This is one of those "something must be done" arguments.
This particular kind of "something must be done" argument goes like this:
<Outgroup X> does Y. Y is bad. <Outgroup X> must be punished.
For <Outgroup X> insert the appropriate perjorative term -
for example: kikes, dykes, New Yorkers, pakis, slopes, liberals, magenta line followers, ...
It's not so important whether Y really is bad or not. Or if <Outgroup X> really does do Y.
Whether the threat of punishment will stop <Outgroup X> doing Y doesn't even enter the argument.
The important thing is simply to bully and abuse <Outgroup X>, or anyone else that you feel like bullying, on the pretext that they somewhat resemble <Outgroup X>.
That works both ways: a really good Nazi didn't have to worry about being jewish - that could be swept under the carpet.
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Let's suppose you actually want to make scheduled flights safer.
Then you need to look at where injuries and fatalities come from. Analyse the statistics.
It's not 1953 - we don't have Comets exploding in mid-air for no apparent reason every few months.
It's mostly human factors now: CRM, fatigue, training, management pressure.
That's for the maintenance folk, as well as the pilots. A tired engineer working overtime on an overloaded night shift on a task they're not experienced with can kill people quite effectively.
Mercifully, we now have so few crashes that statistics cease to be so helpful - we have to analyse each incident separately, as well as look at statistics.
If we do that, I don't think we're going to find that what passengers do with carry-on baggage in an evacuation is causing any fatalities at all.
Aircraft certification requires 90 second evacuation. Perhaps certification would be more realistic if some proportion of the test subjects took luggage with them.
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But given that travel on scheduled flights (don't do a Patsy Klein or a Buddy Holly) is so safe now, does it even make sense to worry about safety of air travel ?
Aren't there more important things to worry about ?
In the US, maybe you could ask:
- Why there are so many gun-related deaths - perhaps compared to other developed countries with high firearm possession such as Germany and Switzerland. (Germany has large numbers of illegal weapons from WW2 and the Balkan wars as well as registered weapons - granny might have a medium machine gun and a few unstable anti-tank missiles in her loft).
- Why are there so many road traffic deaths compared to other developed countries ? Germany has no mandatory speed limit on 2/3 of its Autobahn network, but german roads are about twice as safe.