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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25836 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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A lot of things were different in the 90s. Apparently, we didn’t realize hijackings could be suicidal. I wouldn’t mind replacing the TSA, but I don’t think repealing it entirely is an option.

You can’t put the toothpaste back in the 2 oz. tube.

Since we realized the thing that has prevented another kamakazi airliner hasn't been the TSA, it's been passengers who fight to the death on the plane.

Apparently, we didn’t realize hijackings could be suicidal.

You don't need the TSA precisely because, since 2001, every passenger has had it drilled into them they're the last line of defense and that if you let a hijacking go, you're going to die. This isn't the '70s or '80s where hijackers were annoying but mostly harmless- it is that kind of population that needs the TSA, not the modern one where everyone knows they're an existential threat.

If you're going to die in an intentional plane crash at any time past that point, it's because the plane hijacked itself pilot did it on purpose, and the locked door kept the passengers out until it was too late.

Even moreso.

It's been this way since literally September 11, 2001. Flight 93 - that crash landed in Pennsylvania - did some because the passengers had heard from loved ones calling them on their cell phones about the NYC strikes.

It's amazing how the entire lifespan of the hijacking tactics and strategy of Al-Qaeda began and ended on 9/11

First one's always free.

the locked door kept the passengers out until it was too late.

It feels like the locked door has caused unintended consequences that policymakers didn't think of. Is there any way to keep the locked door and prevent suicidal pilots, or is that just another policy we have to accept because politicians didn't think it could backfire in probably the most predictable way possible?

Not unless we solve full self flying airplanes able to over-ride the pilots commands on a computer whim. And I don't trust the likes of Boeing not to fuck it up.

It did backfire with that Lufthansa flight. Since then they have a two person in the cockpit rule which seems to have mostly worked. If the pilot or copilot leaves then they call a stewardess in.

We could go back to the days of the three-person crew with a flight engineer, and ensure that 2 people are in the cockpit at all times.

Even with a second set of hands, a pilot can still irreversibly fuck up a plane during takeoff or landing, when the margin of error is smallest (see Air India 171).

It looks like there actually is a rule mandating two pilots in the cockpit at all times, at least in US and Europe. Unfortunately, airlines are lobbying to overturn this rule, arguing that automation is safe enough.

There are copilots who should prevent this as much as possible, but realistically what would the average passenger do? A determined pilot could dive down faster than a passenger could react.

Or we're simply more sensitive to even trivial risks. We could make planes open carry friendly, and it would be fine.

Is an open carrier executing both pilots without warning, or emptying his magazine into the wing/fuel tank, or the avionics console, or taking his gun to the rear lavatory and emptying it in the general direction of the rear elevator assembly (a not very redundant piece of plane that has a bad track record of allowing recovery when it fails), all considered a "trivial risk", or did you not consider those possibilities at all? (Too many cases of gun activist fantasies running on shounen anime rules, villains pausing to give a speech about their motivations and all.)

taking his gun to the rear lavatory and emptying it in the general direction of the rear elevator assembly

You have a very Hollywood or maybe video game understanding of handguns destroying machinery.

Things change when you're in a pressurized cabin designed to be as lightweight as possible. Which is also what gives us hope for space swords in the distant future!

There have been incidents in which parts of a plane peel off and the cabinet loses pressure. That doesn't crash planes or kill passengers. Shooting a gun through the plane isn't enough.

Huh. Don't all the passengers get the bends when that happens though? Recoverable if there are enough hyperbaric chambers, but still seems unpleasant.

Normal commercial flight occurs between 10k and 40k feet (and usually in the 15-25k levels). That's about 0.2 atmospheres outside of the aircraft, and typically 0.7 inside. It's enough to be absolute hell on your sinuses if you have a sinus infection, and you'll go unconscious in seconds without supplemental oxygen, but it's not going to cause any nitrogen narcosis issues worth mentioning.

Aloha 243 is one of the clearest examples where the aircraft was maintaining absolutely no air pressure, and outside of the poor flight attendant sucked out of the aircraft, injuries were limited to debris.

You do realise that airplanes, being optimised for low weight, are nothing like your typical machinery? Handgun bullets can likely penetrate through the aluminium exterior walls quite easily (and while the idea of explosive decompression through a bullet-sized hole is bogus, the implications of fuel leaking into the body through one in the fuel tank are plenty concerning), but more importantly, the interior side of the wall, separated from the passenger cabin by only some plastic lining, is dense with sensitive cabling and hydraulics. I recommend checking out some airplane maintenance videos for reference, or any of the numerous series of plane crash investigation media for instances of how tiny pieces of shrapnel and localised fires due to bad insulation severed some or another critical control and made the plane uncontrollable.

Don't just take it from me, either: this problem was recognised immediately when the idea of armimg any "good guys" in planes became popular.

Neither these scenarios, nor the use of firearms to stop hijackings, will happen. Airplane security is pointless.

Do you not believe there is anyone who would bring down an airplane, if it were sufficiently easy? Forget about terrorists with an agenda, what about all the random spree shooters that the US gets every other month?

Those random spree killers are low functioning copycats of weirdos. Their MO is, and is likely to remain, opening fire at an elementary school or festival, not bringing down planes- see also the lack of bombings.

Probably not.

As it turns out, you can bring stuff like laptops on planes and those can make pretty decent explosions and fires. In the interest of fairness, the TSA responded to xkcd's comic at the time but their argument of "if it looks like a laptop it's all good" isn't really exactly convincing to me. And these batteries are actually pretty dangerous even accidentally (UPS Airlines Flight 6, Air China CA139, etc, from a few months ago)

Jesus Christ. I feel like that would ground more planes purely from Sig owners.

As a P226 enjoyer I object. Yeah sure, no P320s shooting holes in legs, dicks and plane walls. But all of Sigs other great handgun offerings should be allowed.

If only we had a system that held firearms manufacturers accountable for manufacturing defects, but we don't. To my knowledge Sig has faced very few significant consequences.

We do. Consumers can coordinate to avoid bad products and bad manufacturers. If Sig hasn't faced consequences, it may be because most of their products are fine or people just don't care very much.

Or because they got government contracts to mass produce a bad product before there was any market feedback.

The question that needs to be answered for this to happen is: How do you prevent any mechanism for suing gun manufacturers from being abused by the massive lobby of well-funded activists who are politically opposed to the existence of those companies?

That is a fair point, but I feel like the existing claims of uncommanded discharge are well-documented and backed up by evidence (a dishonorable mention of a case that DIDN'T goes to the debacle at Warren Air Force Base last year). Short of straight up making shit up, I don't see how anti-gun activists could abuse the mechanism if we continued to uphold those standards of proof.

They still had some basic security in the 90s, like metal detectors. They just didn't have weird sweaty guys giving you a pat down, or confiscating your nail clippers. The real security upgrade is the locked cabin doors + better background screening and counter-terrorism in general. We could go back to a more relaxed boarding process. They've already given up some of the worst bits of security theater, like making people take off their shoes and belt. I don't know how much they even search people's carry-ons anymore, I always put a ton of junk in mine and they hardly ever stop me.

Airport security basically doesn't exist as an inconvenience any more if you are willing to pass a background check and pay some money. The background check is what actually replaces the security, the money is why they keep the shitty lines for the plebs.

TSA still sucks even with pre-check, it just sucks less.

These days, at least in the airports I use, it's a <5 minute process, and the only inconvenience is emptying my pockets into my bag and putting them back in. Walk in, Touchless ID/CLEAR, get to a line of a few people on the new machines, bags in, metal detector, done. Not that there aren't absolute disasters, like Austin last weekend, but those are usually pretty easy to avoid. Sure, it would be nice to just not have it, but when has the government ever abolished a jobs program that lets them charge you money?

At Newark it is still terrible. One line to show your boarding pass to the TSA official. That official sends you to the pre-check line, where you wait to provide ID to another TSA official. Then to the bags, where they change the rules occasionally on which things have to go in and which can be separate, and whether you can wear your shoes (yes, even with pre-check). Then of course the wonderful "random" additional bag search, which I hit about 1 in 3 times.

If you don't have pre-check you'll be waiting over an hour on the main security line, sometimes over 2 hours.

I have not had much trouble at Newark lately, but I know it's usually a shitshow in all respects. Touchless ID should at least smooth some of that out if you're signed up and flying through a terminal that has it.

Sure, but does that count as “getting rid of security lines”?

I guess pre-check is pretty nice.

Well, in my memory (admittedly it's been a long time) there was hardly any line. You could pretty much just show up to the airport and walk right onto the plane, just pausing briefly to walk through a metal detector. It's still like that for busses and trains, so it's not impossible.

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