I'm working under several deadlines, so posting is likely to remain light for now, but Jonathan Adler points out that Canadian airport security is either more lax, or more rational, than that of TSA:

...if the shoe x-rays were really all that necessary -- and I do not believe they are -- this would create a security risk. More likely, it's just another example of TSA irrationality.

Personally, I think that our entire airline security policy is flawed. I'd prefer knowing that my fellow passengers are armed, to ensure that there will never be another successful hijacking, and this would also result in huge productivity increases for travelers by not having our nose-hair trimmers and lighters confiscated. I do worry about bombs, though, so in a sense, Richard Reid did us a favor by being such a moron--if he'd succeeded in lighting his shoes over the Atlantic, there may not have been any evidence of how the aircraft was destroyed. Still, I think that those of us who have to undergo the inconvenience and indignity of padding through the machine in socks or barefoot, should at least have an opportunity to throw darts at a picture of him after we've gotten through the gauntlet and reshod ourselves. It could hang just below a picture of Osama.

"I'd prefer knowing that my fellow passengers are armed"

As a Concealed Weapons Permit holder I would love to be able to carry on an airline flight, but it will never happen. Certain folks had fits over the thought of crew carrying a firearm; they'd go catatonic over passengers being armed.

I definitely agree with you guys on this. Ensuring that law-abiding citizens are disarmed in a given location greatly increases the odds that non-law-abiding sorts will take advantage of that knowledge. I've never even owned a guy myself, but I tend to agree with Heinlein that "an armed society is a polite society".

As someone pointed out, that should read "I've never owned a *gun* myself..."

That's what I get for posting when I'm at home sick for the day.

I happened to be at a crowded airport food court when a TSA officer sat at my table. I asked if I could talk informally. When he replied in the affirmative, I asked why we have shoe inspection. He replied, "Two words: Richard Ried."

When I told him that I had read the trial transcript and found that there was no evidence of a shoe bomb, he agreed. He added that TSA thinks that it is better to be safe than sorry because most people think Ried had a bomb.

I dropped it at that, although I wanted to say that we have no evidence that we are safe.

Certain folks had fits over the thought of crew carrying a firearm; they'd go catatonic over passengers being armed.

Oh, how I wish that were true!