Chuck Baldwin (2021)
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    Arm The Pilots (And Everyone Else)

    Published: Friday, September 28, 2001

    Airline pilots across the country are calling upon Congress and the White House to grant them liberty to carry personal firearms while on the job. This is only a reasonable request. Unfortunately, neither Congress nor President Bush seems willing to grant their approval. Instead, Bush plans to put armed federal marshals on every flight.

    Can you imagine the cost of putting marshals on every U.S. flight? This "conservative" Republican administration sure has a strange way of reducing the size and scope of the federal government. Allowing pilots, co-pilots, navigators, even stewardesses to carry firearms on board U.S. flights would cost taxpayers nothing and would be just as effective, if not more so. Therefore, why does Bush not consider it?

    The reason the pilots' request is being denied should be obvious: pilots are private citizens; they do not work for the federal government. The accepted Washington mantra these days is that private citizens cannot be allowed to defend themselves; they must be dependent upon the federal government for their security. Therefore, the objective is not security; it is government control.

    If our government were serious about "homeland security," it would permit and encourage as much individual responsibility in the area of personal defense as possible. It would encourage responsible gun ownership and possession. It would remove legislative prohibitions against carrying personal weapons for protection.

    A true pro-freedom government would encourage personal gun possession by law-abiding citizens (adults), including pizza delivery persons, bank tellers, retail clerks, stockbrokers, and schoolteachers. Anyone qualified to carry a concealed weapon should be given liberty to do so virtually anywhere in America.

    In each of the hijacked airplanes on September 11, there were between three and five terrorists. Imagine what would have happened if ten or fifteen of the plane's passengers, along with the crew, had been carrying their own weapons. In all likelihood, the WTC towers would still be standing, thousands of victims would still be alive, our freedoms would still be intact, and the federal bureaucracy would not be proliferating like ugly on a wart hog's face.

    As it is, the federal government is burgeoning into a police state while honest, God-fearing citizens are being treated like criminals, even down to the point of having their fingernail clippers confiscated by airport security. Of course, we are being told that all of this is for our own safety and security.

    I have a simple question, "Who is going to save us from our own government?" Oh yes, there is one more question, "When all is said and done and we have lost our liberties, how are we any different from the nations from which we are being protected?"

    © Chuck Baldwin

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