AIRLINE PILOTS WANT PILOTS ARMED. The public wants pilots armed. Norm Mineta doesn’t want pilots armed. The Wall Street Journal asks why not:

The objections expressed by the Administration are weak. “I don’t feel we should have lethal weapons in the cockpit,” says Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who also insists that grandmothers be screened at airports with the same intensity as suspicious-looking young men. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge adds, “Where do you stop? If pilots carry guns [then] railroad engineers and bus drivers could ask to do the same.”

The response seems obvious: Control of a cockpit can turn an airliner into a lethal weapon. Hijacked trains and buses can’t be flown into the Pentagon or a nuclear plant.

I trust airline pilots — and for that matter airline passengers — to protect me far more than I do underperformin’ Norman Mineta, or Tom Ridge.

Politically, of course, this is a very risky move for Mineta. If another airplane is hijacked — or even if there’s an attempt in which passengers or crew are killed before the meticulously-disarmed passengers are able to subdue the hijackers — Mineta and Ridge will be crucified on this. At least figuratively — and there’ll be some folks who’ll want to make the figurative literal.