I must say I fully agree with you, Constable.
A Michael Jackson quote springs to my mind: "I'm a lover not a fighter..."
I am not trying to be a smart ass here, but what I am trying to say is that I would need a tremendous amount of trainig to be able to handle a handgun in my cockpit. It's not only a matter of pointing and shooting.
I have handled handguns (glocks), machine pistols (MP-5s), machine guns (MG-3s) and 105mm tank cannons (Leopard tanks), but handling a hand gun in a cockpit would be a totally different matter.
If there were to be handguns in a commercial jetliner, this handgun should be handled by trained, proffessional Air Marshals.
I'm afraid there are not any "magic recipes" on what to do now, other than a generally higher level of security in all parts of the "security chain".
As I have stated in an other thread earlier: Tuesday's events were unique. If the standard procedure for dealing with hijackers was: "Turn the aircraft inverted an pull the stick as hard as you can," literally thousands of lives would have been saved last tuesday. We can't have this as a standard procedure. But this illustrates what extremely difficult situation we are in right now.
Similarly, if an airliner goes down because of a regular gunfight between crew members and hijackers, we can't simply say that: "Oh well, at least the airplane didn't hit the Eiffel Tower."
Lastly I'd like to tell you Americans that the sidewalk outside the American Embassy in Oslo is over-filled with flowers, burning candles, and condolence cards from people all over Norway.
We feel your pain.
I've had a stommach ache for three days now.
Nick.