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New TSA rules on small knives draw whining from 9/11 kin

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  • New TSA rules on small knives draw whining from 9/11 kin

    STFU...


    New TSA rules on knives draw fire from 9/11 kin
    New TSA rules allowing small knives on planes draw fire from some Sept. 11 family members
    By Karen Matthews, Associated Press | Associated Press – 1 hr 31 mins ago

    New TSA rules on knives draw fire from 9/11 kin - Yahoo! News

    NEW YORK (AP) -- Some family members of victims killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks said Wednesday that they are outraged by the Transportation Security Administration's decision to let passengers carry pocketknives on planes.

    TSA Administrator John Pistole announced Tuesday that airline passengers will be able to carry pocketknives with blades less than 2.36 inches long and less than half an inch wide. Souvenir baseball bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment also will be permitted starting next month.

    The agency said the policy aligns the U.S. with international standards and allows the TSA to concentrate on more serious safety threats.

    Unions representing flight attendants and other airline workers decried the change, and several relatives of people killed when terrorists hijacked four U.S. airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, criticized the move as well.

    "I'm flabbergasted," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was killed at the World Trade Center. "I'm really disgusted by this latest news."

    Regenhard said she recently had a container of yogurt confiscated by the TSA because it was a gel. "I'm just wondering why a yogurt is more dangerous than a penknife or a golf club," she said.

    Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, said a pocketknife can be just as deadly as a box cutter, like the ones the hijackers used. Box cutters will still be banned under the new rules.

    "When you're drawing a blade against someone's neck, they're quite lethal," Burlingame said. "This is bad news."

    Burlingame said Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told interrogators that the hijackers each used "a Swiss knife," a brand of pocketknife, to butcher a sheep and a camel as part of their training. The transcript of the 2003 interrogation was part of the 9/11 Commission Report.

    Burlingame suspects the TSA decided to allow folding knives because they are hard to spot. She said the agency's employees "have a difficult time seeing these knives on X-ray screening, which lowers their performance testing rates."

    Asked to respond, a TSA spokesman reiterated that "the decision to permit these items as carry-on was made as part of TSA's overall risk-based security approach and aligns TSA with international standards."

    Several relatives of those who died on United Flight 93, whose passengers tried to wrest control of the plane before it crashed in Shanksville, Pa., questioned the policy change.

    "What's the difference between a pocketknife and a box cutter, for crying out loud?" asked David Beamer, whose son Todd led the Flight 93 revolt with the words, "Let's roll." ''I cannot see the upside to this."

    Alice Hoagland, whose son Mark Bingham was another leader of the attempt to take back Flight 93, called it "a dreadful mistake to loosen the rules."

    "We are increasing the chances of flight attendants and passengers being attacked while in the air," said Hoagland, a retired flight attendant. "This decision was made in order to make the TSA look a little better, to ease up on the standard so they won't have egg on their face."

    Hamilton Peterson, who lost his father and stepmother on Fight 93, said, "I have enormous respect for the great work of the TSA; however, I am concerned this may undermine overall counterterrorism vigilance and may well prove to be dangerous to future passengers and crew who will inherit the danger resulting from this decision."
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

  • #2
    The timing wasn't right for these changes, particularly allowing the penknives. Even a small 2 1/2" x 1/2" knife can be pretty potent if sharpened to a razor edge. It might not get someone entry to the flight deck, but could cause some serious injury to flight attendants and passengers.
    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

    Comment


    • #3
      [QUOTE=JAD_333;905520]The timing wasn't right for these changes, particularly allowing the penknives. Even a small 2 1/2" x 1/2" knife can be pretty potent if sharpened to a razor edge. It might not get someone entry to the flight deck, but could cause some serious injury to flight attendants and passengers.[/QUOTE]

      My first thoughts exactly. I think it is only a matter of time before some disgruntled drunk gets upset and pulls a knife.

      Comment


      • #4
        Any clown that pulls a knife on a plane these days is going to get hogpiled so fast his head will spin.

        -dale

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by dalem View Post
          Any clown that pulls a knife on a plane these days is going to get hogpiled so fast his head will spin.

          -dale
          I sure as hell hope so. In the mean time I want my Gerber multitool and Leathermen micro tool back.
          Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by dalem View Post
            Any clown that pulls a knife on a plane these days is going to get hogpiled so fast his head will spin.

            -dale
            Any clown that so much as sneezes in the wrong way is going to get hogpiled.

            And that's why 9/11 was a one-shot deal. It ceased being a viable style of operation before it was even completed (Flight 93).
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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            • #7
              at the same time, why the hell does anyone need a pen-knife on a plane?
              There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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              • #8
                Translation: We can't hire enough people who are smart enough to know what a knife is.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by astralis View Post
                  at the same time, why the hell does anyone need a pen-knife on a plane?
                  It's not a question of "need". It's that people have all kinds of things on them, just as a matter of course. (like nail clippers)
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Ok, I'm dating myself here, but in my grade school days every boy had a penknife in his pocket at school. At recess we'd play Mumblety-peg. How to Play Mumbley Peg | The Art of Manliness The big deal was switch-blade knives...they were illegal. Not many kids had them. Penknives were good for carving initials in trees, whittling sticks, cutting string, opening boxes...a kid had to be prepared. :)
                    To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                      Ok, I'm dating myself here, but in my grade school days every boy had a penknife in his pocket at school. At recess we'd play Mumblety-peg. How to Play Mumbley Peg | The Art of Manliness The big deal was switch-blade knives...they were illegal. Not many kids had them. Penknives were good for carving initials in trees, whittling sticks, cutting string, opening boxes...a kid had to be prepared. :)


                      From the time I was 8 years old until I graduated high school (1983) I always had a pocketknife on me. And yes, I played Mumbley Peg too. Pocket knives were okay, while switchblades were no-nos (only hoods carried switchblades).
                      "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                        Ok, I'm dating myself here, but in my grade school days every boy had a penknife in his pocket at school. At recess we'd play Mumblety-peg. How to Play Mumbley Peg | The Art of Manliness The big deal was switch-blade knives...they were illegal. Not many kids had them. Penknives were good for carving initials in trees, whittling sticks, cutting string, opening boxes...a kid had to be prepared. :)
                        Yes, but that doesn't count because they didn't have planes much less cars when you were in grade school...

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by astralis View Post
                          at the same time, why the hell does anyone need a pen-knife on a plane?
                          Once you put on on your key chsin or belt you would be surprised at how often you would use it.
                          Removing a single turd from the cesspool doesn't make any difference.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                            Ok, I'm dating myself here, but in my grade school days every boy had a penknife in his pocket at school. At recess we'd play Mumblety-peg. How to Play Mumbley Peg | The Art of Manliness The big deal was switch-blade knives...they were illegal. Not many kids had them. Penknives were good for carving initials in trees, whittling sticks, cutting string, opening boxes...a kid had to be prepared. :)
                            That game sounds like something drunk college kids should be playing. Maybe I'll introduce it to some of my mates
                            Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                            Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by YellowFever View Post
                              Yes, but that doesn't count because they didn't have planes much less cars when you were in grade school...
                              We'll talk it over when you get out of grade school.
                              To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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