From: David Lubkin (extropy@unreasonable.com)
Date: Thu Sep 13 2001 - 06:11:57 MDT
I think I may have proposed this idea on the list 5 or 10 years ago,
but it bears repeating.
Unarmed passengers cannot reliably stop armed hijackers. Sky marshals
are pretty good but once hijackers know that there's going to be one on
board, they can take steps to identify and stop the marshal.
Instead: have buttons. One in the cockpit. One that flight attendants
know about. One in the pocket of the sky marshal. When the button
is pushed, guns drop from overhead, like oxygen masks. The guns only
drop at seats occupied by adults. They fire a charge that cannot
penetrate the aircraft's skin. The weapon may or may not be lethal;
the implications are different.
Since there are multiple buttons, and multiple people who can push one,
it is very difficult for the hijackers to prevent a button-push. Once a
button has been pushed, the hijackers are now vastly outnumbered and
outgunned.
It would seem like it would take at most one aborted hijacking, even if
there were passenger casualties, before would-be hijackers found
something better to do.
-- David Lubkin.
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