No guns on board
Do not introduce wepons into a sterile enviroment. This includes air marshalls. If you are going to put an armed air marshall into the cabin, why not give him a high powerd automatic rifle, exterior body armour, pepper spray, gas-mask, flex-cuffs and sit him directly in front of the cockpit door facing rearward. It boggles my mind as to why we are trying to prevent, cure or deal with a situation at mach .85, flight level 350 rather than with the wheels chocked, ground power hooked up and the air bridge attatched to the aircraft. Airport screening needs to be beefed up dramatically. Screeners need to be trained, re-trained and tested continually. We need more technology to detect bombs and guns.
And we need more hands to frisk, un-pack and search.
Deal with the threat at the gate , in the airport concourse, or at the security gate, not while in-flight.