🚀 go-pugleaf

Joseph Michael Bay wrote:
> Sky Marshals
> have a ridiculously rigourous training program (okay, not
> "ridiculously" -- it's tremendously important) because there are
> few places more dangerous to shoot a gun than in an airliner.

The danger of shooting a firearm in an aircraft is primarily due to it
being a (potentially) crowded environment with high potential for injury
to bystanders.  Damage to the aircraft is, of course, to be avoided if
at all possible, but itself isn't the grave danger that some here are
suggesting; aircraft are just not that delicate. 

Under most conditions, the last thing an air marshal wants to do want to
do is miss the target (or have a bullet overpenetrate) and hit a
bystander, thus they receive vigorous marksmanship training.  (Of
course, this sort of training could be also handicap in situations such
as last week's hijackings, where being too careful and conservative in
stopping the event might mean losing everyone on board and more on the
ground.)  They also need to be trained to operate undercover, manage
situations without the possibility of backup, and so forth.  There is a
lot more to the training; issues specific to shooting a firearm on an
aircraft are really the least of it.

Some foreign airlines even use private security guards, who carry
firearms, on aircraft.
That's not to say such guards are not trained, but the idea that only
some sort of superelite government agents is qualified to use a gun on
an airplane is largely an artifact of politics.