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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.""
There are already armed cops (real cops, not TSA thugs) at every security checkpoint I've been to except one particular small airport, where he was in the lobby since there was no room, or nead, between the xray and the airplane.
I think this is a good idea. If/when future similar incidents occur, all those that are NOT carrying a firearm will be secondary targets. The poor guy who's carrying is just going to be the first guy shot, giving everyone else a slight chance to duck and hide.
Let's give guns to a bunch of untrained overpaid mouthbreathers with power trip issues!
What could go wrong with that!
If they do this... I give it 6 months till the TSA 'guard' shoots some kid for pretty much no reason.
It's not the TSA, it's the union representing the TSA screeners.
...armed gunman opens fire on unarmed targets, and the logical response is to request that his targets be allowed to arm themselves to fend off future attacks of a similar nature. Remind me again why it's practically impossible for me to purchase a handgun to defend myself in California?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The solution is obviously... more guns.
Maybe reexamine the way mental illness is treated and use the money improve.
Kind of like how like how the Prison gaurds union oppose reform of drug laws. Because they are representing the gaurds and their jobs, and they would be hurt by any sane policy.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Just get rid of the TSA.
Isn't the union representing the screeners? MY question is - who gets the kickback for the contract on the new armed guards? It's unthinkable that no one will. How about hiring Blackwater? They seemed pretty good at shooting civilians.
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.
Wait until you arm them. Now 6 year old kids can watch their mothers get guns pointed in their faces while being groped.
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...
If the LAX shooter had been interested in mowing down passengers instead of TSA agents, then armed guards at the TSA checkpoints would have done nothing to protect those passengers. At LAX in places like Terminal 3, the lines to the security checkpoints can flow out of the building and onto the sidewalk creating a massive concentration of terrorist targets. Protecting them 100% with armed guards would require 10 times the number of agents that are currently employed. Providing armed guards at the checkpoints themselves only protects those around the checkpoints i.e. the TSA agents themselves.
If anything the best way to protect the passengers is to process them from the street and into the secured terminal at a faster pace, which would require a huge increase in TSA checkpoints. This is an inherently parallelizable task, but would require money to be spent. But terminals in places such as LAX aren't designed for such parallel operations. Using Terminal 3 as an example, you enter from street level then go up a flight of stairs/escalator, following an S-shaped path that snakes around back on itself before arriving at the security checkpoint. Once there, there is only enough room for 2 or 3 parallel operations at once.
BTW last time I was flying out of Orlando I encountered a private company that would sell you the ability to jump to the front of the TSA queue. So instead of building out the infrastructure to better accommodate the passengers in light of having to go through the TSA, the airport grants a license to this company to exploit the frustrations and $$ of the people in the queue. (Which is turn pisses off the other passengers who experience smug people pushing in front of them in the queue and highlighting of how class based US society is).
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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.
A trade union consting of TSA employees: evil in its purest form.
...we even have a video game for it called Papers please!. Get it from steam to preview how your TSA screenings will be in the near future.
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
Wait, hold on a second... Why the fuck is a government agency unionized in the first place?
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...
After hearing of the guy who was left alone because he wasn't working for the TSA, it seemed like this guy wasn't just out for a killing spree or some anti-government nut job, but had a very specific reason to hate the TSA.
I can't help but wonder if he was molested as a child and the TSA's enhanced screening procedures set him off. The TSA's official training materials specifically give tips on how to handle young children. It's interesting to contrast it with the training given to parents who participate in cub/boy scout events, so they know how to recognize inappropriate behavior and potential risks from pervs. Having done the scout training first and seen some of the TSA materials after, it really stands out as a how-to program for pedophiles.
total elimination of the TSA
Marathon runs obviously need an armed guard every 10 yards along the course. We have proof that terrorists see marathon runs as a target!
You joke, but...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/02/us-usa-newyork-marathon-idUSBRE9A104A20131102
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I say - arm everyone. Every passenger can carry a weapon. Shut down the checkpoints. Anyone who comes through, just comes through. If EVERYONE has a weapon, then everyone is safe.
"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
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.
Don't get me wrong, the TSA are constitution breaking assholes, that do a million times more harm than even the theoretical good they could do.
But, they are searching people for guns and other contraband. And when they find some, what are they supposed to do? Ask the criminal carrying a weapon to calmly surrender to the unarmed TSA agents (the most hated people in all of the USA), so that you can be detained without trial for the next twenty years and tortured for information?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Not in their minds.
Well the odds of there being TWO bombs on the plane are astronomical, so I always bring a bomb on the plane with me.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Does this mean Obama will stop his anti-second amendment agenda now?
Stop spreading lies or being ignorant or both.
Obama has done nothing related to gun control in his years in office except make it easier for people to own whatever type of firearm they want.
He has signed legislation allowing guns in National Parks and on Amtrack trains.
He signed legislation that makes concealed carry permits valid in one state valid in all states.
He has never pushed an "assault" weapons ban or even restrictions on large capacity magazines.
His justice department has never challenged any of the numerous state level laws that have increased gun rights (Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming, Texas, North Dakota, etc.) or any of the stand-your-ground laws.
He is one of the most pro-gun Presidents in recent times and yet right wing delusionals (and firearm business interests) still trot out he is trying to take away guns.
Wax on, wax off baby!
Most sane people do not feel safe with roaming machine-gun-toting civilians in any venue neither.
OTOH, there hasn't been a single crime committed with a lawfully-owned civilian machine gun (or other automatic firearm) since 1934.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Aren't TSA civilians?
"Civilian" isn't well-defined in most modes of its usage; it's a context-dependent term. Are police civilians? To soldiers they are, but police and non-police civilians often use the term to distinguish non-police from police. Many members of many government agencies do the same thing, do distinguish between those who have government-granted authority from those who don't. For that matter, people in some non-governmental groups use the term to distinguish members of their group.
If you like, you can restrict the term to it's pure meaning of "not a soldier", but that just leaves a vacuum, a need for some term to fill its role in other contexts. Or you can just accept that it has different meanings in different contexts, and that it's nearly always quite clear what is meant.
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?
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 me a specific piece of anti-second-amendment (or even anti-gun) legislation that Obama has either proposed or actually signed into law.
I'll wait.
Employees are responsible for what their union does. I will take back that statement for any set of employees that sack the entire union leadership when they do something bad. But they do not. I am sorry a guy died. I feel really bad for the family. But ....
Fuck the TSA.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
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.
Does this mean Obama will stop his anti-second amendment agenda now?
Stop spreading lies or being ignorant or both.
1) Obama has done nothing related to gun control in his years in office except make it easier for people to own whatever type of firearm they want.
2) He has signed legislation allowing guns in National Parks and on Amtrack trains.
3)He signed legislation that makes concealed carry permits valid in one state valid in all states.
4) He has never pushed an "assault" weapons ban or even restrictions on large capacity magazines.
5) His justice department has never challenged any of the numerous state level laws that have increased gun rights (Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming, Texas, North Dakota, etc.) or any of the stand-your-ground laws.
6) He is one of the most pro-gun Presidents in recent times and yet right wing delusionals (and firearm business interests) still trot out he is trying to take away guns.
You stop spreading lies.
Unlike you, I'll actually cite my facts
1) Whatever type of firearm they want? Not likely: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/29/obama-issues-new-executive-orders-against-guns/
2) This is technically true, but you are leaving out a key part: The law allows firearm owners to *check* their guns in luggage on Amtrak, not carry. Just as on a flight: http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-laws-obama-has-signed-2012-12
3) I have found no news or information confirming this. Here's North Dakota's website on reciprocity: http://www.ag.nd.gov/BCI/CW/reciprocity.htm Doesn't look nation wide to me.
4) Another lie. Obama has publicly stated his opposition to high capacity mags: http://www.policymic.com/articles/23489/obama-gun-control-plan-high-capacity-magazine-is-public-enemy-number-one
5) His justice department has challenged Florida's stand-your-ground laws after the Trayvon Martin shooting. You can google the sources yourself... they're countless.
So you stop spreading your lies.
In Germany in the midst of real constant terrorism in the 70s and 80s by the RAF, many Polizei would be roaming around the airports with submachine guns obviously displayed.
No TSA, no taking off shoes, not liquid limits, no confiscating knitting needles, just a clear message that if you try something you will be hosed down by 9mm. They never attacked a German airport. But they did attack the US air base at Ramstein.
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.
The shooting at the NRA convention was an April Fools joke. I know you hoped it was true, but that kind of thing doesn't actually happen.
There was a shooting at a gun show a while back, some idiot brought in a loaded shotgun to sell it, and it went off when he set it on a table. In the middle of a hall with many armed people, that was the only shot fired.
I was taking a flight in 2008. I was in one of those long and winding lines waiting to go through security.
Someone in the middle of the line answers their cell phone.
A security guard from across the room points at him and shouts "NO CELL PHONES". Dude doesn't even realize he's being yelled at, so the guard INSTANTLY rips the cordon off, still pointing at the cell phone holder. Is marching towards him, pushing through the crowd, hand on (thankfully holstered and bolted) gun, shouting "NO CELL PHONES PUT IT AWAY!"
That's who they want to hire-- except they want to give them automatic assault weapons and no oversight
I haven't flown since 2008, swore off doing so once the rapey scanners came in. Most assuredly will NOT even reconsider with this policy in place.
Because after all, armed guards in charge of protecting "national security" at any cost will never overreact, make someone like, say, a mother with her child believe she's doing something wrong, make her nervous, then chase her down the streets of Washington and execute her in front of her baby.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
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. . . .
I'd mention the three magic words that everyone seems to forget, "WELL-REGULATED MILITIA"
Hmm, okay, let's see... I keep my guns in good working order, know how to use them, and do not count as regular military.
Check, well-regulated militia. Anything else you'd like to discuss?
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
Here's my solution to the problem: Remove the TSA agents.
It was directly their presence that got an unarmed passenger shot. For the public safety, they should removed and corralled into a single location in the country, so that should another disgruntled, armed man want to shoot them, they will be isolated from the general public.
Problem solved.
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.