TSA airport security checks are little more than security theater. Really expensive security theater. Security theater that causes unnecessary delay. And violates our Fourth Amendment protections. And trains Americans to accept police state tactics. Other than that, I love ’em! The recent bust of airplane-based gun smugglers has TSA supporters’ knickers in a twist. It could have been a bomb! They reckon this scandal simply means we need to tighten security tighter! And gun laws, too! Nonsense. Allow guns on planes and eliminate all gun control laws. Done.
For the people that hate/complain about the TSA, what alternative do we have? Let people board air liners with no checks whatsoever?
Assuming you’re not being sarcastic, yes. Security checkpoints and screenings are absolutely useless. Without exception, every time the FBI has attempted to harden security by sneaking a gun onto a plane, they have succeeded. They do nothing, and are expensive as hell. So, yes, the alternative IS to do away with the whole thing all together.
Umm…this
Thanks for the reply. I wasn’t being sarcastic and was a legitimate question. I always knew TSA was a joke but looked at it as a necessary evil. I figured they were at least good enough to prevent guns from coming in. I guess I was wrong. Do you have documentation on the FBI sneaking in guns? I’m curious now in their findings. Thanks
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-screeners/story?id=12412458
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/TSA-Agent-Slips-Through-DFW-Body-Scanner-With-a-Gun-116497568.html
http://www.wired.com/2014/08/study-shows-how-easily-weapons-can-be-smuggled-past-tsas-x-ray-body-scanners/
Just search Google, examples are plentiful.
Steve, consider the fact that for most of our commercial aviation history there were no such laws or restrictions. And yet the sky never fell. Similarly firearms were entirely unregulated and yet chaos did not reign. these pre crime type laws are based on a total lack of faith in the people, how can any republic endure when the people them selves are considered a sub class?
Every time TSA security has been breached it has been people that aren’t checked. TSA agents, FBI informants (the underwear bomber) flight attendants. The watchers aren’t being watched, but that won’t be their answer. Oh, if they only had twice the budget and the ability to check people walking by the airport then they’d stop these things from happening! The authority to search every car within 500 feet (except for TSA.)
This is what pisses me off the most about government: A person who is incapable of doing his job is given more and more resources instead of being fired and replaced by someone who can. IRS director can’t do his job? Fired. Chiefs can’t approve permits they are legally required to sign within 30 days? Fired. But no, incompetence is rewarded, and it makes me sick.
They have unions too.
Gee, how did we ever survive before the TSA came along? You really might think the airlines might be a little concerned about the security of their planes, pilots, and passengers?
Let us recall, that pre-9-11, we had pretty much nothing. That the hijackers used box cutters, not guns.
This is not the first nor last story of TSA crooks, there have been more than a few TSA stories of employees stealing from passengers. For all the money spent, we are not much safer
TSA is security theater..
The alternative is to use information gathered in the course of previous investigations to target likely culprits for particularized attention, rather than checking anyone and everyone to prove how open-minded and non-judgemental you are. In a word, “profiling”, which is actually a valid investigative tool if done properly.
“…Let people board air liners with no checks whatsoever? ”
What is wrong with what we had before the TSA? A walk-through metal detector and a X-Ray-machine-thingy for the bags.
Remember, September 11th wasn’t a failure in security screening, it was a failure of policy. The policy has changed, there won’t be another September 11th event. There may be another terrorist attack, but it won’t be like September 11th.
And even then, what did we do before we had the walk-through metal detectors? Air travel in the 60’s wasn’t any more or less dangerous than it is now as far as who was carrying what inside the aircraft.
Not that I don’t agree with you, but in the 1960s, when an airplane was hijacked, the hijackers most likely were simply going to demand that the plane land somewhere other than intended – at worst an inconvenience for the crew and passengers. Maybe once in a blue moon a hijacker took a passenger hostage for ransom, and it was pretty much guaranteed that he would either get it, or be shot on arrival by local police.
9/11 totally changed that, and there is no guarantee that a hijacker would actually want to live to see the results of his actions.
I don’t know how to solve that problem or put that genie back in the box. I would like to see TSA gone, but the reality of the situation is that the population will be terrified to travel again if all that’s there is simple metal detectors.
Unfortunately I fear the TSA is here to stay.
Unfortunately, government agencies never seem to go away.
“9/11 totally changed that, and there is no guarantee that a hijacker would actually want to live to see the results of his actions.”
Which is why passengers won’t obey hijackers anymore. Now the only threat comes from a bomb, which was always a threat before the TSA anyway and the TSA has failed in multiple highly documented ways to stop bombs from being smuggled aboard (shoe bomber, underwear bomber, etc).
But you’re right. We never close an agency and more spring up that unconstitutionally place laws never passed by congress upon us.
“…9/11 totally changed that,”
Agreed.
Cockpit doors have been locked and hardened against access.
Few airlines will admit to this but most pilots have access to one or more firearms in the cockpit. And they already had access to several other tools that would make great weapons, things like axes and leverage poles (long metal pipes, two to five feet long).
And very, very few passengers are going to sit quietly while someone attempts to take over an aircraft. In fact, the last several actual terrorist attempts on commercial aviation were stopped by the passengers and crew.
The comparison I always use is this….. The US is protected by the TSA and we don’t have terrorists taking over or destroying airplanes. Europe and Asia do not have TSA and don’t have terrorists taking over or destroying airplanes. Maybe TSA isn’t the ‘winning factor’ in this equation.
Of course it is, so long as the goal is bigger and more intrusive government, and more slush funds to steal from.
This scandal proves that the TSA agents should be subjected to the same treatment as the passengers are.
Simply go back to how it was before the TSA.
Have each airport and airline handle security as they see fit. Those with insufficient security will self-select out of competition, or improve themselves.
Remember flying pre-9/11? TSA didn’t exist then. And since 9/11 is what caused the creation of the TSA, let’s address the fact that pocket knives with 2.36 inch blades are still allowed. How is that any safer than a box cutter?
Also, your statements “what alternative do we have? Let people board air liners with no checks whatsoever?” belie you. Why do we need an alternative? Why do we, a free people, need to be “allowed” to travel freely?
Grindstone,
I believe that the flight attendants’ union nixed the pocketknife deal. I wasn’t allowed to take a Leatherman Juice with its 1″ blade on. A small bandage scissor in a first aid kit was OK.
The answer is simple. Screen everyone at the gate. If you leave the gate area, you must be re-screened. This will eliminate the bottle neck delay at the security checkpoint.
It just always struck me that TSA security was total theater as back end security was and is a total joke. I find the whole thing to be hilarious and basically only sheep would think that any of this has anything to do with public safety.
Yeah pretty much. It’s like tapping all of our phones and mining all the data on them… YES THIS IS STILL HAPPENING! It didn’t go away, the news just stopped talking about it. We were meant to believe all this is for our safety but just like gun control it is all an attempt to make an easier to herd populous. WE are the cattle in this story and our “leaders” and media are pretty damn good at using LEAN Mfg. techniques to make us more bought into THIER goals and making the end product cheaper. Spoiler alert the end product we are building sure isn’t a free and fair world.
In cooperation with HHS, as part of the new Obamacare changes, the TSA screenings will also include prostate exams and hernia checks for the gents, or breast exams and pelvic exams for the ladies.
The news conference was a joke. The guy held up the AK exclaiming that it can penetrate bullet proof vests and car doors. Yeah so? Any of those guns can be used in any atrocious gun crime. Just about every gun there can penetrate a car door on modern cars. If the bullet misses a cross brace and window regulator assembly, misses the speaker magnet, even a pellet rifle round can penetrate a car door. Yes, an AK47 can punch through any of the stuff above. I shot a Rambler I had with a .223 and it would have gone through the entire car had it not hit the brake pedal arm, which it drilled through that about half way of that! Oh the good old days of owning throw away cars. No more driving bombers around with bullet holes in them. It was amazing how many people noticed that stuff, bullet holes in my car.
You mean speed holes?
Static pressure vent!
I’m truly frightened by the slave training at airports and the silent acceptance of it by the sheeple. I always “opt out”of the surrender pose in the porno scanners. I’ve never seen anyone else do it. It’s a steel door on a grass hut if there ever was one.
Guns should be allowed on planes. If pilots and cops can carry them on, I can too. Horrific hypocrisy.
That is my favorite!
“You can’t carry a gun on an airplane because OMG Guns! One little hole and we are all going to die and get sucked out into the vacuum of space!”
OK, then why do the Air Marshals carry firearms?
Oh, those guy have training!
Really? They have training on how to make the bullets not make those tiny little holes you are so scared of?
It makes me laugh and shake my head.
The TSA is the perfect example of the power inherent in large groups of stupid people.
They use frangible bullets
…which will kill a man but somehow not pierce beer cans. Planes won’t rupture from a few pin holes –look it up.
So if I load the same frangible bullets I can carry my firearm on the aircraft?
It’s a deal! I’ll take it.
I was required to carry on aircraft for a couple years, we carried a 5-shot .38 Colt IIRC. The first 3 were supposed to be plastic bullets, followed by 2 HP. Supposedly the plastic bullets point blank would blow a hole 6 inches across in a person, wouldn’t penetrate anything, and would be lucky to bruise you at 10 feet. Did they work? I dunno. But we were trained with S&W, can you see this coming? Several of the guys, when I thought to check, would have been firing 1 HP followed by 3 plastic, followed by 1 HP, since they had no idea the cylinder rotated the other direction.
And yes, 20 years a pilot, almost every bit in pressurized aircraft, trust me, the most you could expect from the discharge of a .44 magnum inside the airplane would be a .44″ hole in the hull or a window. You would never even notice the slightest blip in the air pressure inside, the airplane has a LOT more leakage than even all 6 .44″ holes would produce, most pressurization air is vented, the capacity is so high.
stateisevil,
You’re not alone. I always opt out (even though my wife gets annoyed when we travel together). Looking at the second article that Slim posted reminds me that I don’t want to be scanned–I’m shy. 8>)
Another reason o opt out is to reduce your exposure to excessive amounts of radiation. Since the government claims it is safe beware.
I’ve asked liberals who use the “only cops/ military need guns” line, What is it about government paychecks that bestow mental, moral and intellectual superiority over me, or you. This has never yielded a answer.
That’s because the honest answer is that they imagine themselves your superior, and that paycheck is supposed to ensure the goons don’t goose step across THEIR yard.
That’s because it’s a species of consensual lie, shared between:
1. Followers trapped in a perpetual state of intellectual and moral childhood, who desperately want to believe there is a parent-analog of unquestionable competence and integrity who’s in control of what would otherwise be a seemingly chaotic (and therefore terrifying) universe; and
2. A ruling elite that’s more than happy to play along with that delusion in exchange for unchecked power.
If you want a laugh, read the comments at the story link.
Trains, planes, buses, boats, cars, and UPS packages, drugs and guns flow through the USA everyday, they make stories like this news so some DA can get his name in the paper, but they are not stopping the majority of the running. Just like drugs, it is a joke to believe they can stop anything. And, what they do stop is a very small percentage with propaganda press to make believe something is being done. More likely most of these cases are luck like is stated in the story link.
Sounds like they need to do a better job policing their own people.
But who can watch the watchmen who watch the watchmen?
I’m sorry, but I’m not worried about someone with a Sig 250/350 like the ones in that video. Nobody’s gonna spend that much money for a crime gun when Hi-Point still sells firearms*.
*I hesitate to call them actual firearms.
Hi-point makes very good firearms. Ugly as hell, but they pretty much go bang, and the bullets go where pointed.
Some years back, I saw a stand-up comic (don’t remember who) offer a solution: Hand a gun to every passenger as he / she gets on the plane. NOBODY will hijack that plane. 😀
“Bat Day” by The Kid From Brooklyn. Absolutely NSFW.
So, how’s your fVckin brother doing nowadays?
We-el, I’d prefer frangible ammo…
I heard a story about air travel in the middle East, back in the days of propellor driven planes. Since the weather was always decent they loaded with open stairs on the runway. The checked bags to be loaded were placed in a group and as each passenger boarded they would identify their own bags and watch them as they were loaded on the plane. Any bags unclaimed obviously were not put on the plane. Doesn’t screen for suicide terrorists but working on the principle that most passengers are not, it was a simple way of screening out most of the danger from a bomb or whatever in checked baggage.
Dogs and the newest electronic sniffers are helpful, anything else pretty much not.
Yes, it’s security theater. Yes, it’s stoopid. But also, it reassures the sheeple so that they will fly. I guess that’s the whole point.
Bah! They will fly. They may bitch and moan but they will fly
Completly off topic: I want that revolver
Looks a lot like my beloved 4″ Python, in which case, yes, you do!
This same gun runner could have easily just driven a car to deliver his goods. Or sent it on a greyhound bus. I can’t imagine why they would trumpet this as a success. Just a monument to ineptitude…
He wouldn’t have even been doing it if NY’s gun laws weren’t so restrictive.
Prohibition fuels criminal activity and the black market. We learned this in the 1920’s, and we forgot it again in the 1980’s with the War on Drugs.
Yeah, something is wrong with this story, it looks to me as though the conspiracy was to get guns inside the secure areas of airports. In which case there is a lot to be concerned with, here, and at least according to these articles, no one at HQ seems to have figured that out. If you want to smuggle guns to NYC, rent a U-Haul. Into a secure area at one or more airports? Maybe 50 airports all over the country? This would be it.
All T.S.A is good for is stealing your stuff
Easiest solution would be to hire a bunch of El Al security veterans and let them profile to their hearts’ content. Seems to have worked perfectly in Israel for several decades.
LOL, did someone really try to take that PAP on a plane?
Did more than just try.
Is there a way to ACTUALLY get rid of the TSA??