James Morrow has some intelligent comments on airline security, here and in Europe, in today's Reason On-Line.

I have yet to figure out the purpose of having uniformed security personnel with automatic weapons walking around airports, whether police overseas or National Guard here. What risk do they guard against? They are not likely to shoot it out with armed terrorists. A "rational" terrorist (one who is executing a plan to achieve a certain end, which, even if suicidal, is not likely to include a confrontation with airport security) intent on seizing an aircraft will not likely show up with a firearm, because he needs certainty of getting past security. This is particularly the case if he is part of a coordinated event or if he as accomplices. Even at its worst, the screening system is sufficient to deprive terrorists of that certainty.

Conceivably, terrorists could simply drive up to the front door and start shooting, but then why come to the airport? Any gathering of people would do, such as a shopping mall or a downtown street at 5:30. Admittedly, airports could be targeted in an effort to cripple air transportation generally, so that merits some consideration.

The "irrational" terrorist, the guy acting on his own, the nut, might not be deterred by screening, but then he will likely be acting on his own, and if armed with anything other than a handgun, will have attracted attention soon after arriving, possibly even before walking in the door. (Am I too optimistic here?). Are soldiers with automatic weapons necessary to deal with such an event?

I speculate that we are dealing with the ghosts of the Lod Airport massacre in Israel in, as I believe, the late seventies. If I recall correctly, the Japanese Red Army, under contract from Palestinian terrorist groups, flew into Lod with weapons in their checked baggage. When they retrieved their baggage in the claim area, they took their weapons out and opened fire, killing a large number of people. An armed presence might help in case of a repeat, but I am not aware of such an occurence in the more than 20 years that have passed. And again, terrorists no longer have certainty of getting weapons onto a plane in checked baggage. Even spotty x-raying of luggage and inspections at check-in raise the risk of discovery too high to make this an attractive method for terrorists, whose ambitions can be presumed to exceed causing problems in the check-in area.

In all, the visible presence of heavily armed troops in airports is only a public relations gesture that makes no genuine contribution to security. It serves only to fool those who will be fooled by such things. In the meantime, we get to look like a banana republic that is anticipating, undergoing, or recovering from, a coup.