Comment by mothballed
1 day ago
I would just let the airlines pick if they want TSA screening or not. Customers could buy flights with whatever security level they want.
If you fly intrastate in Alaska there is no screening on commercial flights (it seems TSA must not be required on non-interstate flights). Technically it's still illegal to bring a gun but no one would know one way or the other. It really didn't bother me that there was no security, in fact, it felt great, and at least I could be sure if a bear met us on the tarmac someone would probably be ready.
I know of one other story I heard secondhand from someone experiencing it, of a small regional airline in the South, where if you checked a gun, the pilot just gives it back to the passenger...
Security is a classic example of a public good where this doesn't work well. The cheapest ways to secure an airport (sharing queues, staff, protocols, machines, training, threat models) are going to also benefit those who opt out, creating a tragedy of the commons.
>small regional airline in the South, where if you checked a gun, the pilot just gives it back to the passenger...
If the passenger is white. They would call the cops on anyone else. The state dept of terrorism would get involved if they were 1/1000 middle eastern.
White people and passenger planes tend to get along well. They invent them.
Effectiveness and theatricality aside, that wouldn’t work: the risk that the TSA ostensibly controls for is primarily that of planes being used as weapons against non-passengers, and only secondarily passenger security/hijacking.