Obama May Be Disarming Pilots

Reports are circulating that the Obama Administration is making moves to disarm airline pilots.

Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a federal program allowing airline pilots to carry firearms as a last line of defense against a hijackiing has been in place.

According to the Washington Times editorial of March 17:

After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings.

Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.

The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots.

This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000 Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished or used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly used their IDs.

This is just another instance in which the Obama Administration is displaying its September 10th (2001) mentality. Is this going to make air travel any safer for Americans? It seems that Obama is asking for trouble.

What's next? Removing TSA weapons screeners from the nation's airport terminals? The idiocy of this administration never ceases to amaze.

bin Laden is probably breaking out the champagne bottles now.