Originally Posted by Malorn
In the absence of that I like that we err on the side of security.
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We already were. As I said. Before the TSA and the body scanners and pat downs, and including everyone that died as a result of 9/11, airline travel
was already ridiculously safe.
Cars, bikes, and motorcycles are all far more dangerous even without the threat of terrorism. If you think airlines needed to be made safer than they already were, you do not understand statistics, since by any measure they are safe even with minimal security. People have an irrational fear of terrorism fueled by the headline grabbing nature of the extremely rare incidents, even though you're dozens of times more likely to die on your commute to work.
There have been 75 hijackings since 1950, and several hundred million or perhaps even billions of flights. This is a figure so statistically insignificant as to be irrelevant for any rational discussion. There have probably been more hijacking movies than actual hijackings. Yes, that security exists has prevented an unknowable number of them. But the security they adopted in response was the reasonable, fast, effective, and non intrusive precaution of having metal detectors and xray machines to keep guns off of aircraft. After 9/11 they also added the reasonable and nonintrusive(and in hindsight incredibly obvious) policy of a heavily reinforced cockpit door.
There is no terrorist threat. There never has been. More people have been killed by stepladders than by terrorists in this country.