Remember that Germany was able to kill most resistance at the beginning of the war because of gun registration... Think about it.

I travel with a modified mess kit in my bag, including knife, fork and spoon. I have had it questioned once. And that was because the lady had never been a scout. Her supervisor looked at the utensils and waved me through. It helps that I also travel with a chefs bag with my knives in check-thru and put up a fuss if I think they are going to treat it with less than enough respect.

Hey, just because I have an Anaconda next to my 10" german chef's knife... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> I'm not a caterer, I just play one on t.v..

Rena

With all due respect, I don't think you have to put up with inconveniences. The United States is still a democracy, regardless of what Timothy McVeigh and his buddies think/thought. This means that anything can be changed if enough public pressure is brought to bear.

The inconveniences, as many on this forum have pointed out, do absolutely nothing to ensure security. At best, they do nothing; at worst, they instil a sense of false confidence that will make the terrorists' job easier in future.

There are far more effective security measures that could be implemented, which pose little or no inconvenience to the travelling public. (For example, one anonymous airline pilot was heard to say “They’ll have trouble hijacking my airplane when I’m bouncing them off the ceiling.” He may have got this idea from a guy named Uri Bar-Lev, who did exactly that when two Palestinian terrorists tried to hijack the El Al airliner he was flying in September 1970.)

But unless the public can be educated about the difference between real security and “show” security, they won’t lobby for that change.

Aardwolfe:

I seem to remember that the passengers on that flight were a bunch of chauvanists.

In the resulting melee, I believe they killed the male Palastinian and not the female terrorist (The papers showed an extremely beautiful young woman.).

Of course back then, equal treatment wasn't as highly promoted.

Just a goose and gander comparison.

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
Something to think about.

The male hijacker was shot and killed by Israeli air marshals. I believe the woman (Leila Khaled) was knocked unconscious when her head hit the ceiling and so they were able to take her alive. Considering the hijackers had (or claimed to have) a bomb and had threatened to blow up the airplane and kill everyone on board, I doubt the AMs would have shown such restraint had she gotten to her feet as the male hijacker allegedly did.

I doubt that chivalry had anything to do with it, especially after one of the El Al flight attendants had been shot 12 times.

El Al may be a royal pain to fly on (or so I'm told; I've never been to the ME myself), but IMO their most effective security measures are the ones the passengers don't see, or necessarily even know about. (For another example, they refuse to comment on whether their pilots are armed; if I'm not mistaken, George Bush has stated very clearly that pilots on US airlines are not armed and will never be armed as long as he is President. How is this supposed to improve security?)

Basically if you have to wonder whether the TSA will hassle you for trying to bring X onto a plane, the answer is that they will.

As for types of knives, about the least scary knife anyone can possibly imagine is those plastic throwaway ones that you get in fast food places. And among those, there's the relatively solid ones, and the really cheap flimsy ones that snap in two if you look at them the wrong way. I had one of the flimsy ones in my backpack for some reason and the TSA confiscated it and threw it away.

Basically, whatever it is that you want to bring aboard, put it into a checked bag instead, or mail it to your destination ahead of time.