Oh, yeah? Well, I say that that completely depends on the nature of the emergency. If a bad guy somehow manages to get into the cockpit, the very last thing that I want is two aircrew in their seats like they’re sitting in church.

Does the word “context” ever occur to you?

If a round penetrating the skin will bring down a plane, then it is the height of negligence to allow Air Marshals to carry guns. Where does TSA believe a round will go if the marshal happens to miss if he fires his weapon?

Still, I’m not sure the pilots should be armed. In an emergency, I like the pilots to be in their seats getting the plane safely to the ground. Now, if you wish to arm the flight attendants, well, that would be alright. I wouldn’t mind if they suspended the beverage service to put some terrorist down.

“At that altitude, you puncture the skin of an airplane, it’s going to go down. They were very lucky,” Boyd said.

Maybe if your .40 round has a several-pound shaped charge stuck to it. Otherwise, no.

And this guy runs an aviation consulting company?

You see, up until 1967 or so, there was this thing called “the Mail Gun.” If the plane was carrying US Mail, as most did, the flight crew were REQUIRED to be armed. Ernest K. Gann said in his autobiography how relieved they were when their line lobbied to allow them to unbuckle the gunbelts once airborne.

Quote 1: “At that altitude, you puncture the skin of an airplane, it’s going to go down. They were very lucky,” Boyd said.

Quote 2: Mike Boyd, who runs the Colorado-based aviation consulting firm The Boyd Group.

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Uh, that’s not true. I don’t know who this Boyd is or why he’s being asked to comment. Oh, right he’s a consultant:

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Just another form of PSH. “If a bullet punctures the skin, it’s going down!” Same site claims the AP has a photo of the exit hole on the exterior of the plane…. and guess what, it landed just fine and none of the passengers ever even had any idea that it had happened:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/15704844/detail.html

So, it appears the pilot was probably fiddling with his gun in the middle of the flight and inadvertently pulled the trigger. The trigger lock holster is obviously stupid and practically begging for something like this to happen, but why was the pilot messing with it during preparations to land? It just doesn’t make sense.

Fortunately there is a flight recorder that should pick up everything going on in the cockpit, so the truth will out sooner or later.

CCL holders should be allowed to carry anywhere, including in the cockpit, cabin, college campuses, church, et, et.

This is only hard because liberals are MAKING it hard on purpose.

Although, then that doesn’t logically follow. More of a common sense follow. In general, a person who has undergone the training and vetting needed to be trusted with the lives of hundreds of people in such a complex machine on such a routine basis should be able to be trusted with a much simpler machine.

Boyd said he supports the program to arm pilots, saying, “if somebody who has the ability to fly a 747 across the Pacific wants a gun, you give it to them.”

I’m not quite sure how that follows. Mohammed Atta had the ability to fly a 747 across the Pacific…