What TSA Is Really Going To See

[Hornett]

Let's face the facts, airplanes are a "gun free zone".
This is no different than any other gun free zone.
Schools, Colleges, courtrooms....
Gun free zones do not work because they disarm the good guys.
All it takes it ONE bad guy to carry in a weapon and the good guys are helpless or at best unarmed.

I just cannot understand what would really be wrong with me having my 45 on the plane under my sweater.
Remember the 911 hijackers only had box cutters.

Try this game when you travel.
Go through security, then when you're on the other side where there are supposedly no weapons...
Go to some of the shops and see what they sell that could be used as a weapon.
It's amazing what you will find.

 

[rimfire_crazed]

The photo in the article is a fake. I have a copy of the stock photo and I can create the "negative" version in photoshop with some .380 clipart with about ten flicks.

Invasion of privacy, necessary or not, I'm not going to argue. I will say, 100% without a doubt, that the cited photograph is a fake.

 

[WabashMX5]

The photo in the article is a fake. I have a copy of the stock photo and I can create the "negative" version in photoshop with some .380 clipart with about ten flicks. * * * I will say, 100% without a doubt, that the cited photograph is a fake.

But isn't the claim that the "negative" version at the top is the one that's been doctored -- that the scanners would reveal the bottom version, which TSA would then doctor by "overexposing" (so A/B photo's caption says, though it may not be technically accurate) and reversing to negative, in order to conceal how much detail the scan had actually, originally revealed?

Or are you saying the "stock photo" was a conventional full-color nudie pic, which was then doctored into B&W to look like it was generated by a full-body scanner?

Just trying to clarify -- in the world of easy digital-image manipulation, you're raising good credibility questions.

I don't know that it would change my ultimate opinion either way. But then, I tend to think that even our current security theater is the worst of both worlds -- a significant invasion of privacy, without even being effective enough to permit a counter-argument about "yeah, but at least it works."

If TSA screening was as effective as what El-Al does, we could have a cleaner debate about liberty versus security. But instead, we have neither liberty nor security.

 

[rimfire_crazed]

the stock photo was a full color nudie photo that then had a belt and a pistol layered onto it and then negativized. I will send the link via PM to anyone who wants it - as to not fear the wrath of the banhammer.

 

[jblomenberg16]

the stock photo was a full color nudie photo that then had a belt and a pistol layered onto it and then negativized. I will send the link via PM to anyone who wants it - as to not fear the wrath of the banhammer.

I find that much more believable. Thanks for "debunking" it.


Is the scan an invasion of privacy? Maybe. I think it is clear from the other posts that some folks think yes, and some think that it is just the cost of doing business and are willing to deal with it, just like we deal with all the existing travel restrictions.


Like WWIIIDefender said, we have to be willing to live with the consequences. It is all a tradeoff, right? Are we as a SOCIETY (key word) willing to let a few hundred, or few thousand die every few years in these attacks? Or do we consider even 1 death due to Terror wholely unacceptable, and therefore desire that everything be done to prevent it.

The reality is we probably want both, as long as it doesn't inconvenience us too much.

Unfortunately, things like body scanners, gun free zones, etc. only treat the outward symptoms of the desease that have slowly overcome our world. We're constantly focused on reactive countermeasures to problems, but tend to shy away from the preventative countermeasures that we could be putting into place further up stream.


There is an analogy that I really like to use in these cases. At some point during or after the invention of the railroad, there was the inevitable conflict of where train tracks intersected a road or went through open grazing lands. The railroad builders, farmers, and road builders got together and talked about it and thought that even thought there was a chance of a collision, surely people had enough common sense to avoid the train, and animals would hear the train coming and get out of the way.

Well, at some point there were accidents because people and animals didn't get out of the way. So "Cow-Catchers" were invented and signs were put up at the crossings warning people that there was a train that could come through, and they should take some extra caution.

Years later, there was a case where somebody probably died in another accident, and people screamed "Why did this have to happen?!" So, some really smart people got together and decided that they'd put flashing lights and bells up on the crossing signs to alert people that the train was coming.


Well, as we all know that didn't stop people and cars from getting hit by trains. People would try to out run the train, or were otherwise distracted and just didn't see or hear the warnings. Sure enough more accidents happened and the people wanted more to be done about it.


So, the smart people got back together and decided that in addition to lights and bells, they'd install gates that would drop down and physically block the intersection so nothing coud pass through. This was pretty effective, but at some point in history, people began trying to circumvent the crossing gates, or just drove through them.

So, what now? We'd taken lots of steps to prevent the problem, so it shouldn't happen ever again, right? Well, the fact is that most people with common sense would try to out run a train in the first place, and would stop for it even if there was no signage at all to tell them there was a train track there, much less flashing lights and crossing gates.


But at some point people realized that there will always be people, that no matter what level of safety features were put in, would always try to defeat them. So you have the birth of the overpass/underpass.

This solution all but completely removes the threat of a collision all together by completely preventing the traffic from ever crossing paths in the same physical point in space. They are of course very expensive to construct, and an inconvenience to the property owners that owned the land that was neaded to construct these larger structures. But, in the end, the particular intersection is made safer.

All of those solutions could have been avoided if people were just smart enough to not try to out run a train. The unfortunately reality is that there are always people that are either not smart enough, or are just determined enough to try to defeat whatever safeguards (or lack thereof) that are put in place to try to make our world safe.


There are all types of new and enhanced security features that can be implemented and dreamed up to try to prevent future airline terrorism. Will they be 100% effective? Probably not.

Will they be more incoveniencing to the 99.999% of people that would be still be safe if they could just walk right onto the plane without any screening at all? You bet.

So, at the highest level, we have three choices.

1) Get rid of the airline terrorism threat all together by abolishing all commercial and private flying - clearly not an option, or one that we'd be willing to consider

2) Reduce the screening and safety checks and just accept a certain threshold of airline accidents and terror incidents as "the cost of doing business." - maybe an option, but how do you determine what is acceptable? Certainly there have been some attacks prevented by existing measures, and I'm sure that we're glad that we prevented them.

3) Figure out why people are trying to blow up airplanes in the first place, and do something to address that. - And that turns into a whole debate in and of itself.

 

[jeremy]

How about adding a 4th option...
Like being personally accountable for your own safety.
- It works in almost every other part of our society. Armed people are a deterent from terrorism. One of the main reasons terrorists attack airlines is because they are a soft target that draws a lot of attention.

Just the .02 from someone on the line actively engaging the terrorists...

 

[jblomenberg16]

How about adding a 4th option...
Like being personally accountable for your own safety.
- It works in almost every other part of our society. Armed people are a deterent from terrorism. One of the main reasons terrorists attack airlines is because they are a soft target that draws a lot of attention.

Just the .02 from someone on the line actively engaging the terrorists...

I think that is a great 4th option that really needs to be THE only option! I'd rep ya if I had any left to spread around today.


P.S. Keep on fighting the good fight over there and keeping us safe!

 

[jedi]

You know Bin Laden has already won this round. Think about it? Bin Laden & his group are not going to use another plan as a human missile. It's pointless they have already done that, have shown they can and have forced us (USA) to try and stop it from happening again. Only in us trying to stop that we lose focus on everything else they can do. Bin Laden and his group have moved on to bigger things. Look at there history: bombing of 2 embassies, then the attack on a single warship (the cole), then an attack on a bigger set of buildings (9/11). I think that they would be working on a much bigger level (city wise mess).

 

[jeremy]

You know Bin Laden has already won this round. Think about it? Bin Laden & his group are not going to use another plan as a human missile. It's pointless they have already done that, have shown they can and have forced us (USA) to try and stop it from happening again. Only in us trying to stop that we lose focus on everything else they can do. Bin Laden and his group have moved on to bigger things. Look at there history: bombing of 2 embassies, then the attack on a single warship (the cole), then an attack on a bigger set of buildings (9/11). I think that they would be working on a much bigger level (city wise mess).

Ding Ding Ding... We have a winner!

The very idea of terrorism is to keep shifting your opponents attention not allowing them to settle into a safe feeling zone... used to be called Stage 1 guerrilla operations, at least in my time at the school house...

My personal favorite approach was the Russian approach... Find their family and take them back to the mother land and mail them back in a LOT of small boxes...

 

[jedi]

My personal favorite approach was the Russian approach... Find their family and take them back to the mother land and mail them back in a LOT of small boxes...

But the current sissy in the [STRIKE]white[/STRIKE] black house does not have the balls to do such a thing.

 

[pinshooter45]

Let's face the facts, airplanes are a "gun free zone".
This is no different than any other gun free zone.
Schools, Colleges, courtrooms....
Gun free zones do not work because they disarm the good guys.
All it takes it ONE bad guy to carry in a weapon and the good guys are helpless or at best unarmed.

I just cannot understand what would really be wrong with me having my 45 on the plane under my sweater.
Remember the 911 hijackers only had box cutters.

Try this game when you travel.
Go through security, then when you're on the other side where there are supposedly no weapons...
Go to some of the shops and see what they sell that could be used as a weapon.
It's amazing what you will find.

You Don't even have to do that. My last job I had to Fly quite a bit. The one thing I did was find the biggest thickest leather Belt with as large a buckle as I could find. I figured the big buckle swinging at the end of the belt would be at least better than nothing, and the thick leather wrapped around my weak arm would give some protection against sharp objects. It never was taken away from me. I also considered carrying one of those "CIA Letter Openers" but never did!

 

[pinshooter45]

You know Bin Laden has already won this round. Think about it? Bin Laden & his group are not going to use another plan as a human missile. It's pointless they have already done that, have shown they can and have forced us (USA) to try and stop it from happening again. Only in us trying to stop that we lose focus on everything else they can do. Bin Laden and his group have moved on to bigger things. Look at there history: bombing of 2 embassies, then the attack on a single warship (the cole), then an attack on a bigger set of buildings (9/11). I think that they would be working on a much bigger level (city wise mess).

Isn't this Why We all have SHTF Stuff?

 

[jeremy]

Isn't this Why We all have SHTF Stuff?

No, not really. I have my kit because I have learned life is hard and it will turn for the worse if you are not prepared, and it will happen at the worst possible time available for you.

I do not have my kit because I think some evil megalomaniac is going to actually try something. But I do have several options and directions covered with my kit...

Never know how life is going to change, there is so much that is just not possible to predict or control....

Plan for the worst, hope for the best!

 

[Bill of Rights]

How about adding a 4th option...
Like being personally accountable for your own safety.
- It works in almost every other part of our society. Armed people are a deterent from terrorism. One of the main reasons terrorists attack airlines is because they are a soft target that draws a lot of attention.

Just the .02 from someone on the line actively engaging the terrorists...

I think that is a great 4th option that really needs to be THE only option! I'd rep ya if I had any left to spread around today.


P.S. Keep on fighting the good fight over there and keeping us safe!

Got him for you. I don't think it should be the only option (it's not an option if it's the only one! ), but I do think it should be a universal option; If someone chooses not to be armed in their own defense, the responsibility for that decision fall solely on them. The responsibility for the actions of the criminal, OTOH, remains with the criminal.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[jeremy]

Got him for you. I don't think it should be the only option (it's not an option if it's the only one! ), but I do think it should be a universal option; If someone chooses not to be armed in their own defense, the responsibility for that decision fall solely on them. The responsibility for the actions of the criminal, OTOH, remains with the criminal.

Blessings,
Bill

The part I think is the worst for me to digest Bill, is the fact that I have no higher education than high school and a public school to boot. And I see the error and fault in their thought processes. I am not saying I am ignorant nor uneducated. Just that I have not spent years and money at institutions of higher learning, and yet this is painfully obvious to me...

So what is worse the fact that either are Educational System is breaking down and not teaching people to think or all the BS we are forced to do?

Sad to me really...

 

[evansvillethompsongunner]

It's time to get my pilot's license.

End-run around this seems like the only true solution.

 

[jblomenberg16]

The part I think is the worst for me to digest Bill, is the fact that I have no higher education than high school and a public school to boot. And I see the error and fault in their thought processes. I am not saying I am ignorant nor uneducated. Just that I have not spent years and money at institutions of higher learning, and yet this is painfully obvious to me...

So what is worse the fact that either are Educational System is breaking down and not teaching people to think or all the BS we are forced to do?

Sad to me really...

+1


They never have, and never will teach common sense in the schools. That is learned as a person grows up and matures through experiences, both good and bad.

 

[groovatron]

It's time to get my pilot's license.

End-run around this seems like the only true solution.

That has been a long time dream for me. You can get a 6 passenger plane for less than a new pickup truck these days.

 

[SootKing]

It's time to get my pilot's license.

End-run around this seems like the only true solution.

glad i got my private this summer...it really is the best solution. took me 3 years to get it flying off and on but if youve got 7 grand you can get it in as fast as 4 weeks

 

[SootKing]

That has been a long time dream for me. You can get a 6 passenger plane for less than a new pickup truck these days.

theres no way is hell youd get a plane thats worth a damn for less than the price of a pickup...maybe like a 62 cessna thats slow but the 182 full glass that i fly is 349 thousand dollars new. not quite as cheap as a pickup...not to mention thats only a 4 seater...you could get a 78 bonanza 6 seater for a hundred grand. my dads friend had one