[AnthonyMouse]

Plane hijackings used to occur because the SOP was to not resist and try to negotiate with the hijackers for the safe release of the passengers.

After 9/11 the assumption has to be that they're going to fly the plane into a building and kill everyone, so now if you try to hijack a plane all the passengers and crew are going to beat you to death with their fists and shoelaces like their life depends on it, which makes it a lot harder to hijack a plane. The TSA has approximately nothing to do with that.

[netsharc]

TSA is security theater, but I think checks are still necessary. Otherwise people can bring C4 onto planes, blow themselves (and the plane) up in the air, and freak a lot of "Western civilization" out.

The liquids ban really is bullshit though, it's to prevent a fictional movie plot using a bomb mixed up using binary liquids...

[InsideOutSanta]

What is the purpose of blowing up a plane in the air when you can blow up something on the ground and achieve much more damage?

[raw_anon_1111]

It’s not about “damage”. Terrorism never is. It’s about instilling fear and an over reaction that will have people sympathetic to your cause. It worked during 911 and it’s working right now in Israel.

[InsideOutSanta]

Yeah, but that's my point. Planes go missing somewhat regularly, and sometimes even get blown out of the sky intentionally. It's news for a week or two. So why go through the trouble of getting on a plane and blow it up in the sky (and kill yourself in the process) when you can just blow up something like a music star's concert and get more media attention, and even survive the whole thing.

[raw_anon_1111]

I only see one major domestic commercial airline crash in the last decade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_and_in....

Blowing up a concert doesn’t cause nearly the fear even if people stay away from concerts - no one cares. Airlines are different.

[AnthonyMouse]

Binary explosives aren't fictional. They'll make just as much of a hole in the plane as C4.

The liquids ban is bullshit because you can have arbitrarily many small bottles of liquid and an arbitrarily large empty bucket to mix them in once you're inside. And because blowing up a plane isn't any more of a problem than blowing up a subway car or a highrise hotel lobby but it's ridiculous and infeasible to stripsearch everyone who goes into a high population density area.

[raw_anon_1111]

Yes and how well is that going to work if people can get guns on board? Flight 94 they had knives.

[AnthonyMouse]

Guns are trash on a plane. The use of a firearm is to be able to incapacitate someone from far enough away that they can't counterattack. Planes are densely packed with people. You'd have people surrounding and disarming you long before you could get control of the plane. How many shots do you expect to get off when anyone you're not currently aiming at can put their hands on the gun while someone else grabs your other arm to pull you in the opposite direction and a third person comes up behind you and kicks you between the legs?

Also notice that even if you somehow managed to kill everyone on the plane, you'd then be left with just a plane full of terrorists for the government to blow out of the sky. And if all you wanted was to kill a bunch of random people then being on a plane has nothing to do with it.

[raw_anon_1111]

Terrorism is never about how many people you kill. It’s about instilling fear and sending a message and the downstream economic harm.

Look no further than 911. Two costly unnecessary wars (that even republicans don’t defend anymore) that caused an entirely new generation of people to hate America.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Terrorism is never about how many people you kill. It’s about instilling fear and sending a message and the downstream economic harm.

But again, what does it have anything to do with it being a plane? If they were to blow up a train instead of a plane, are people going to be like "haha you idiots, that only works if it's a plane"?

> Look no further than 911. Two costly unnecessary wars (that even republicans don’t defend anymore) that caused an entirely new generation

It sounds like you're saying that inhibiting overreactions to terrorism would lessen its effect and act as a deterrent to it.

[raw_anon_1111]

(I edited my above comment. I didn’t finish my thought “caused an entire generation to hate America”).

My wife and I fly a lot so we don’t think twice about it. But I’m sure you know how many people are deftly afraid of flying. Can you imagine how reticent people would be about flying if planes start blowing up? Much more economic harm comes from a disruption of air travel than if mass transit stopped in one city.

No one in America to a first approximation cares about trains or mass transit. They are mostly popular in those left leaning cities that are infested by criminality any way. I can see it now “what did they expect when they elected a socialist Muslim” (please note sarcasm).

[AnthonyMouse]

> Can you imagine how reticent people would be about flying if planes start blowing up? Much more economic harm comes from a disruption of air travel than if mass transit stopped in one city.

There are more than four times more riders of the subway in NYC alone than there are plane tickets sold nationwide.

Meanwhile if you're actually worried about deterring people from flying then what does it do to force them to risk missing their flight if they don't waste two hours getting there early, or subject them to warrantless suspicion, scary radiation, uninvited groping, nude body scanners and senseless humiliation?

And all for nothing because it can't be the thing preventing people from blowing up planes when tests consistently show that they're still letting through three quarters of contraband.