You must be young. Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus, and "total collapse of the social safety net" is quite the opposite of what I would expect if we rolled it back.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the billions we waste on this repressive jackboot-theater for an actual safety net instead? We could live in a less brutal society.
Last year I flew out of Costa Rica and London. They have the same security requirements except the removal of shoes as does getting on the Chunnel between London and Paris.
Is there any country anywhere in the world that doesn’t have basically the same requirements?
You seem to be glossing over all of the hijackings that happen back in the day.
What do hijackings have to do with a social safety net?
> They have the same security requirements
Yes, the US has significant influence over international aviation security regulations.
There are two reasons that no US airliner has been successfully hijacked in a quarter of a century, and neither has anything to do with TSA screening: first, cockpit doors are now locked during flight, and second, passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back.
> What do hijackings have to do with a social safety net?
Many of us who are middle-aged or older clearly remember what the US was like before it created the present security apparatus
> passengers now know that there is nothing to be gained by cooperating with hijackers and nothing to be lost by fighting back.
Yes passengers are going to rise up and fight people with guns? How do you fight back against a terrorist with a bomb on board?
Even trained SWAT teams basically know that if you try to take over a plane from terrorists, who ever goes in front is going to get shot at, aisles are the perfect kill zone.
Just from me flying on a plane as much as I do, the perfect way to take over a plane would be to book first class tickets in the front of the plane - less crowded, usually with people who are less willing to fight back and you’re not surrounded by people on both sides and sweep the aisle.
This reminds me of the yokels running around in the South playing militia in the woods thinking their cache of guns can take on the US military or even a well trained local SWAT force.
And guess how many guns the terrorists had? People are recommending getting rid of security at airports. It’s a lot easier to gang up and fight someone with knives than guns
It would probably cost less money and man-years of life to let every once in awhile some dumb terrorist blow up the plane while fruitlessly trying to access the locked cockpit to convince them to bring it to a juicier target, than it costs to put a gazillion people in long lines, tax the shit out of them for DHS (including the murderous ICE agency), and put them through security theater while also costs many many many man-lives of time by TSA agents.
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Most people are not suggesting getting rid of security at airports. They are recommending getting rid of DHS and government employees performing security at the airport.
The airlines themselves will search for explosives if it is affecting their bottom line, although I do suspect they will do a worse job because they won't be using the DHSs budget but rather some maxima on ROI. Except with a guy who can't summarily legally steal your shit, put you in a concentration camp, and ship you off to CECOT. Use their paranoia of being sued against them, and then their security will not be paranoid enough to call the cops unless there is an actual bomb and not just some brown guy that renewed his visa 5 days late.
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>You realize you’re suggesting something that absolutely no country in the world does as far as I know.
Intrastate flights in Alaska don't, at least through all the areas of the state I've been in (Including Fairbanks). Nothing. Not even a metal detector. I'm sure a few people have died as a result but it still likely saves net lives not to have security once you add up the man-years of time cost in security and earning the money to pay for it. (Note if you leaving Alaska you then do have to go in a different line and clear security)
Most people don't know it though, because as it turns out having zero security even in a place where every crazed man has a gun is not much a problem. Someone that wants to kill people can kill more people faster and eliminate more valuable targets elsewhere than getting on an airplane with a locked cockpit that can't be steered into a juicier target. It just turns out the security thesis is largely a flawed one.
When you add it all up locked cockpits plus passengers fighting back are pretty much all it takes to turn the game theory into airplanes not being the weakest link. Sure terrorists could get on a plane with a bomb but the best they can do is blow up a single airplane, they could have done way more than that on the ground so it doesn't make sense given their relative options.
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>So mothballed knows more about costs benefits of security than the entire world?
Apparently I only know as much as the State of Alaska, who by far have the best airline experience of anywhere I've been. Though I'm told a few regional airlines in the South don't do security either (one guy told me a story of the pilot handing him his gun back after he boarded), though I'm not sure how they get away with it, since AFAIK it's required on interstate flights. And of course chartered flights, which generally don't require security either.
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>How exactly would a pilot have the gun that TSA took from him?
"Checked" Luggage is accessible from the cabin in some smaller prop planes. I couldn't tell you which security they used. The story I got was the pilot for whatever reason had occasion to look at the luggage (tiny plane and weight distribution concerns? I'm not a pilot) and noticed it was a gun case and just handed it back to the passenger. Could be a fake story, though I've heard a few things like this about regional airlines before, I've only personally seen zero weapons controls on intrastate Alaskan flights (which FWIW often land in fairly remote areas where you could be confronted by a bear straight out of the dingy airport).
Yes that’s the entire terminal, it’s an internal flight in Costa Rica on a really tiny plane. Even they have metal detectors. Costa Rica doesn’t even have a military so they aren’t a militarized state.
I have flown in an out of many airports in the south - Atlanta, Nashville, a small regional airport in South GA, Savannah, Raleigh, Charlotte, both Houston airports, Dallas, South Carolina, etc. You can try to get a gun through if you want to
> Though I'm told a few regional airlines in the South don't do security either (one guy told me a story of the pilot handing him his gun back after he boarded), though I'm not sure how they get away with it, since AFAIK it's required on interstate flights. And of course chartered flights, which generally don't require security either
How exactly would a pilot have the gun that TSA took from him?
I’m sure if we get rid of security, every other country in the world that basically has the same requirements for planes (and in my n=1 experience with with the Chunnel between London and Paris) trains will get right on that - especially countries like Isreal.
You do realize it only takes a couple of planes being blown up for people to lose all confidence in airline travel not to mention plate airlines will be sued out of existence like they would have been after 9/11 if the US hadn’t had a settlement fund?
Wouldn't it be nice if we could use the billions we waste on this repressive jackboot-theater for an actual safety net instead? We could live in a less brutal society.