I hear ya... Totally had my soapbox on there. I hope people feel the need to exercise the right of free speech more often. It's getting to be a bit of a scary thing when kids in school don't understand the Bill or Rights or haven't ever heard of it.

I used to fly a lot and one thing that always surprised me was that i was allowed to keep in my carry-on luggage a laptop security cable. This is a 5 foot length of 1/8" aircraft cable with convenient handles at each end...Think about it..

I was thinking along the same lines.

-- Craig

Cool. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

They -- I mean we -- usually don't get too hung up on ceremony. The point is, to get out there and do it. The President has already said, in much the same words, we ARE the ground troops.

We are the front line. We are the first line of defense. We are expected to be brave.

We are not going to be rewarded, and should not hope to be rewarded, for doing that which is expected of us.

-- Craig

If you have to think about it, you have fewer "agression issues", as one of my old sheep teachers described it in grade school.

REALITY CHECK:
ANYTHING can be used by a weapon by someone with sufficent need. Anything. It might be a challange for a sheep, but it shouldn't be for us.

Well the entire idea behind arming yourself is to learn what the hijacker is armed with.

There is nothing that you can have on you (on the plane) that would be better than a gun. If hijacker has one, either you get shot or stray bullet decompresses the cabin. And before someone tells me that it’s worth to get shot in order to save the souls of all people on board and that they will do it: ok you are right but it is easy to speculate from your chair at home than walking the walk when stuff happens. Now the bomb scenario: well there may be explosives or may not but if it looks like a bomb it should be assumed it is a bomb. Not much you can do to take out a person like that.

That leaves us with person armed with knife, cutter, ice pick, bottle, club or seat belt...

You for your defense also have wine bottle, keys on the lanyard, rolled magazine, flashlight (my favorite)... Now the thing is that you have to make the point to have the weapons available.

What you have to understand is how the attacker armed with a specific weapon works. Understand the basics of close proximity combat. Learn when to keep the distance, and when to close in. Learn advantages and disadvantages of weapons as well as the strike zones (paper club: distance, knife: close combat). Also you have to understand what vital zones to protect when going against an attacker armed with certain weapon. Best thing to really describe it would be prison fighting where men armed with basic stuff inflict huge amount of damage.

But most important sit tight, analyze the situation, keep you eyes open because most of the time the most patient man wins. Also watch out for marshals those guys don’t mess around and are hardcore.

<SIGH> I am not going to lock this thread-yet. I have deleted a few posts that violated forum decorum. Doug and I honour free speach as long as it doesn't violate those simple rules. While speach should be free, the running of this site is not and Doug has a reasonable expectation of his investment respected.

"ANYTHING can be used by a weapon by someone with sufficent need. Anything. It might be a challange for a sheep, but it shouldn't be for us."

As the hippies of my day used to say, "RIGHT ON!"

A couple I used to know who homeschooled had a game that they used for their kids, called "What If..." It was a spur-of-the-moment question on how they would handle a given situation.

The trick is to get used to thinking about what you might do in any type of similar situation. Use it to kill time. It won't cover everything, but it will help you learn to think on your feet.

Our politicians have done their best to limit our rights, but they haven't put a lock on our brains.

Sue

One point Ladies and Gentlemen. If we are considering what if? as a 9.11 scenario be aware that you will provoke the hijacker(s) into a self-destruct sequence.