"Too Few Guns in the Cockpit" - December 30, 2003

"Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved."

December 30, 2003

Review & Outlook (U.S.)
Wall St. Journal Editorial page

The Homeland Security Department announced yesterday that it will require armed air marshals on selected foreign flights entering U.S. airspace. It's a welcome move. But all the "chatter" indicating al Qaeda's continued interest in aviation targets suggests the government still hasn't done enough to protect our airspace.

Start with the domestic air marshal program, which covers only a tiny fraction of flights. Meanwhile, Homeland Security's misnamed Transportation Security Administration has only grudgingly been executing the obvious alternative of having all willing pilots protect their aircraft with firearms.

The TSA initially opposed guns in the cockpit altogether but was overridden by massive bipartisan majorities on Capitol Hill that included such NRA nuts as California Senator Barbara Boxer. Unfortunately, Congress left the TSA with way too much discretion in implementing the program, and the bureaucrats have done everything within their power to discourage pilots from signing up.

The weeklong training course -- to be completed on the pilot's own time and expense -- was sited in the New Mexico desert, four hours from the nearest city of El Paso. Pilots are required to submit to rigorous psychological and background screenings from an agency they know to be hostile to the program and which has the power to pull their flying licenses. This is in addition to the twice-a-year FAA physical and psychological exams.

Should they pass TSA scrutiny, pilots are required to carry their firearms around in a locked box -- a dangerously unwieldy procedure not required of federal air marshals. The upshot is that only a few thousand of the nearly 100,000 eligible pilots have volunteered and even fewer have been trained.

We don't have much hope for common-sense improvements from the Bush Administration, which has allowed itself to get outflanked to the right by liberal Democrats on this issue. But when Congress gets back to business following this latest high alert, we hope it will force the TSA to do the armed-pilot program right.