Everyone said he was ok in the head..
Well... actually, not. I've flown with at least a dozen pilots that knew him before the incident (including one roommate of his), and that's not the impression I got at all. They've all said he was a problem child with extreme anger issues. Hindsight is indeed 20/20 but I'd feel reasonably confident that he would have been weeded out.
What you're leaving out about that incident is that it is, to me, the most powerful argument FOR the FFDO program. Cargo pilots are alone in the sky - absolutely no help from anyone. Half of our aircraft don't have hardened doors. We employ minimum-wage workers in the most armed nation in history to load our aircraft. Workers can and have stowed away before. A company employee was stopped going through screening at the Memphis airport carrying a straight razor in a book not 3 years ago.
I'm so happy you have such confidence in the screening and security procedures of your airlines. Perhaps one day we can come up to that standard. Meanwhile, I've got to climb into a big nasty freighter and launch out under the stars with 200,000 pounds of boxes packed by people I don't know. Self protection at that point isn't a very "cowboy" type of an idea at all, really.....