At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Les Kinsolving, a reporter for WorldNetDaily, asked Ari Fleisher about the outrageous estimate put forth by Norman Mineta for arming pilots ($1 billion to start with $250 million per year in ongoing costs).

Let’s dissect Fleisher’s response:

FLEISCHER: You raise a complicated and important issue about how to protect the safety of passengers. And this is not a black or white issue. This is a very complicated issue about how to arm pilots in a way that actually promotes safety, so mistakes don’t happen from people who are not trained in the arts of security, particularly security in the confined spaces of an airliner traveling in an area where a stray bullet could actually bring the plane down itself.

Any time a political hack starts talking about an issue being complicated it means that he can’t address the issue, so obfuscation is needed.  The idea that a stray bullet could bring down an airliner has been thoroughly debunked (see info below), and it’s quite disingenuous at this point.

And so the secretary’s focus and the president’s focus all along have been on the best way to do this while maintaining safety. And it’s not a simple question, and that’s why the secretary is focused on training aspects and what the costs of training would be, the effect of taking pilots out of the cockpit so they will not be able to fly and putting them in a training program, what the effect that would be on air travel. There are a host of issues that come into play with this, and those are all being worked together with the Congress.

Quite frankly, this is a scheduling issue that the pilots and the airlines can work out on their own.  If I was a pilot, I’d be willing to spend part of my vacation time to attend training classes, so I don’t see “taking pilots out of the cockpit” to put them into a training class as a legitimate problem.  Once again, obfuscation over substance.

As for costs, Frontsight Training Institute has already offered to provide training for free.  Further, pilots could provide their own firearms, with ammunition of a type similar to that used by the Air Marshalls (or some other spec to be decided by the TSA).  The only costs here are for the TSA to establish the training standard, although I think some derivative of the Air Marshall training could be used to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Now I suspect that Frontsight can’t physically handle all the pilots that would want to be trained.  But since the proposal is for a volunteer program (no pilot would be forced to carry a gun), why not let the pilots or the airlines pay for the training at a facility that follows the TSA standards?  There are a number of reputable firearms training facilities in this country that could put together a rigorous program for pilot training.  These facilities already train many police and government “law enforcement” agents in marksmanship and the use of deadly force.

If government would just get out of the way, this program could be done quickly and efficiently.

I’m out of patience for this administration’s wrong-headed, obstinate refusal to get out of the way of pilots arming themselves as a last line of defense.  There are no credible objections left at this point.  As long as the United States government says that it will shoot down hijacked airliners to protect people on the ground, then it’s the height of stupidity to stop the pilots from defending the plane.  If I was more cynical, I’d say it’s almost like they want to have to shoot down a plane.

Well they’ll be doing it without me as long as airplanes are victim disarmament zones.  I’m not going to go out like a good little sheep.  I want to have a fighting chance.  The bare minimum, for me, is to have armed pilots.  I’d prefer that passengers be armed as well, but that’s not likely to happen as long as the nanny state is in control.

Some background material:

• Can a bullet bring down an airliner?
• On Depressurization
• Airplanes & Guns: Myths and Reality
• Pilots offered free firearms training
• Frontsight Training Institute