Steve Chapman is, as usual, absolutely right when he argues in favor of allowing commercial pilots to carry guns on board their aircraft (“Armed pilots make for safer skies,” Commentary, May 26). But he falls short in one area, assigning blame for leaving the flying public subject to the tender mercies of the terrorists.
Chapman states that John Magaw, head of the federal Transportation Security Administration, believes that pilots ought to be forbidden from carrying guns in the cockpit. But Magaw works for Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who, in turn, reports to President George Bush. Thus, Magaw’s dimwitted decision to remove an effective last line of defense against mass murder in the air is effectively Bush’s decision.
By failing to override the decisions of Magaw and Mineta, Bush has concurred in the determination that passengers are in greater danger from an armed pilot than from Al Qaeda thugs.
Should, God forbid, another incident even approaching the magnitude of the Sept. 11 hijackings take place, and if that tragedy could have been stopped by an armed pilot, it will be Bush who will share a large measure of culpability for the lives of those passengers and whomever else the terrorists succeed in killing.
