pondering airport security
My mom just got back from the west coast. As many travelers do these days, she had tales of wacky airport security to tell. It got me thinking. There must be a better way. It seems simple to me.
Go back to pre-911 security in the terminals. Search for guns, grenades, hunting bows, etc. Let the passengers bring all the Snapple bottles and nail clippers aboard that they care to pack.
From there, you just strap a tazer to the back of the seat in every row. During the pre-flight instructions, the stewardess can go over tazer operation right after telling you how to put on the air mask. The tazers are locked in place and the captain can release them from a control panel in the cockpit.
So when a terrorists stands up and is like "Do as I say. I have a box cutter or a nail clipper or a bottle of Pert Plus or whatever", the captain just arms and releases the tazers and gets on the intercom like "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Taze his ass".
You could even take the passengers out of it. Just make the airplane like a flying Temple of Doom. Encase tranquilizer guns all throughout the ceiling. When terrorists start terrorizing, the captain fires a shower of tranq darts in the general terrorist area. Or hell, just flood the whole passenger cabin with knock-out gas. Or let fly with a quick-hardening foam that fills the cabin immobilizing everybody.
Really, am I missing something here? I assume money would be saved by the cement-mixer load by taking airport terminal security back to "normal". All you need is a law saying nobody can sue the airline or a passenger for incidental injury caused by a terrorist attack and the reaction to the attack.
