Sweet!!!!!!! Stick it to the Bush Administration. I only hope it passes the Senate.
BTW, the vote was veto proof too!
Quoted:
In this case, House GOP leaders have been at odds with the administration, which has repeatedly argued that cockpit crews should focus on flying planes and let air marshals worry about security.
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Kind of hard to fly the plane with a hijacker beating you over the head or slicing your throat. Also, how can air marshals worry about security when they aren't even on the plane? There are about 1400-5000 air marshals, and 35,000 flights a day. There is NO WAY they could be on every flight.
Though Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Transportation Committee agreed to arm only a fraction of the pilots, rank-and-file lawmakers voted to expand the program to any pilot who volunteers.
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I love this. The leaders were trying to appease the anti's, and the rank-and-file said "Screw You!" [:D]
Opponents of the legislation have expressed concern that an errant bullet could kill a passenger or knock out a critical electrical system.
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And how would that be worse than the plane flying into a building or the ground, killing everybody? And BTW, all modern passenger airplanes have MULTIPLE systems, with backups and reduncies galore. Even if a bullet took out an system, there are backups, which a single bullet couldn't knock out because they run the backups apart from the main system(like running the main cables on one side and the backups on the other.)
Plus, there is frangible ammo specifically made for airlines, which don't over-penetrate flesh and don't pierce the hull of the airlines.
And what about the air marshals? They have guns, correct? What about an errant bullet from them? Oh, but that's right, they are government agents, and we can't trust the paeons to have the same power as the government.
TSA head John Magaw, who announced the administration's position against guns in cockpits, has said that a pilot should give undivided attention to flying his plane, landing it as quickly as possible and conducting in-flight maneuvers to keep hijackers off balance.
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As before, how get the pilot give undivided attention when a hijacker is killing him?
And like someone said, I think a nice .45 can keep a hijacker off balance.
Magaw said the presence of air marshals on board many flights and the use of reinforced cockpit doors provide sufficient protection against terrorists.
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If the doors don't stay closed, then the doors are useless. Plus, I'd imagine that the doors can still be broken by a hijacker if he wanted to.
As for the presence of air marshals on many flights: HA! Its more like a few flights, at most.