The guns for pilots movement would appear to be assured. The Senate last week came on board with a decided vote in favor of… and even the executive branch has relented and will go along. The holdouts are the airline industry chiefs. They have legitimate questions about implementation and I understand that they have concerns over public (customer) perceptions. Visions of ‘wild wild west in the sky’ will discourage some. So, it’s perplexing when these managers all jointly sign a protest at the 11th hour. Did the momentum overtake? Was the senate vote just a wakeup call? It seems that it is bit late for them to be jumping into the debate. I would imagine that the noise they make now is primarily to get recognition. After all, somebody is going to have to pay for this new level of security and in their view it might as well be the government. Special interest groups make this maneuver by throwing a wrench into the deal, e.g. The freeway by-pass can’t be approved because the snail darter critter will be impacted. A sum of cash will go to an environmentalist group and all will be suddenly okay. It does seem counter productive, almost scorched earth, to hear these folks bring up (yet again) sensational imaginative topics like: -what about accidental discharge- and -what if a bullet goes into the instrument panel-. The answer is this: If the bad guys have proven ineffectual, all of the other layers of ‘security’, a lethal weapon to defend the cockpit is the last line of defense and a very strong deterrent A stray slug is a manageable risk. As it stands now, the last line of defense is an F15 friendly fire shoot down. Definitely not good for business. Grant them their funds and proceed.