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Article: The failure of Federal Aviation Administration regulation.
- Article from:
- Independent Review
- Article date:
- June 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Independent Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., in 2001 raised many questions about security in the United States. At that time, the nation's defenses were compromised by Islamic terrorists who commandeered commercial aircraft and used them as weapons. In view of the hundreds of billions of dollars the federal government spends on defense each year, how were these attacks possible for hijackers armed only with box cutters (sec Higgs 2002)? One possible reason can be found in the bureaucracy of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). According to its rules, commercial airline pilots were prohibited from arming themselves on their planes. As a result, the pilots of the ...