Is He, Or Isn't He?

The federal program to train and authorize airliner pilots to carry firearms while flying has been training and licensing pilots:

Aviation sources tell Time that more than 4,000 pilots are authorized to carry guns, and each day they fly armed on more flights than do air marshals. The gun-toting pilots, who fly unidentified, now constitute the fourth-largest federal law-enforcement group in the U.S. Pilots in the program, as well as the Transportation Security Administration (tsa), which runs it, claim it has been a big success.

Of course, being a government program, there has to be a problem:

Except for an arrest last month of an armed pilot who allegedly arrived at work drunk, there have been no problems like inadvertent discharges or illegal use of weapons, which often occur among new officer groups. But some pilots complain that the tsa has never embraced the idea, providing little follow-up after training and denying them basic intelligence data like the weekly suspicious-incident reports. "The government wants it both ways," says one pilot. "They want us to protect aircraft, but they don't want to pay much for it, cover us for injuries or even really treat us as law-enforcement officers." tsa officials insist they are proud of the program and are reviewing how to offer more assistance and training.

(Via Vodkapundit)

Posted by Mitch at February 7, 2005 04:49 AM | TrackBack