Digby quoted some interesting commentary (yesterday). I could be reading her comments about it incorrectly, but it seems she is flabbergasted and I'm not sure I follow. That a bunch of knife manufacturers are pushing to drop the rather idiotic ban on [small] knives isn't even a little surprising, nor is it that the bizarre and insane leader of the NRA would comment on it as he did.
The fact is that the amount of stupid that is part and parcel to getting on an airplane nowadays is ridiculous. Pretty much none of it really makes us safer. Some of it makes some people feel better, but mostly it just causes lines and pisses people off. The most stupid is the liquids ban, with the rapiscans a close second.
The knife ban is an odd one in that it really doesn't make us safer (crochet needles are potentially deadly, and it isn't as though there aren't stores through security that sell things that could easily be made into stabbing weapons) but at the very least it is a ban on something that is an obvious weapon. Still, I don't see it as a good idea, and I think the tradeoffs are not worth it.
I used to carry a pocket knife with me pretty much everywhere--they can come in quite handy--but now I don't because I'm afraid I will forget about it when I am rushing to a flight and end up losing it. So this rule has affected not just my airport trips, but my daily life...and there have been plenty of times that I've wished I had my leatherman on hand but didn't. In the end a law that doesn't make us safer is inconveniencing many, and at least for myself that inconvenience extends to the non-flying times in my life.
I'd rather see the liquids ban eliminated than the knife one, but any peeling back of stupid I see as a good thing.
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