You raise a good point there Squawk. One important thing that these atrocities will have changed is passenger’s perception of a highjack. If highjacked, think that passengers will no longer assume that they are being held as political bargaining chips. They are more likely to assume the worst, and want to do something about it, rather that sit there and go meekly to their deaths, and that of countless others on the ground?
The passengers themselves are probably the greatest asset to their own safety, there’s a lot more of them in the cabin than the crew. On any average flight there’s many times more physically capable males than cabin attendants.
Why should it assumed that they are deaf, dumb and stupid self loading freight?
Totally removing anything remotely usable as a weapon from all the law abiding passengers may not be the best thing to do when you consider that the bad guys have always managed to get what they want aboard.