Bobson said:
What can be done with a box cutter that can't be done with a 2.36" bladed folder? Morons.
Box cutters are not a threat.
The real issue since shortly after 9/11 has not been the safety of the aircraft but the resistance of the flight attendants, and now the air marshalls that are mroe common as well.
Not too long after 9/11 they installed big cockpit doors. It was determined early on after this that knives no longer posed a risk to flights. They were going to relax the restriction within a year or so of 9/11.
The flight attendants quickly mobilized and opposed it. They didn't want the passengers they deal with to have knives.
The Union, which is thier representation, stopped removing the restrictions on knives.
This new change is actually much less than that.
When I flew before 9/11 I always had a knife. Typically a folder of 4"+ that I tossed into my carry on because I had had an issue one time out of many flights at some tiny little connecting airport that didn't like it on my belt taken off for the metal detector. As a result I had to check my bag to bring the knife, and to avoid that again I just carried it my carry on from then on until I got to my destination and it went back on my belt.
(You could have two carry ons for free then, and even a couple checked bags, but you ran the risk of checked bags getting lost or at minimum having to spend the time to go retrieve them at the destination. So carry on was better.)
The media was sensationalizing the box cutters being smuggled after 9/11 like they always do, truth is back then you could a big fixed blade hunting knife on with you if you wanted. As always they were short on facts and long on emotional appeal.
Additionally most meals on flights with meals had metal silverware they passed out and collected.
This included a metal butter knife that could easily be deadlier than a box cutter. Especially if you brought one of those quick manual sharpeners with you that you just stroke the edge through and it grinds it to something sharp. A butter knife would quickly become a serrated sharp fixed blade much larger than a box cutter.
Sometimes they even gave you a steak knife if it was a dinner with meat. Though you would be more likely to get something that actually needed a steak knife in first class/business class than coach.
Terrorists could have just flown first class, had a good meal, and been given steak knives.
Government after taking away a right rarely has a motivation to then go out of the way to give it back.
However in this case it has always been the flight attendants that kept knives illegal.
This new proposal while nice, and credit is due where it is deserved, is really a joke. Even a swiss army knife has blades too long to meet the restriction.
Also I find it rather humorous because I can bring things far deadlier than even a 4+" locked blade knife on a plane without bothering anyone. I won't get into a list of such things, that is how they get restricted. If people don't have enough imagination to figure them out then they probably are not smart enough that I want to encourage them to carry weapons anyways.
People just associate knives with being a weapon, and so take notice.
But even if I had a big locking folder on the plane if there was a deadly situation it wouldn't be the knife I would be going for.
With a variety of things I could clobber a flight attendant in one stroke, fracture a skull or knock them unconscious with other things far easier than trying to cut or stab them with some little knife. Not that I would of course.
But people are people. The masses associate certain things with being weapons, and are oblivious to much more dangerous things they don't associate with being weapons. That includes the flight attendants who don't want to have thier passengers with knives.
