TSA is engaged in risk mitigation - the real risk is cockpit takeover and downing the jet, it isn't a person armed with a sharp or a bludgeon, its a person armed with an incendiary device, an explosive maybe, or an aerosol can filled with a toxin that can spread through the plane and kill or incapacitate the air crew. Because for quite a while they've taken good advice and hardened the cockpit from breaching with items that are commonly available on an airplane. AFAIK though, cockpits aren't hermetically sealed, so the next avenue of risk mitigation is, do we put in a positive air barrier between the passenger area and the cockpit? The most obvious method would be to make the cockpit a slightly more pressurized area than the passenger area, making infiltration of noxious or toxic fumes far less likely. I reckon Boeing and Airbus should be working on mitigating this avenue of attack.

Personally I'm bummed for the flight attendants who have to deal with belligerent passengers, who can now come armed with pool cues, knives and such. these aren't air terrorists or al Qaeda, they're the random ad execs who are returning from a long weekend in Vegas, hand carrying their favorite $500 5 iron onboard, who gets in a drunken argument with the guy from Oracle sitting in the next seat. TSA may allow all this stuff through screening, but I wouldn't blame airlines a single bit if they continued to restrict some of the allowed items to proceed to the passenger area. Much like the prohibition on carrying firearms, why can't an airline concerned for the safety of crew and passengers require folks to check some of these items into baggage?

Please note, I don't have a beef about knife rights as all, I EDC myself. But I have no need to hand carry my knife onto a passenger jet.