Obama secretly ends program that let pilots carry guns
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.
The conclude with this:
Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts were the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find any independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm. Why does this move make sense?
Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby at the expense of public safety?
Very good question.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) is outraged, issuing a statement saying "What Obama is doing is risking public safety, as the newspaper put it, 'in the name of an anti-gun ideology.'"
Via PRNewswire-USNewswire news release:
The newspaper reported in its Tuesday edition that President Obama is "quietly ending the federal firearms program" by diverting some $2 million from the training program to hire "supervisory" staff, whose job, it appears, will be to harass armed pilots through unnecessary field inspections.
Gottlieb continues on to say "How dare the president, or anybody in his administration, take measures to erode the safety of air travelers," Gottlieb questioned. "The armed pilot program provides a guaranteed level of security to the public. There may or may not be an air marshal aboard every airplane, but there is definitely a pilot in the cockpit.
"We trust commercial airline pilots with $500 million aircraft. We can certainly trust them with $500 pistols to defend those planes, and the lives of their passengers.
"Certain individuals have never liked the armed pilot program. These anti-gun, anti-self-defense bureaucrats seem more interested in their own power, and protecting their little empires, than they are in protecting the public. And now, Obama is catering to their anti-gun bigotry."
This is irresponsible and shows that Obama cares more about kissing the asses of the anti-gun factions than he does about protecting the country.
Welcome back to September 10th, 2001 ladies and gentlemen.
Seems Obama has a very short memory indeed.
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