof doors, and they're unarmed.
> It's the job of  the pilot to land the plane safely, not to engage
> terrorists in close  combat.  For that, they rely on sky marshals,
> crew, and passengers.  If  pilots have to leave the cockpit to
> solve a security problem, it's too late.
>
> United States airlines are not comparable to El Al.  Our flights
> don't  travel with two armed sky marshals each.  We don't perform
> security checks  on passengers that, while legal in Israel, would
> violate U.S. laws.  We  don't have two bulletproof doors separating
> the cockpit from the
> passengers.  Many politicians see guns as a quick fix to a problem
> that  can't wait for a careful solution.
>
> Personally, I don't think pilots should be armed.  But even if I
> thought  they did, I still wouldn't give them guns.  Guns aren't
> designed to be used  in the cramped spaces you find in airplane
> cockpits.  They have too high a  risk of doing unwanted damage if
> they miss.  And there's too much risk  involved in putting
> thousands of guns in airports, storing them, getting  them on and
> off airplanes, and keeping them in cockpits.  If you want to  arm
> pilots, it would be much smarter to give them billy clubs or
> tasers.  At least those weapons make sense for the situation.

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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'