well, as that numb nuts terrorist showed everyone, you CAN potentially take down a jetliner without getting to the cockpit... he only failed because he sucks at following instructions and/or got his explosives from china. passengers armed with weapons of any kind or not, he was about to pwn the plane without anyone really taking action until his bomb fizzled and people knew what he was trying to do. if his equipment worked, the planed would've blowed up like a boss, and everyone would've died except bruce willis. the only way that particular would-be tragedy could've been prevented is if airport securities around the world wasn't completely full of fail. but they are, and can't even do ctrl-f on a fucking list of names. fuck them for putting us at risk. that said, the hypothetical that an attacked could be behind an armed passenger and now has the gun and was all like "wut nao, bi0tch?" is easily countered by any hypothetical where the armed passenger straight up murdered the terrorist like a boss. what I DON'T like about any old eligible citizen/resident of the US carrying loaded weapons onto a domestic flight is that some people are just plain retarded, and ruin it for the rest of us. I've spent quite a chunk of time on reading up concealed carry forums and gun forums, and just plain talking with people with guns... and I increasingly don't like the idea of letting some of these psychos carry anything sharper than their intellect on a moving plane full of meat. however, if these assholes like the TSA and their international counter part aren't going to do their jobs, and there isn't a hidden, well armed, well trained counter terrorist expert on every flight that I'm going to be on, then I should be allowed to protect myself from these psychos and terrorists. i have no problem with rushing a couple terrorists or one crazy fat temper tantrumming conservative with about a dozen of my fellow air travelers to prevent death for everyone else on the plane, but I'd rather be able to do it with as few losses as possible, including myself... perhaps a gun or edged tool or expandable baton would help this. perhaps it won't, but at least I'm given the opportunity to defend myself more effectively than throwing myself as a substantial meat shield at the aggressor so everyone else can take him down. an alternative i would consider is if during an attack, stewardesses or pilots are required to throw themselves at the attacker as a meat shield in our stead so that the rest of us paying passengers can more safely take the attacker out. also, none of these things are concerns to me since i am a motherfucking ninja, but i'm sympathetic to the plight of the rest of you puny defenseless mortals.