It's a rather general debate I think. I agree with you that shooting down such an airliner is no solution. After all here is still the chance that the situation might get under control again. At least some kind of it. I would not wish to declare everyone on such an airplane dead until they really are and it is proven.
Shooting it down might as well inflict large scale damage on the ground anyway.
The part I would mostly be afraid of is the common hysteria. The pictures on the newspaper article showed that small light plane, which circled over Frankfurt's city 2 or 3 years after Sept. 11th. The media was freaking out that day as well in Germany as international. I remember watching CNN broadcasting live because of an Ultralight airplane... It is silly, but I wonder how much damage that one would have done at all. There are single pilot airplanes crashing down on houses almost every day somewhere in the world, aren't there? Still no one complains about it. That one had been hijacked by some dude, all right, but the media reaction was in no relation to the potential damage. Correct me if I am wrong. It was all just about Sept. 11th.
So there have also been cases I think in which just the contact to an airliner broke off. All of you might know better about that than I do. Still there have also been overreactions in the military.
I think the court's decision will at least prevent this from happening. At least in Germany, because it seems that we are quite unique with our judgement. Maybe we are not patriotic enough or so.
About the guns in the cockpit part I definitely agree that I would rather have that one than a missile shot at an airplane, but honestly I like neither of it.
I think there might be loads of pilots for whom it is as impossible as it would be for me.