Editorial: "Sticking it to the TSA" - WSFA.com: News Weather and Sports for Montgomery, AL.

Editorial: "Sticking it to the TSA"

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By Collin R. Gaston - bio | email

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MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) -

We recently had one of those "who thought this was a good idea" moments. That moment was when I heard about the announcement by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that they are revising their policy to allow small pocketknives in aircraft cabins.

The justification is that knives cannot bring a plane down and the searching for such items during check-in could interfere with the discovery of items that can actually bring down a plane, such as bombs or toxins.

I don't know about you, but I don't want some ill intentioned lunatic sitting beside me on a plane now being able to brandish and use his "small pocketknife" with a desire to harm me or others.  As a matter of fact, I would have loved to have been in that TSA meeting when the decided that a safe length for a blade on the knife is 2.36 inches.  You think they asked the flight attendants for their input – the answer is no and the 90,000 flight attendant union wants this decision reversed.

Here's the deal, we've all become accustomed to the aggravating but necessary taking off jackets, shoes, belts, hats and don't forget your laptop having to come out of its case before we enter into a flight concourse and airplane to ensure the safety of the passengers and crew on these flights.

There is no legitimate reason anyone absolutely needs a knife while traveling on an airplane, and with the bad outcomes outweighing the good with this change in policy – we are on record that policy is ill conceived and should be reversed.

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