well I think whats clear here is that we will never "win" the war against aircraft hijackers and bombers so I think its best for America to consider that its time to look for alternative transportation or perhaps a timetable for stopping all airtravel. After all, if there hadnt been a marshall onboard, there would not have been a hijacking in the first place.

Pretty sketchy right now, but it looks like a guy claimed to have a bomb, and got shot in the jetway before actually boarding the aircraft. One report I saw said he was arguing with an airline employee and yelled, "It's not like I have a bomb strapped to me!"

In other words, possibly a nutball, but not a terrorist nutball.

Shots were fired...from a federal air marshal's gun

So, does AP comment on whether the gun was in the Marshal's hand when the shots were fired from it?

Their choice of words is a little strange.

The rest of the news isn't too surprising. But it is worth noting. A plane from Colombia with a bad guy on it.

So was he AQ, a linked guy, or another kind of troublemaker?

One report I saw said he was arguing with an airline employee and yelled, "It's not like I have a bomb strapped to me!"

So obviously not someone who was around in the 80's when you never said hello to your buddy Jack at the airport by saying "Hi Jack!".

A couple reports say the man has died... and a few say that he said there was a bomb in his bag, and he reached for it.

I've seen lots of conflicting info, and nobody knows anything for sure. Obviously its way too early to draw any good conclusions here.

A variation of 'Suicide By Cop'?

More like "if you're nuts, for god's sake, TAKE YOUR MEDS BEFORE GETTING ON AN AIRPLANE!"

Or, I don't know, maybe law enforcement agents shouldn't go fucking shooting people under hazy circumstances. He was on the jetway, why not tackle him instead of shooting him. Why not give air marshalls tranquilizer guns?

I'll bet better than even that this guy was just some bipolar dude on a vacation and because the fed was twitchy he ends up dead.

Timothy,

While the information is still sketchy, I hesitate to second guess an Air Marshall that had perhaps a second to determine if the guy was a threat or not. If the guy did say that he had a bomb (as several reports indicate) and was reaching for a bag, tackling him wouldn't have been very smart. He could've still detonated it. Airliners are very thin skinned and carry a lot of jet fuel, so even an explosion on the jetway might've killed a lot of people. It sounds like the Air Marshall made the right decision to me. You just can't take chances in a circumstance like that. There were over 100 passengers scheduled to be on that plane plus probably 6 crew members.

Larry J said what I was going to say. Only he said it better than I was going to say it.

So, yeah, that's all I've got...

He was on the jetway, why not tackle him instead of shooting him. Why not give air marshalls tranquilizer guns?

If you suspect it's a suicide bomber, you don't give him or her a chance to take you with them by grappling with them. If you tell them to stop and they don't, you shoot before they get to where they prefer to detonate. As for tranquilizers, unlike those in the movies, real-world tranquilizers take several minutes to subdue someone.

Timothy,

I'd be very disappointed to learn that you were serious when you posted those comments.

There are no such things as "tranquilizer guns", and other less-than-lethal tools like Tasers have reliability problems.

If this guy died from being manic, or from being stupid, its just evolution in action.

Why not give air marshalls tranquilizer guns?

Or blow darts tipped with curare. They take up less space and work five times quicker. Seen a sloth drop like a stone outta a tree after 5 seconds. Yup.

I think the important thing is that, with the tens of thousands of flights every single day and the ratio of mentally disturbed/cranky drunks/arrogantassholes to passengers per plane, this is the first time Air Marshals have fired a weapon post 9/11, period. That is a fine testament to superior TRAINING. Like a Congressman on Fox this afternoon said: when a guy's reaching for a bag he claims has a bomb in it, you don't have time for counseling or pyschoanalysis. You only have that split second to make a decision people live or die by.

Oh my, the passengers were scared, and they couldn't even get things from their bags right after a guy was killed for threatening to blow up a plane.

Sometimes I am just utterly astounded at the sissiness of most Americans.

Or, I don't know, maybe law enforcement agents shouldn't go fucking shooting people under hazy circumstances. He was on the jetway, why not tackle him instead of shooting him. Why not give air marshalls tranquilizer guns?

You know what bothers me... I'm sure over the next 48 hours, that very conversation is going to take place in all the usual quarters. Lots of pointless pontificating and monday-morning quarterbacking by people who have no firearms experience or training, or any experience or knowledge of less-than-lethal weapons and their uses and limitations.

So we have two choices: FAMs should spend more time trying to reason with and understand the position of people who claim to have a destructive device while standing in the vicinity of potential victims - and end up victims along with everyone else standing around.

Or they can put the SOB down.

I'd say, "You decide," but you don't get a choice... I sleep very well at night knowing full well that the FAM is going to make the choice for all of us, and he is going to make sure that he is NOT the one going home in a box.

Of course, as I write this, CNN is already showing e-mail from some douchebag "James" saying how this incident points out how awful guns are and how we should look into less-than-lethal devices such as tasers and bean bags. Right. Let's Taser possible suicide bombers... maybe when they twitch they won't hit the button...

Timothy, I have no doubt that if the air marshal had hesitated, and the passenger was a terrorist who then proceeded to kill or maim more than 100 innocent people, you'd be here screeching about what a joke Bush's anti-terrorism measures. We're no safer now than we were...blah blah blah. There's no reasoning with people like you, and if you had single working brain cell or one ounce of perceptiveness, you'd realize how fed up people are with this kind of asinine and pointless bitching. Dude.

Timothy-

Hey, why don't YOU tackle the guy that might have a bomb strapped to him? Not only would you virtually assure that the bomb would go off, but you'd make sure that you'd be one of the first to die, AND that it didn't even do any good!

http://pontificationnation.com/2005/12/13/when-guns-are-outlawed-only-damn-dirty-apes-will-have-guns/