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TSA Union Calls For Armed Guards At Every Checkpoint
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Brian Tumulty writes at USA Today that the union representing airport screeners for the Transportation Security Administration says Friday's fatal shooting of an agent at Los Angeles International Airport highlights the need for armed security officers at every airport checkpoint. The screeners, who earn up to $30,000 annually, have not requested to carry guns themselves, but they do want an armed security officer present at every checkpoint says J. David Cox Sr., president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents the screeners. "Every local airport has its own security arrangement with local police to some type of contract security force," says Cox. "There is no standardization throughout the country. Every airport operates differently. Obviously at L.A. there were a fair number of local police officers there." Congress may investigate the issue but Sen. Tom Carper, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, says that "there will be an appropriate time — after all the facts have been gathered and thoughtfully analyzed —to review existing policy and procedure to see what, if anything, can be learned from this unfortunate incident to help prevent future tragedies." TSA officials say that they don't anticipate a change in the agency security posture at the moment, but "passengers may see an increased presence of local law enforcement officers throughout the country.""
Maybe reexamine the way mental illness is treated and use the money improve.
The California political class went ape-shit when the Black Panthers made a habit of wearing rifles slung over their shoulders back in the 1970s. They're scared to death of proles being able to resist the police.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just get rid of the TSA.
So if there's a mall shooting the solution is armed guards in every mall? If there's a school shooting the solution is armed guards in every school? Every bus station, train station, subway station, park and so on until there's a whole army of armed guards running around? The point of the secuity control is that nobody gets to bring anything on board to crash or hijack the plane and in that respect, mission accomplished. It's not a general defense against a random person pulling out a gun and opening fire, not any more than any other place.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In order to protect the TSA agents, the TSA should be disbanded. You can't shoot what's not there!
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
TSA has been looking for an excuse to arm it's people. Watch them try to turn this incident into that excuse. Mind you, arming ex-hamburger flippers will endanger the public more than protect it, but arming TSA goons would be a huge step in proper bureaucratic empire building.
Want protection from nutcases? Sorry, that's not gonna happen - in a nation of more than 300 million people, there will always be nutcases.
Want to reduce the target-rich environment that is the TSA checkpoint? That's easy, get rid of TSA and let the airports and airlines deal with security.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
What they need to do is fix the real issues with check points. Get rid of the security theater, the 3.4 oz fluid limits, the shoes removals, the body scanners, the biggest of all being the understaffing of the checkpoints that allow the mass lines that would attract a terrorist to begin with and so on. Start training the TSA on real security measures and start teach training them on profiling. When's the last time you heard about an Isreali plane being hijacked - and they let you bring a pocket-knife on board?
The problem with the TSA isn't the members of the TSA, they are doing what they are trained to do. The problem is that Congress is overseeing the TSA and allowing politics to trump security. It's like getting mad at the IRS when the IRS is only doing what congress told them to do. Get mad at congress for giving them the byzantine rules to begin with.
The TSA should be staffed by real armed Federal Officers, with real training, and real skills. Start by phasing in the replacement of the current supervisors with real officers and work your way from there. The next thing they should do is follow the Federal Reserve model and make the TSA semi-independent from regular politics so that they can focus more on security and less on politics.
The day the color codes, shoes removals, 3.4 oz removals and similar useless rules go and get replaced by having the (usually unmanned) additional screening checkpoints getting opened up is the day you know the TSA has finally started to get security.
If we follow the logic through to the end, everybody, everywhere needs an armed guard; just in case the lunatic-du-jour decides that's where he wants to kill people.
Marathon runs obviously need an armed guard every 10 yards along the course. We have proof that terrorists see marathon runs as a target!
No sig today...
It's not the TSA, it's the union representing the TSA screeners.
Who do you think make up the union if not the TSA screeners? I am sick and tired of the overreaction to these random events whether it be aircraft crashing into a building, a workplace shooting, a bomb detonation at a public event, etc. I do not feel safe with roaming machine-gun-toting police officers or military in any venue.
I personally love how if we americans demand to arm our selves from protection we are somehow the bad guys in the eyes of the government, yet when one of their own gets shot its time to arm up! hypocrisy at its best people
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
back around 1990 there WAS a mass shooting in the food court of the mall across the street from my office (Perimeter Mall in suburban Atlanta). forget the exact casualty count but there were multiple victims, it was sad but people realized it was an unfortunate isolated incident/not the first wave of an invasion & life went back to normal pretty quickly. I'd bet you a fairly expensive dinner you could take a poll of patrons there now & less than 5% would even know this incident ever happened...
soooo... shooting happened, people grieved for a few days & nearly 1/4 century later few people even remember it (I probably wouldn't if I didn't work with people who were there) and there have been exactly ZERO recurrences despite the conspicuous absence of a bear patrol - go figure...
I whole heartedly condemn the shooter, both in principle as well as pragmatically b/c people are already seizing the opportunity to tar anyone w/legitimate criticisms of tsa w/same brush as the shooter ("you're just an anti-govt nut!!!"). I wouldn't have thought it possible but this incident is a significant setback for any hope of meaningful reform...
You are delusional. The majority of any group of people is going to be idiots.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Exactly - give anyone who wants to carry the right to carry. Oh - wait. That's already in the CONSTITUTION!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Aren't TSA civilians?
Especially coming from the TSA (yeah, yeah, it's the Union, not the TSA...pfffft) who used to get the panties in a twist over fingernail clippers and still does over a tube of toothpaste.
The Feds should look at this incident as a warning strip on the road. When you stray from the straight and narrow, it makes a huge racket to wake you up. The excesses of the Federal government are increasing every day and are starting to push some of the less stable over the edge. How long until it's not just some crazy guy off his meds and a normal person with a legitimate grievance...like a loved one being denied care under Obamacare?
The question is, will the Feds listen to the warning strip?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Why the fuck is a government agency unionized in the first place?
For the same reasons that employees of any organization have ever unionized: for protection from their employers. Duh. ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Not in their minds.
What you mean only criminals commit crimes? Amazing insight that as soon as someone starts shooting your point is valid.
I said "lawfully-owned"... someone's decision to start shooting doesn't change the legal ownership status of the firearm.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You realize that the last major threats on aircraft that got by TSA were all stopped by the passengers? That any major event that a shooter has gone nuts and started killing people within an armed area were a maximum 1 to 2 people? That shooters have specifically targeted areas with limited access to firearms to maximize the amount of damage they can do before being stopped? Have you ever heard of a shootout at an NRA convention? Mass killing in a gun store? A hijacking of a military transport?
what could a TSA agent possibly do that would be justification for shooting?
Truly justified in a legal sense? Nothing. But if you're already twitchy and you've had say, a girlfriend or your mother, scanned/groped/made to partially undress, etc. it could easily set you off. Heck, 80% of what these guys do would, in another setting, get you slapped or punched in the mouth.
Sounds like we need to unionize - maybe we can get protection from their employers also...
Because you don't sell more guns as quickly if the president is seen as letting you keep buying them. It's all a marketing gimmick by the gun industry. "Obammy's gonna take yur guns! Buy more now!!" And they line up. They say the same thing any time a Democrat is elected.
Are you against free enterprise with your truthful statements? What are you, some sort of commie pinko?!
Give up?
They have never stopped anything. Everything gets by them and has been stopped on the plane or failed on the plane. They only exist to get you used to "showing your papers" and getting searched.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
If you look at your statistics you will find that if you want to stop gun violence you do the same steps to handle the majority of crime in the US. Handle the poverty problem. A look at your gun homicide rate will match up to your regular homicide rate as well as your locations of poverty and jobless in the US. It does not correlate to gun ownership density. or even gun laws. It only matches up to poverty rates.
The TSA has armed guards. They just aren't the TSA, which is NOT a police agency, and why they are not armed. We have Airport Police for exactly this reason. And they did their job. You cannot stop a nut with a gun, and it is a rare event. The solution is not to take away guns (Airports are gun free zones, aren't they?) but rather to understand that you cannot prevent bad things from happening, without living in a tyranny state.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Name one thing the TSA has stopped. One.
Well... They almost stopped me from traveling once because I asked a question about something. The guy then said, "do you want to travel today?" I said, "yes." He said, "then be quiet." If I had been single and not traveling with others, I might have protested, but instead I played "good sheep."
So, they're good at intimidating innocent people.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It's not the TSA, it's the union representing the TSA screeners.
Who do you think make up the union if not the TSA screeners? I am sick and tired of the overreaction to these random events whether it be aircraft crashing into a building, a workplace shooting, a bomb detonation at a public event, etc. I do not feel safe with roaming machine-gun-toting police officers or military in any venue.
I live in Europe where it's perfectly normal to see a few soldiers with automatic weapons roaming around airports and large train stations.
And frankly, when I compare the inconvenience of having six or twelve soldiers wandering around (none) to the arrogant attitude, invasive groping or scanning and general annoyance level of the TSA punks...I'll take the soldiers any day.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
We already have a union to protect us from the US government. It's called the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). They even use "union" in their name. Have you paid your dues lately?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.