Introduction
Airline pilots are individuals who are accorded high degree of trust and respect and require enough security for their safety as they embark on their flight. This is because of the mentality with the crooks and other terrorists that airway is one of the most and formidable way of committing international crimes such as terrorism and abduction. Airway is the latest means where terrorists prefer to humiliate and take revenge to their enemy for example the September 11 2001 terrorism attack.
Argumentive Essay
Pilots as I stated are individuals who are accorded high dignity and in the process their safety should be maintained without hesitation (Hopkins, 2004). Pilots are people who carry special dignitaries and if they are accorded that responsibility of carrying even the presidents, I don’t see the reason why they should be denied that chance of licensed guns. Therefore, I support the idea that pilots should be allowed to carry guns. Further more pilots do carry expensive things especially the commercial cargos and if they are trusted with those cargoes why then should they not be allowed to carry guns. In the first place it is very easy for pilots to communicate, collude or leak any information if they like but majority don’t. So I belief pilots should carry licensed guns. Many people oppose this idea of arming pilots including the airline officials themselves<www.freeessays123.com
This is because many people think that having guns in the airplane is very risky. This is so because attackers may target and posses the gun which later would be used to hijack the aero plane. But my argument is that prevention is better since not all airline crimes that may happen have magnitude as terrorism. For example, according to pilot Luckey, the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, would have been prevented if the pilots were armed beside the Federal Flight Deck Officers. Some of the attackers are minor crooks who can be stopped by the pilots and other security details. For example an airplane may have an emergency landing in remote areas or in the forests and having a gun would stop any attack including wildlife animals.
It is absolutely necessary good to arm the pilots because in many events terrorism has occurred in the airplane when other officers such as air Marshall are armed. Therefore, they don’t protect the pilots absolutely because the Marshall protects both the passengers and the cabin. Again the federal flight deck officer protects the cockpit door but they are easily attacked without their knowledge because they are visible to the passengers and other people who would strike but the pilot is not. Therefore his gun would somehow easily help when these officers are outdone. Actually, commercial airline pilots ought to be armed after going a proper training on how to use guns and when depending with the scenarios. This is for their own protection since passengers are protected by the Marshall (Ellen Hopkins, 1997). I belief if commercial pilots are properly trained on how to use the arms, there would be no problem on arming them. Once again pilots are people who come along way and they are accorded high degree of respect and trust. Therefore, if they great respect are bad people that would be realized even before they qualify to be endowed with that of carrying even the head of states.
On the other hand, having a rifle in the cockpit would do little to prevent terrorism attack since this is always a well orchestrated mission by the terrorists when they strike and little would be done by the pilot with his gun to prevent it on that time of attack.
It is argued that pilots may corroborate with the terrorists and therefore little would be done to curb international crimes. Some countries fear arming the pilots because they don’t have trust in them. They believe that there are many kinds of terrorists because even the attackers are trained people some of them pilots. For example the September 11 2001 terrorists were trained people who had stayed in US before orchestrating their mission. It is argued that if such people are hired as pilots and allowed to carry guns can do bad things than expected.
According to Ed Davidson, who is an airline pilot, arming pilots would create high degrees or temptation for other crews to sneak into the cockpit incase of an emergency and they would take that chance to open fires to the passengers incase they want to robe them. This is because the pilot himself cannot have control of both the plane and the situation of thuggery. Many people recommend that responsibility should be given to special security details and not the pilot. The only thing the pilot can do is to land as quickly as possible. Otherwise hot tempered armed pilot may be tempted to open fire aimlessly incase of the attack and can create a hole in the plane that would later distort the balance of the plane leading to worse situation or can cause an accident in the cross fire killing many people.
I would recommend that even the pilot should be armed so that he can help in defending his cockpit territory and for their own safety. I belief that if the attackers know that pilots are always armed they would not hesitate to break in easily to the cockpit door as they do when they want to control the direction of flying. In this case even crooks who abduct the passengers would not do it with ease. Airway terrorism has been happening frequently; therefore pilots should be protect themselves because nobody know when and how the terrorism would strike.
It is argued that the best way to fight this vice of terrorism is to have strong and secure cockpit that cannot be opened by the attackers instead of arming the pilots (Shari Stamford, 1996). I would propose that besides arming the pilots, the cockpit should be reinforced to discourage access of terrorists to the pilot himself. I wonder why graduated pilots from Federal Law Enforcement Training Center should not be allowed to carry licensed guns and yet they are screened, properly evaluated and trained to carry out their responsibilities.
Conclusion
Actually, the work of the pilots is to fly and control the plane but this does not mean that pilots should not be armed. I know pilots are not trained to shoot and defend themselves but due to the trust that is accorded to them by the time they are allowed to fly expensive cargoes and heads of states, they should be trained properly on how to use the guns and hence licensed. Again, signatory mechanism to alert the pilot should be reinforced incase there is attack to enable the pilot to land immediately without hesitation. Otherwise, the continuous attack on airline by the terrorists calls for the arming of the pilots too.
References
A journal of the air line pilots association, Volume 69, Number 8, 2000 that addresses the need for training pilots so that they can resist attack.
Airway pilot magazine: journal of the air line pilots association, 2000, Volume 69, Number 10 by Ray Brice.
Air line pilots and their safety book by Hopkins, Web.
Arming of airline pilots for their own safety, Web.
Hopkins J (1997) the safety of pilots and their landing, University Academic Press, New York.
Shari Stamford and Krause (1996) airline pilots’ safety and accident investigation, McGraw-Hill, New York.