Regarding the passenger shooting by an air marshal:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/NATION/512080420
Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House transportation subcommittee on aviation, said the shooting proves the expanded marshal program is successful.
“This shows that the program has worked beyond our expectations,” Mica said. “This should send a message to a terrorist or anyone else who is considering disrupting an aircraft with a threat.”
According to the article, the passenger was bipolar and out of medication, his wife was screaming it out while present. I am not going to state that there was a better conclusion to this scenario, but the idea that it was a success implies that it stopped a terrorist act. The man was psychotic, weaponless, and acting completely outside his normal pattern of behavior, what sort of message would this send to him or anyone like him?
If this is exceeding their expectations, what -are- their expectations? Is he saying he was shocked there was an air marshal there at all, or that he’d be disappointed if the guy had just winged him?
To totally widen the picture, why haven’t we, as a society, created a weapon for immediate and complete incapacitation that works in a pistol-bullet manner but isn’t fatal?
Is it because that isn’t what we really want? I think we are pleased by the idea of threatening individuals being immediately destroyed, but we don’t want to take on the moral responsibility of accepting that as a normal practice.
I believe that Mica’s statement was arrogant and ill-worded considering what the reports have said about the dead man. It would seem that this was not a man acting rationally. I don’t think reason is what will work to thwart the mentally troubled, nor does it work well for fanatics. Death is a byproduct of the terrorist’s goal. So I can’t agree with the notion that this flawed goal has been accomplished.
I agree that a weapon for immediate and complete incapacitation would be highly desirable. I can only speculate, along with you, as to the reasons that format has been to date minimized.
What we cannot know for sure by the reports we’ve read is if there was enough warrant for the use of deadly force. My idealism wants to believe that the air marshall truly believed that was the only valid action. My gut suspects something contrary.
I believe that incident happened very fast and that the air marshals did exactly what they were trained to do. Here you have an individual shrieking about being a terrorist and about having a bomb, and reaching into his coat. In the background his wife is wailing and yelling and providing a distraction. The air marshal had no reason to think that the threat was not real and 100% serious. As a sometime passenger on a plane, I fully expect that if an individual yelling terrorist threats reaches into a coat as if to hurl an explosive device at my plane, an air marshal will shoot him very dead. That’s what they’re there for.
It’s very sad that, as it turned out, the man was not a true threat, but instead suffering from an issue where necessary medication was not being taken. However, this incident drives home the fact that terrorist threats are not a joke, not something to be taken lightly, and something that will be treated with deadly force if the situation appears to warrant it.
You raise the question about what kind of message this incident sends to anyone like the bipolar individual. I am bipolar myself, though I’d like to think that I have a better grasp on sanity than the man in question. This message says to me that it’s goddamned important to take your medication if you have a history of psychotic behavior (by the way, I think his sort of behavior is indicative of a larger problem than just bipolar disorder) If I flipped the hell out on a plane and started screaming about being a terrorist and having a bomb, I would expect that I would be made short work of. Officials have NO WAY OF KNOWING whether someone is having a psychotic episode of making a real threat. They aren’t psychic. All threats of terrorist activity have to be taken seriously.
I think you may have missed my point, which was about the quote I made above, and not a comment that suggested there was another possible action to take by the skymarshall. I said in my post that I believed he did do what was right amongst his options – my point was A) it was nothing to be smug over, especially because they shot dead a man who was no actual threat, as opposed to a literal terrorist, and B) I am disappointed that we have not come up with a practical method of immediately disabling people, from a distance, without killing them.
That is not to say that I think such a method currently exists – As a previous commenter pointed out, all current methods of nonlethal detainment are faulty.
Okay yeah, I do see your point. The situation is sad, and certainly nothing to be smug about.
As for developing a nonlethal method of instantly disabling a potential combatant from a long range… Wow, that’s a toughie. I can’t imagine what that would entail. There are ways of disabling people, such as stun guns and trnquilizing darts. But nothing that I can think of that would have a very effective range or work quickly enough to disable someone who was in the process of detonating a weapon. I remember reading about some guy who was high on PCP taking 5 stun gun zaps to the midsection and never even slowing down. I wonder if the technology is even out there right now?
As I said, all current methods, that I am aware of, are not sufficient. Something new needs to be developed, especially for situations that don’t involve the threat of lethal destruction.
The problem with nonlethal weaponry is to make them effective without making them lethal.
A weapon is a tool to deliver energy to its target. A weapon that doesn’t deliver enough energy just makes the target angry. A weapon that delivers too much will injure or kill the target. We’re terribly fragile in some ways and yet terribly durable in others, and this makes for a really tough problem for weapon designers to solve.
Think of tasers; they work, but have a brutally short range and are difficult to use. Why? Because they have to deliver that pair of electrodes to the target. Handheld ones are reasonably easy to control, but only within arm’s reach and no “mad bomber” is going to stand for that. The ranged ones use compressed air, which gives a range of several feet at the cost of trailing fragile (and tangle-prone) wires behind to power the prongs… and even then you’ve got to be careful, because adding range means using more compressed air to fire the darts at higher speed and eventually those darts become lethal by themselves. (And that’s setting aside fears of interfering with cardiac function.)
Chemical sprays don’t immediately incapacitate; a mad bomber has time to detonate before succumbing. Besides, you’re gassing all the other passengers too.
Bean-bag guns might work, but again they’re hellishly tricky to aim in the confined quarters of aircraft aisles and run the risk of a fatal strike if you’re too close or at the wrong angle. And they’re not small, so carrying one on a plane isn’t easy either.
Foam spray? That’ll immobilise the bomber, but it won’t stop him from detonating a bomb.
Drug darts? Delivery problems, delayed effect problems, plus the risk of over- or under-dosage because drugs are sensitive to weight and metabolism.
Phasers set on “stun”? The guy who invents them will make Bill Gates look poor.
— Steve’s seen reports of billions of dollars directed into nonlethal weaponry. It’s just really tough to do.
Oops. Forgot to comment on the event.
It’s unfortunate, but I don’t see anything else the air marshall could have done. My condolences go to him and to the wife of the victim.
Senator Mica is a putz, and should go back to stroking his ego in private. (and then washing his hands afterward.)
My greatest sympathies rest with the passengers, however. They should not have had to endure this.
— Steve went through a similar debate when a mental patient hijacked a city bus with a screwdriver and was shot dead by police. Sorry, but there is no excuse for threatening the lives of innocents and if the only way to stop it is to kill the one making the threat, let’s side with the innocents.
I’m pretty much right there with you. I just can’t ever see being cheered by this, or considering this a success on the same level as the prevention of an actual planned hijacking.