Airport security overload

In the wake of the Sept. 11 hijacking of planes that became bombs, the country’s economy also took a hit. Hundreds and thousands of airline employees were laid off, as American confidence in air safety plummeted.
Their loss was a gain for national trains and buses as people, like Ricardo Brooks, worried about airline safety, decided to travel by bus. Brooks boarded in Flint, Mich. to travel overnight to Atlanta. At 4 a.m. Wednesday a fellow passenger went to the front of the bus to ask the time. He also wanted a passenger in the front to give him her seat.
She refused. The passenger turned and slashed the driver’s throat with a blade, grabbed the wheel and crashed the bus killing himself and five other passengers. (Brooks was one of the 35 who survived the crash.)
The Greyhound company temporarily shut down service across the nation until they verified it was an isolated incident.
The temporary shutdown of the buses stranded some 70,000 passengers at stations across the United States. It was quickly established that the attacker acted alone and the buses began running again – with greatly increased security. Carry-on luggage was searched and some passengers were checked with hand-held metal detectors.
Hand-held metal detectors, now where have I heard about them before? Ahh yes, in the weeks following the mass killings at Columbine High School in Colorado, school safety was a concern across the country.
Even the smallest of schools began studying ways to insure no one came near their campus with a dangerous weapon. Hand-held metal detectors were very popular … most schools could not afford a metal detector or a guard at every door.
Whether traveling or going off to work or to school, everyone wants to return home unscathed. It is scary to think that some stranger can decide to express their opinion or distress with life and endanger so many other people’s lives – as happens too frequently have in Israel and Ireland where a stroll downtown can turn into a nightmare.
It is time to work towards a safe and secure nation. To staff the security, offer the newly unemployed airline personnel an opportunity to retrain in the security sector. Not only will that increase our sense of security, but it will also provide jobs for those laid off in the wake of the economic aftershocks the followed Sept. 11.
This nation not only needs metal detectors at the gates of all our schools, airports, bus and train stations, we also need them at the entrance of every shop or restaurant. The ideal situation would be sharp-eyed security guards standing at the entrance of every building checking out every person who enters.
Now where have I heard about that before?
Ahh yes … from my daughter who volunteered her summer break to teach English as a second language in communist China. She said that in that land of the safe and secure, where everyone has a job, every building had a guard. It works there – it could work here. Plus, it would create a lot of jobs in a sinking economy … and all of that is exactly what America the Land of the Free needs … Right?