Can someone explain the molded grip thing? Why does that make a knife more dangerous?
There’s nothing to explain. The TSA doesn’t make any sense or follow any rules of logic. There is nothing about a molded grip that makes it more or less dangerous and was likely the result of a 45 person, 4 hour meeting where they finally threw up their hands and just said, ‘Fine, fuck it, no molded grips, can we get some lunch now?’
Sure, but they’re still completely useless. As long as people can bring a laptop on board, there’s almost no end to the nasty things you can smuggle on. Hell, just rig the batteries to catch fire and you’d probably asphyxiate the whole plane. The thing that keeps us safe in the air is the lack of suicidal terrorists, not any sort of lack of capability.
This shit enrages me so I’ll try not to get all ranty but stop and think about anything they do and try to figure out how it makes you safer.
Kids under 12 don’t have to take off their shoes anymore. Oh, no loophole there, nice work!
Only 3oz of fluid in any given container? Well, disaster averted there! You couldn’t possibly work around that.
Fuckers…
That was always my favorite, like we were sure the terrorists were decades away from developing Multiple Containers technology.
The belt thing always got to me. So you’re going to scan the belt and then give it back to me? Metal clasps, studs, whatever else attached to it? … all good? Thanks, idiot…
Or the whole “take your laptop out and start it up for me”. Yeah, as long as it starts up it couldn’t be a danger to anyone. Proof positive! Safe travels, everyone!
I’ve also noticed recently that old people are getting on with heavy wooden and metal canes. Guess which one I want in a fight, a tiny knife or three feet of ash?
I hope all of your complaining doesn’t ruin the last legitimate outlet for pedophiles. Where else could you sexually assault children in the open daylight?
Not a huge fan of the TSA, but I did see some reporting on this last night that made things a little more clear. It appears that most of their actions are driven by empirical data on several years of screening. Apparently more than half of their confiscations are small pocket knives. Consequently, it eats up a lot of their man hours in screening, re-checks, re-running the bag through the x-ray, etc. They’ve decided that their efforts are better focused on looking for guns and explosives, after weighing the risk posed by pocket knives vs. the effort to keep them off.
That doesn’t mean that the wheels don’t come off with how they specifically implement (e.g., the boxcutters are still not okay bit), but there is some logic to the knife thing.
Ignoring the fact that the original hijacking that started all of this was because of a small knife (box cutters). Absolutely useless idiots.
True, but that particular problem has been solved. Between reinforced cockpit doors and heightened passenger awareness of what being hijacked requires, small knives aren’t going to down jets any more.
I don’t think it’s irrational to reach a decision that small blades are no longer a serious threat, or that they’re a substantially lesser threat than guns or explosives, particularly in view of the search burden they present. Put another way, I think it would be idiotic to fixate on boxcutters, regardless of what corrective measures have been taken since 9/11. If anything, the continued prohibition on boxcutters can only be read as an emotional/political decision overlaid on an arguably rational one.
Things have changed, anyone who tries box cutters will be beaten to death before the plane can turn around.
But this is security theater so people can make money off government contracts, not a matter of safety.
At this point, unless you manage to do something to take down a plane quickly from the bathroom, I think it’s safe to say your fellow passengers will tear you limb from limb. I suspect the (much) greater threat is air to ground missile systems these days, as opposed to more traditional hijackings.
Shampoo and saline solution still outlawed?
The whole 3 ounces of liquid thing is ridiculous on its face as well. I know this from personal experience when my wife was asked to pour out half of her shampoo bottle to keep the rest. Read that again: Pour out half of the alleged liquid explosive. And keep the rest. In other words, it’s not that you have six ounces of something that might be dangerous. Just Pour out half of it! It’s ridiculous.
In law, that’s often the difference between statutes and regulations. Regulations are geared towards being enforceable, even by peons. Ideally, the statutes that resulted in the regulations were hopefully well-designed: you’re wife wouldn’t have enough explosive to do any harm, if it were in fact an explosive. Note that a peon telling someone to comply with a regulation isn’t accusing that person of having liquid explosive: they’re implementing a bright-line rule that (hopefully) was well-designed. Of course, not everything is well-designed.
Is the liquid volume thing not based on how much you’d need of some ballpark explosive to blow the plane apart? I assumed the idea was the small amount of explosive you could get through in one container might kill people around you but wouldn’t damage the plane enough to cause it to crash. Not that that gets around nefarious Multiple Container Technology though.
“If only there were some sort of larger container where I might combine my explosives!” The beady-eyed terrorist said as he drank from his 32oz Quizno’s Diet Coke he had purchased on the other side of the security checkpoint.
Maybe if there were some sort of inverted half dome shaped container already on board the plane that could be stopped up to contain the liquids for mixing. Perhaps in the bathroom or something.