I'm essentially anti gun in cockpit...although I did carry concealed for many years while working/living in one of those less than civilised 3rd world places.
I can see an argument that a well trained individual has time, while the security door is being battered down, to draw a bead on said door.
Yes the list of motivations for battering down the security door is a very short list.
Yes it would be an easy shot...how many shots would be a different matter..example Mr Cohen some pages back shot 7 times and still defeated the terrorist. Witness the loonies that went on the rampage in Florida years back...how many times was one of them hit before he finally succumbed to blood loss and feinted, having killed how many LEOs?
.40 ballistics would help this...unlike 9mm that goes through and then keeps going through other people/things while doing relatively little damage... in the first instance anyway.
If you had several similarly motivated/drugged up/high on adrenaline or religous ferver loonie terrorists lined up at the cockpit door it's going to take a lot of shooting to stop them all.
By the time they get to the door I believe, in this post 9/11 world, that a significant % of the pax will have jumped them...or else a significant % will have been butchered in a most graphic way to ensure the rest remain seated.
In the same way a cockpit is a relatively easily defended space so is the forward galley from the terrorist perspective.
The preceeding arguments would seem to suggest I support arming pilots...I do not.
When you see the laughably stupid TSA response to being tasked with the implementation it's not an unreasonable stance.
When I carried very few people knew.
If, and it's a mighty big IF from my perspective, guns are to be carried by aircrew then the weapon is carried in a suitable concealment holster (preference of carrier) and remains holstered where ever he goes until such time as he is relieved of all professional duties. The weapon is then locked in a suitable gunsafe in either his home or his o/n hotel room. Participating airlines MIGHT need to look at requiring upgraded safes in HOTAC but probably not as alerting HOTAC staff that weapons may be stored in house is NOT a good idea...for obvious reasons.
None of this BS handling the weapon multitudinous times per sector...safing it and loading it each time it changes location or changes hands in the case of handing over to other staff...that's how accidents happen...and thefts.
Particularly a Glock...no safety catch...police forces world wide who use Glocks have had NUMEROUS accidental discharges and wounds in feet etc...bloody stupid choice if that is the choice!!!
It goes, cocked and locked, into the holster when dressing for work and gets locked in a safe prior to beer call...in between it never see the light of day unless it's going to be used.
A simple means of identification when clearing terminal security so that it doesn't set off the metal detectors every bloody time too. Simple means aircrew being cleared separately from PAX, like at LHR, and that job being done by people with an IQ over 12 (and suitable training to be able to intereract with aircrew while not pissing them off)....wearer has a security card or the approval is imprinted within his/her normal ID card and shows up a code when swiped through a reader for instance.
Letting a Govt department like TSA, who are demonstably not a repository of the national brains trust, over complicate it to such a deadly dangerous and stupid extent is rediculous.
Chances of Govt not insisting that the last paragraph is the ONLY way aircrew can carry?...ZIP.
Therefore I'm against aircrew carrying weapons.