Firstly, a warning to those xenophobes suffering from acute paranoia, either get a grip of yourselves and start posting something sensible or else take your racial prejudice and phobias elsewhere.
Secondly, I find it rather startling that no one has tried to analyse this incident a bit more clearly. We do not know all the facts except what the press have reported, so, those of you with some form of divine perception can go and preside over a different audience, preferably on a different website.
From the mixed reports I have read, it would appear that the man actually was already in his seat on the a/c. Everyone was ordered off and had to identify their baggage, presumably checked-in bags. If that is the case then it is going to be very difficult to hijack the a/c if your gun is in the hold. So, it would seem that this man had a gun in his washbag, inside his checked in case and NOT in his hand baggage.
Because here in Europe all hold baggage has to be X-rayed and has been required so for several years, the system works. What may not be clear is the intent of this man once he arrived in the UK. He may just have been a sacrificial lamb (martyr) for a sinister cause who was used to 'test' the security system. He may have been trying to get the gun through so that on arrival it could be secreted 'semi-airside' for an accomplice to pick up and use somewhere else. He may just be an innocent mule who had the weapon planted without his knowledge. Thankfully we still have a legal system that presumes innocence until proven guilty and not the kangaroo court some posters on here would advocate.
What you have to realise is that a serious terrorist attempt takes a lot of time to plan and a lot of people to assist. An individual working on his own, whilst still a threat, is much less likely to achieve success. Any terrorist trying to stage another 'catastrophe' will probably come at us from a totally different and unexpected direction. It will take some of the best thinkers and planners to thwart all the serious, future attempts to stage the next mass murder of innocents. Unfortunately, because it has to take place in secrecy I doubt most politicians in power have the cojones to spend the money required and would rather squander it on the current 'cosmetic' security which is much more visible and affords them more soundbite opportunities.
Unless we have people in government who are prepared to provide the resources to seriously set up aviation security and use their sources of intelligence at all levels, not just the cosmetic farce that we have at the moment with private companies employing people on little more than minimum wage with minimal training, then it is only a matter of time before another cell or group stage another attack. Profiling, done by highly trained, intelligent people together with the latest technology that is available to assist them is the first step. Done properly with planning I don't think it will take any longer to check-in for most pax than it does now with the ridiculous queues we see at any major airport when waiting to pass through 'security' when it is busy.
We will still need some form of x-raying hand baggage and scanning of pax, but not as the last resort to stop a terrorist but to prevent the minority of the populace who are too stupid to realise that some items are just not acceptable in the cabin even though they never intended to use those items in an attack. All this confiscation of nail clippers is a petty show of futility by beaurocrats who have little comprehension of the operational side of our jobs, who have implemented rules based on a knee-jerk reaction and a need to be seen to be doing something and getting as many soundbites out it as possible. There will still be regular cases of 'air-rage' because of alcohol, nicotine withdrawal, drug abuse or plain psychotic behaviour. We train our cabin crews to deal with these incidents whilst we endeavour to get the a/c to the nearest airport so the the authorities will hopefully deal with the individuals. We have scanning of hold baggage to prevent terrorists planting bombs or smuggling weapons but what we don't appear to have is an integrated intelligence gathering service combined with a highly trained, government supported aviation security service who are able to use the proven methods of using that intelligence for thwarting highly organised attacks by well funded terrorist groups. Once the highly organised terrorist is on the a/c it is too late.
At the end of the day unless everyone is prepared to pay for this type of security and the politicos have the sincerety to push this through to the end, all we will have is the current situation which stifles our industry for very little increase in REAL security. Soundbite politics and political correctness will prevail and we will realise that big business and government would rather take the risk of another catastrophe than spend the serious money that it takes.
'Rant off'. Discuss. (Xenophobes not welcome)