"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."
But our Dear Leader knows what's best - especially when it concerns firearms.
"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."
Supervisory staff. I feel safer already.
"Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval process for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the pilots who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval process has stalled out."
Apparently, it's OK to diss certain unions.
"According to the Air Line Pilots Association, the government – since April 2003 -- has trained thousands of volunteer airline pilots as federal flight deck officers to protect passenger and cargo aircraft flying throughout the United States.
“The FFDO program has evolved from a small program that armed airline pilots to protect the flight deck into a substantial, cost-effective security institution,” ALPA says on its Web site.
The pilots’ union repeatedly has urged Congress to adequately fund the program, and its priorities for 2009 include bolstering the program."
That's understandable. But $2 million to fund the last line of defense against murderous airplane hijackers would be hard to come by when Congress just funded a bacon wrapped pork barrel omnibus bill to hand out $473,000 National Council of LaRaza; $5.8 Million for the “Ted Kennedy Institute for the Senate(!); $2 million for "the promotion of astronomy in Hawaii"; $4.4 million for “Center for Grape Genetics” & “Center for Advanced Viticulture and Tree Crop Research”; and my personal fave - $657,000 for “Brown Tree Snake Management in Guam”.
Why do I have the horrible idea that our Dear Leader is a pointy head academic totally out of touch with a hazardous real world?
