No, scanners and TSA agents stop weapons from being brought on board by catching thousands of guns per year and 10's of thousands of knives. The fact that would be terrorists now KNOW they can't get these on board because of the scanning, TSA pat downs, no-fly lists, air marshals, secure cockpit doors, bomb sniffing dogs, etc.

You're so close to getting it, but I have a feeling you don't WANT to understand.

Well, 9/11 was carried out with box cutters. The pilots throats were slit. Also, there could have been an armed Air Marshal on board. Those would have been detected at the gate and not let onto the plane. In the case of the plane that was overtaken by passengers.

Now think. There have been ZERO terrorist attacks or hijackings since 9/11 involving planes. The job of the TSA is to ensure safety of passengers and prevent concealed weapons from making it's way onto the plane. The simple fact that there have been ZERO terrorist attacks shows you the TSA has been a deterrent. So it may have prevented terrorist attacks, we just don't know how many of the thousands of confiscated weapons every year were intended to be used on the plane. Maybe zero, maybe 10.

That's not true. The FBI and CIA investigate and gather intelligence with HUGE resources. They have authority throughout the country and across the planet. The TSA does not have that. The TSA is a deterrent. They don't foil plans because they don't investigate. They only act on what is in front of them. You don't seem to know what the TSA does.

The whole point of the TSA was to stop terrorist attacks. How many terrorists attacks or hijackings have happened since the TSA was created?

Z E R O. They may be "failing" at some airports, and that SHOULD get fixed (even though they're catching 4,000 guns per year), but that's not the point. The point of the TSA was ensure future safety of flying. Some planes have random air marshals on them. My father did this for a few years. His job was to just look like a passenger, but he is a law enforcement office and a pilot, CFI, Instrument and commercial ratings with 7,000 hours of flying and 20 years of law enforcement. Has he ever stopped a terrorist attack? Nope. If a hijacking occurred, he was the most qualified person on the flight to take out a highjacked or take over the plane if the pilots were incapacitated. Would you feel safer on a international flight knowing there's a skilled officer on board who can also fly the plane?

The TSA simply existing is a huge deterrent, and that is enough to make people feel safe, regardless of the inconveniences. All of the scanning equipment and explosive detecting devices, no fly databases etc. are obviously doing what they were intended and working. Are they perfect, hell no, especially the low skilled workers on the ground.

You seem to be focusing on publicized failures to insinuate that the TSA should just be dissolved when in reality, you have no idea all the behind the scenes workings that's keeping you safe, like a fire extinguisher in your house that you may never need.

A true failure of the TSA would be a bomb getting through and another plane crashing into a building. You're assuming the failure rate based on independent criteria (without looking at the BIG picture) yet we haven't had a terrorist attack via airplane since 2001, so to the bean counters and terrorist task forces, that's a win, not a failure.

Sure the rules for what you can bring on are silly, but there's a reason behind most of them.

Failure rate for small stuff = High

Failure rate for BIG stuff (bombing/hijacking) = ZERO

Is it a zero because the TSA is a deterrent? maybe, but you can't call it a failure if its main reason for being established has worked (hijacking, suicide bombing, etc)

I agree that the TSA is low skilled and not the best solution, but they're not taking away rights like crazy people suggest. They're strictly trying to keep people from taking over planes and turning them into human filled missiles. It's a huge inconvenience, but better than doing nothing.

Dude, the heritage foundation is a trash organization. They want to privatize everything from the military, to roads, all schools and federal agencies. They want THEIR people in control regardless of what government is in control. They're a KOCH industry body. Here's an example of everything they want to privatize (articles they posted about privatization). They routinely flood their site with the same articles over and over. These are all Heritage Foundation articles. Heritage.org is absolute Right Wing TRASH/Propaganda. The Koch family is trach as well.

Federal Services

Contract federal services

Municipalities

Local Services

Prisons

TSA

Foreign Investment tracking

GSA

Infrastructure

Social Security (dozens of articles on this)

Sacrificing Public health care (dozens of articles on this & Medicare)

Public Schools

What we don't know is did the fact that TSA exists thwart terrorist plans and save hundreds or thousands of lives? We'll never know.

I'm a private pilot with a commercial rating, so I fly myself most places I want to go. I avoid large airports because of all the security measures. I hate the fact the FAA can track my plane via ADS-B and send me a ticket if I accidentally bust airspace without radioing in or being on the proper transponder frequency, but the implementation of all the new security measures allows me to see real time traffic on my screen as well as real time weather without an expensive radar system on my plane.

The TSA caught found over 3,000 guns at security checkpoints in the first 6 months of 2022. Hell, in 2018 they were averaging 82 firearms per week.

Just because a handful of journalists or whatever other rogue anecdotes of morons slipping through you have, doesn't mean they aren't doing their job. Here's more.

2020 3,257 guns (not much traveling in 2020)

2019 4,432 guns

2018 4,239 guns

2017 3,957 guns

​

It pays to never stop learning. That's a mistake "Christian conservatives" or the "Don't Tread on Me" folks make. They are the ones who do what they're told to do instead of learning for themselves.

See, you take the consumer price index to adjust for inflation, then you average the last 3 years CPI and compile the totals of all fines and add the limiting rate. Then you round to the nearest whole dollar so it doesn't look weird.

It's pretty simple really.

Smitty, those are sweater maSTIFFs.

He mentioned previously that he skipped leg day in 2011. Hopped right over it.