Originally Posted by JamesA
My own most ridiculous story - Doing military charters, sometimes we carry a courier. Going through security, the man handfs over his sidearm to security staff. Passes through arch, bell goes off, side arm is returned and frisk is carried out. A nail file is taken from courier. We all stand around in amazement squared. Moral of story - guns are OK, but it is not done to have manicured nails. Of course this was in land of George Dubaya, leader of ......
I don't post much in this forum, but I think self-loading freight have as much at stake in this as pilots.
Whether a nailfile is a weapon is specified by the state - you can't hold the individual doing the search responsible for that. They aren't supposed to make judgement calls, they are supposed to follow rules. One place I've worked the rule is that they shoot you if you don't stop within three paces of the checkpoint on request. Try the "I don't see why this rule should apply to me" routine on them - they just don't care whether you see why the rule applies to you, nor should they.
The man was accountable for what happened to his gun. If he turned up without it at the other end it would be obvious where hijackers got their gun from (had there been a hijack from that airport).
But if he was carrying a concealed weapon in addition to his gun, he could pass it on to somebody else airside who could use it to hijack a different plane, and nobody would know he'd done it. That's why the policy is for him to be searched. That's why pilots have to be searched too - otherwise they could carry weapons for people to use on other planes.
The reason security staff don't have discretion and are expected to follow rules is amply demonstrated by this thread. Even the comparatively well educated correspondents here exhibit a dangerous failure of imagination in what constitutes a threat. People have thought long and hard constructing security policies. They may be wrong, but there haven't been decent arguments against their decisions here. If ait=rcrew had the last word, aircrew would be exempt from search and we would all be less safe.