July 11, 2002
OUR LAST LINE OF OFFENSE :
Another pilot caught drunk at Miami airport (South Florida Sun Sentinel, July 11 2002)An AeroMexico pilot has been fired after being caught drunk while getting ready to fly a passenger flight out of Miami.
The move to arm airline pilots is a Democratic moment for the Republican Party and one which they should snap out of post haste.
There hadn't been a successful hijacking in the United States in about 20 years prior to 9-11. Arming pilots is a knee-jerk response to a problem that does not exist, based on our pro-gun fanaticism, rather than on any genuine need for guns in the cockpit. This is the kind of thing Democrats do--emotional, impetuous, useless, ill-considered, groveling before a constituency group, placing ideology above cold reason....
I will bet any taker twenty dollars that the first gun discharged onboard a U.S. flight will not be wielded by an embattled fly-boy hero fending off maniacal Ayrabs, but by a drunken idiot like this one, at an annoying passenger or at a stewardess who won't date him.
MORE :
Armed Pilots? Many Travelers Are Gun-Shy (MICHAEL JANOFSKY, July 11, 2002, NY Times)