I find it infuriating that we as pilots even have to think about this, but as we all know we live in a world with suicide bombers.
I have always said that if you introduce a weapon into any situation it becomes inflamed beyond what it might have been had there not been a gun. I would be against having weapons in the cockpit if I had ABSOLUTE confidence in Pax. profiling, screaning, skymarshals and any other security measure, but I don't. Hence the dilema. We are charged with the safety of our jet our crew and our passengers and when all ellse fails we have to have a reliable meathod of defending the aircraft. Thats a fact.
Another aspect of all of this that I havn't heard much talk about is checked bag screening. In the U.S. they don't Xray every bag that gets on the jet so it is consievable that a would be terrorist could simply detonate a bomb in his suitcase from his seat whenever he wants. All the fire power in the world can't prevent that. I suppose the bottom line is, that no matter what we do we will never be able to say that we have 100% security.