Poll: So the TSA is letting people carry knives on planes

[Rumpsteak]

A knife, no. A multi-tool with a sharpened edge attachment, sure.

Curious though, why is the length limitations given in centimetres but the width in inches?

 

[Daveman]

Mine were already confiscated when I forgot they were in my bag. But this is handy. Still can't pack my toothpaste though which is much more annoying.

 

[derelict]

snip

Actually, that's the crux of the problem. Two planes full of people that essentially laid down and died on the hope that the people taking command of their lives would allow them to live despite the obvious threats of death, if they'd only listen to the raging psychotics with tiny improvised weapons.

You don't hear much about the plane that went down that was headed for the Pentagon. I guess for some reason the headline "plane passengers heroically sacrifice themselves to prevent act of mass terrorism" doesn't sound as good as "Planes hijacked and flown into the WTC."

I don't get it at all, but I suppose that's the country we live in these days.


Side note...captcha was "marry me"

...what? No, go home HAL. You're drunk.

 

[Jadak]

Water is still classified as a deadly weapon, then?

/ok

Liquids that mix and explode are generally more worrisome than small pocket knives...

And running chemical tests to ensure that water is water is water wastes more time then it's worth. If you want water, buy some inside, or bring an empty bottle and fill it up at a damn tap, either of which is perfectly acceptable on the plane.

 

[Aramis Night]

snip

Actually, that's the crux of the problem. Two planes full of people that essentially laid down and died on the hope that the people taking command of their lives would allow them to live despite the obvious threats of death, if they'd only listen to the raging psychotics with tiny improvised weapons.

You don't hear much about the plane that went down that was headed for the Pentagon. I guess for some reason the headline "plane passengers heroically sacrifice themselves to prevent act of mass terrorism" doesn't sound as good as "Planes hijacked and flown into the WTC."

I don't get it at all, but I suppose that's the country we live in these days.


Side note...captcha was "marry me"

...what? No, go home HAL. You're drunk.

Wow. That was actually a really excellent point to bring up. It does speak to the motivations of the media/government that they focused more on the victimhood of the people on the planes and in the buildings to inspire fear. When they did address heroism it was more often in discussion about the first responders and very rarely about the plane where the passengers attempted to fight back.

 

[DugMachine]

Haven't flown ever but that's good I guess. Loosening up on the ridiculous security measures I've heard so much about.

I always carry a pocket knife on me but it's more of a tool than anything for doing random cutting at work, suppose it could do damage if I had to but that's why I have my handgun. But I doubt they'll let civilians carry handguns on planes anytime soon so pocket knife it is.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

A knife, no. A multi-tool with a sharpened edge attachment, sure.

Curious though, why is the length limitations given in centimetres but the width in inches?

I actually have no idea how the length and width limitations were determined. I wrote the length in centimeters because I think writing 2.36 inches sounds fucking stupid. The actual limitations are 2.36 inches in length (which is perfectly equal to 6cm), and 1/2 inch in width (which isn't perfectly equal to anything in centimeters). I feel like the length limitation was decided as 6cm not because they wanted to have something that's easily measured in centimeters, but rather because the average Swiss army knife has a blade length of just under 2.5 inches, and they didn't want to make it convenient for anyone to bring those on board, so they decided on a length that made those knives just barely not make the cut.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

**snip**

I have no need of a knife (so I voted no) but I'll be happy to be able to bring Fingernail Clippers once again.

Also, any idea if shampoo, conditioner, perfume, etc are going to be allowed again? Those tiny travel sized ones they require at the moment are a pain in the ass. I want to be able to bring actually useful amounts of hair product with me again.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

**snip**

I have no need of a knife (so I voted no) but I'll be happy to be able to bring Fingernail Clippers once again.

Also, any idea if shampoo, conditioner, perfume, etc are going to be allowed again? Those tiny travel sized ones they require at the moment are a pain in the ass. I want to be able to bring actually useful amounts of hair product with me again.

Nope, the rules about liquids are still the same.

 

[PFCboom]

I lurv my multi-tool. I wouldn't be able to get through a single work-week without needing it. I keep it on me when traveling, because I know it's the kind of thing that can help me out in a tight situation. And yes, the knife on it is key to its usefulness. If it meets the TSA's requirements, this is a great thing for me.

 

[mechalynx]

Well, when I came back home from my honeymoon in Rome a month ago, I discovered that I forgot to remove my tiny multitool (with several sharp and potentially deadly parts) from my backpack. Which means it traveled with me to and from Rome. It somehow passed through 4 security checks undetected.

Now, I live in Sweden and don't travel often, so I have no idea how up their own butts the Swedish and Italian airport security peeps are, but considering that we're still not allowed to bring more than half a cup of fluids on board, it seems like a serious offence to me.

So yes, I would bring a knife on an airplane with me if I was completely assured I wouldn't get a fist up my rear for it. If it's a Swiss army knife, that is. You never know when your PSP might need fixing.

 

[Yabba]

snip

Actually, that's the crux of the problem. Two planes full of people that essentially laid down and died on the hope that the people taking command of their lives would allow them to live despite the obvious threats of death, if they'd only listen to the raging psychotics with tiny improvised weapons.

You don't hear much about the plane that went down that was headed for the Pentagon. I guess for some reason the headline "plane passengers heroically sacrifice themselves to prevent act of mass terrorism" doesn't sound as good as "Planes hijacked and flown into the WTC."

I don't get it at all, but I suppose that's the country we live in these days.


Side note...captcha was "marry me"

...what? No, go home HAL. You're drunk.

Wow. That was actually a really excellent point to bring up. It does speak to the motivations of the media/government that they focused more on the victimhood of the people on the planes and in the buildings to inspire fear. When they did address heroism it was more often in discussion about the first responders and very rarely about the plane where the passengers attempted to fight back.

Usually people want to hear the stories that worry and "warn" them of whats happening. Think about it, have you ever heard of the person who sacrificed their life(s) in order to save someone elses? No, you hear about the one guy who all the crisis in the world. The news almost never has anything good on, thats where the term "no news is good news" came from.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

snip

Actually, that's the crux of the problem. Two planes full of people that essentially laid down and died on the hope that the people taking command of their lives would allow them to live despite the obvious threats of death, if they'd only listen to the raging psychotics with tiny improvised weapons.

You don't hear much about the plane that went down that was headed for the Pentagon. I guess for some reason the headline "plane passengers heroically sacrifice themselves to prevent act of mass terrorism" doesn't sound as good as "Planes hijacked and flown into the WTC."

I don't get it at all, but I suppose that's the country we live in these days.


Side note...captcha was "marry me"

...what? No, go home HAL. You're drunk.

Wow. That was actually a really excellent point to bring up. It does speak to the motivations of the media/government that they focused more on the victimhood of the people on the planes and in the buildings to inspire fear. When they did address heroism it was more often in discussion about the first responders and very rarely about the plane where the passengers attempted to fight back.

Usually people want to hear the stories that worry and "warn" them of whats happening. Think about it, have you ever heard of the person who sacrificed their life(s) in order to save someone elses? No, you hear about the one guy who all the crisis in the world. The news almost never has anything good on, thats where the term "no news is good news" came from.

It's the same reason you only ever hear about mass shootings, but you never hear about people who stop mass shootings. Just in the last few months there have been at least 3 attempted shootings in various parts of the US that were stopped by the presence of someone with a concealed carry permit who had a gun and acted to stop the shooter. Those stories never make it past the local news level.

Things like this never make it past the local news level: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...in-theater-shooting-4122668.php#ixzz2GOP72zBX

 

[The Heik]

Exactly what is that though? How does being able to have a knife going to make the experience of flying that much better?

Knives don't make the experience of flying better its a sign of progression.

The idea of letting people carry knives shows a loosening of ridiculous security protocols and violations to people?s rights. Allowing objects like knives on planes means: even if knives pose a possible security risk airlines are willing to ease some of these insane rules and allow their patrons to have a more enjoyable time.

Shouldn't the insane rulings start by removing the insane rulings rather than those who can be justified? Sure a 6cm knife wont be enough to hijack the plane or kill a lot of people, but you could stir up some hell. However a bottle of water, a tube of toothpaste, jam, perfume or moisturizer is strictly prohibited.

I don't agree that this is a sign of progress. This is a sign that rulings are getting dumber.

I would disagree with you.

The allowing of shortknives makes a lot of sense given the focus of security that airlines are taking. The contents of water bottles, toothpaste tubes, etc can all be replaced with flammable or explosive materials ie things that could damage the plane and/or cause it to crash, potentially leading to the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people. That's a very big risk in order for passengers to carry things that not only are incredibly easy and inexpensive to replace they really wouldn't need for your average plane trip, and many of which are readily available on the plane anyway. I mean water is freely available in most every country that I know of, so why would you need carry a bottle of it on the plane?

Knives however are a static personal tool/weapon. There is no way to take over the plane or cause it enough harm with one that wouldn't take an ludicrous amount of time, effort and cluelessness on part of the passengers and crew. Really what could you feasibly do with a shortknife? Take one person hostage? You can do the same thing with a blippin' pencil. And even if someone does create a hostage situation, the pilots are not going to hand over control of the plane for any reason, because they have a duty to the entire complement of the plane and any people they might be flying over, so any hostage takers are SOL if they try and use shortknives.

So yeah, I don't see how this could possibly get construed as a dumb ruling. The TSA is getting lax on a rule that they know won't come back to bite them, and passengers who regularly carry things like multitools (or my swiss army knife for instance) on them are saved a bit of hassle. All in all, it's a sign of reasonable thinking on their part.

 

[Yopaz]

Exactly what is that though? How does being able to have a knife going to make the experience of flying that much better?

Knives don't make the experience of flying better its a sign of progression.

The idea of letting people carry knives shows a loosening of ridiculous security protocols and violations to people?s rights. Allowing objects like knives on planes means: even if knives pose a possible security risk airlines are willing to ease some of these insane rules and allow their patrons to have a more enjoyable time.

Shouldn't the insane rulings start by removing the insane rulings rather than those who can be justified? Sure a 6cm knife wont be enough to hijack the plane or kill a lot of people, but you could stir up some hell. However a bottle of water, a tube of toothpaste, jam, perfume or moisturizer is strictly prohibited.

I don't agree that this is a sign of progress. This is a sign that rulings are getting dumber.

I would disagree with you.

The allowing of shortknives makes a lot of sense given the focus of security that airlines are taking. The contents of water bottles, toothpaste tubes, etc can all be replaced with flammable or explosive materials ie things that could damage the plane and/or cause it to crash, potentially leading to the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people. That's a very big risk in order for passengers to carry things that not only are incredibly easy and inexpensive to replace they really wouldn't need for your average plane trip, and many of which are readily available on the plane anyway. I mean water is freely available in most every country that I know of, so why would you need carry a bottle of it on the plane?

Knives however are a static personal tool/weapon. There is no way to take over the plane or cause it enough harm with one that wouldn't take an ludicrous amount of time, effort and cluelessness on part of the passengers and crew. Really what could you feasibly do with a shortknife? Take one person hostage? You can do the same thing with a blippin' pencil. And even if someone does create a hostage situation, the pilots are not going to hand over control of the plane for any reason, because they have a duty to the entire complement of the plane and any people they might be flying over, so any hostage takers are SOL if they try and use shortknives.

So yeah, I don't see how this could possibly get construed as a dumb ruling. The TSA is getting lax on a rule that they know won't come back to bite them, and passengers who regularly carry things like multitools (or my swiss army knife for instance) on them are saved a bit of hassle. All in all, it's a sign of reasonable thinking on their part.

I have discussed this so many times now so I am getting a bit tired so I am going to be short.

Knives can be used to make a bomb. It's simple chemistry I was also informed that the 9/11 hijackings were done with knives shorter than 6cm.

I am also not not going to make the claim that water bottles aren't dangerous. I am simply trying to say that knives are more dangerous. Disagree all you want.

 

[Yabba]

snip

Actually, that's the crux of the problem. Two planes full of people that essentially laid down and died on the hope that the people taking command of their lives would allow them to live despite the obvious threats of death, if they'd only listen to the raging psychotics with tiny improvised weapons.

You don't hear much about the plane that went down that was headed for the Pentagon. I guess for some reason the headline "plane passengers heroically sacrifice themselves to prevent act of mass terrorism" doesn't sound as good as "Planes hijacked and flown into the WTC."

I don't get it at all, but I suppose that's the country we live in these days.


Side note...captcha was "marry me"

...what? No, go home HAL. You're drunk.

Wow. That was actually a really excellent point to bring up. It does speak to the motivations of the media/government that they focused more on the victimhood of the people on the planes and in the buildings to inspire fear. When they did address heroism it was more often in discussion about the first responders and very rarely about the plane where the passengers attempted to fight back.

Usually people want to hear the stories that worry and "warn" them of whats happening. Think about it, have you ever heard of the person who sacrificed their life(s) in order to save someone elses? No, you hear about the one guy who all the crisis in the world. The news almost never has anything good on, thats where the term "no news is good news" came from.

It's the same reason you only ever hear about mass shootings, but you never hear about people who stop mass shootings. Just in the last few months there have been at least 3 attempted shootings in various parts of the US that were stopped by the presence of someone with a concealed carry permit who had a gun and acted to stop the shooter. Those stories never make it past the local news level.

Things like this never make it past the local news level: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...in-theater-shooting-4122668.php#ixzz2GOP72zBX

Wait I in that town, how come I never heard of this

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

snip

Actually, that's the crux of the problem. Two planes full of people that essentially laid down and died on the hope that the people taking command of their lives would allow them to live despite the obvious threats of death, if they'd only listen to the raging psychotics with tiny improvised weapons.

You don't hear much about the plane that went down that was headed for the Pentagon. I guess for some reason the headline "plane passengers heroically sacrifice themselves to prevent act of mass terrorism" doesn't sound as good as "Planes hijacked and flown into the WTC."

I don't get it at all, but I suppose that's the country we live in these days.


Side note...captcha was "marry me"

...what? No, go home HAL. You're drunk.

Wow. That was actually a really excellent point to bring up. It does speak to the motivations of the media/government that they focused more on the victimhood of the people on the planes and in the buildings to inspire fear. When they did address heroism it was more often in discussion about the first responders and very rarely about the plane where the passengers attempted to fight back.

Usually people want to hear the stories that worry and "warn" them of whats happening. Think about it, have you ever heard of the person who sacrificed their life(s) in order to save someone elses? No, you hear about the one guy who all the crisis in the world. The news almost never has anything good on, thats where the term "no news is good news" came from.

It's the same reason you only ever hear about mass shootings, but you never hear about people who stop mass shootings. Just in the last few months there have been at least 3 attempted shootings in various parts of the US that were stopped by the presence of someone with a concealed carry permit who had a gun and acted to stop the shooter. Those stories never make it past the local news level.

Things like this never make it past the local news level: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...in-theater-shooting-4122668.php#ixzz2GOP72zBX

Wait I in that town, how come I never heard of this

Could be a liberal media bias against firearms, so making them determined to never show guns in a positive light. Then again, considering this took place in Texas, I kind of doubt that. More than likely what happened is because no one was actually killed by the attack the news media in your town mostly wrote it off as unimportant. Remember, "if it bleeds, it leads," and there just wasn't enough blood in the story for the media to think that it warranted attention.

Whatever the case may be, it's incredibly sad that you actually have to dig in order to find stories like this, stories about the strength and heroism of people, but stories about tragedy and bullshit human interest stories litter the front pages of every major news source. This kinds of stories that celebrate people should get national attention, and these people should be the pride of their communities, but alas the news media in this country is completely borked.

 

[Trueflame]

Yeah, if I still had any such knives. Used to be I had a tiny one (blade was probably an inch long) that I used as a keychain. It was part of a swiss army set, and had something else in addition to the knife part. I mainly just used it to open mail, packages, and so on, so it was handy. I forgot to leave it at home one day when I went to the airport, and ended up having to throw it away.

So I'm pretty happy with this decision. And for those wondering about why you need a knife on a plane, of course you don't. But a knife or multi-tool can be a useful thing to have in general, so obviously you'll need to bring it with you while traveling. And not everyone checks their luggage, or wants to be bothered with it, or hassled, and so on. Ultimately, there's no way a tiny pocket knife is going to enable anyone to commit terrorist actions, so there's no reason for them to not be allowed. And to those saying that someone with the right skills can use it as a deadly weapon... Someone with the right skills can use their hands as a deadly weapon too. You're never going to be able to protect yourself from every eventuality, so stop trying.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Does that mean you can take cutlery on flights again?

 

[CharrHearted]

Sure a 6cm knife wont be enough to hijack the plane or kill a lot of people

6 cm is still larger than the standard boxcutter blade. They used boxcutters to hijack planes on 9-11.

Bad example?

I know people are all hasty to try and justify less safety, but still.

Really? Curious, how DID they manage to find that evidence? It's interesting, in all honesty, I mean, plane crash, explosion, I doubt there'd be much... Fill me in?