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TSA Approves Concept of Stun Guns on Planes

Aired June 09, 2003 - 15:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now let's talk about arming pilots and protecting passengers. The Transportation Security Administration has approved the concept -- the concept, at least, of stun guns for defending airplanes. Those are electrically charged devices.
CNN's Patty Davis joins us live from Washington with more on today's endorsement -- hello, Patty.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi Miles. You're right, the TSA says that it is convinced that stun guns could have a beneficial deterrent effect to an act of terrorism on an airplane, and it approved the idea.

But the TSA stopped short of giving airlines the go ahead to use these less than lethal weapons and put them in their pilots' hands for now, saying that it needs time to work out the details, including pilot training, weapons storage, and whether flight attendants could use them too.

Both United Airlines and Mesa airlines say that they want stun guns for their pilots. In fact, this is the United class being trained last year. It's already trained about 8,300 of its pilots, United that is, and bought thousands of stun guns. Now, these stun guns would be another layer of security for pilots who already are allowed to carry firearms. The first group was trained in April to use firearms, just over 40 graduated, and another group is set to train next month -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Patty, when they say they approved the concept, these things take time, obviously, to get them in place, get them purchased, get people trained on them. How long before they could actually be seen on planes?

DAVIS: Yes, good question. Transportation Security Administration says it doesn't know the answer to that right now. It depends on how quickly it can work with airlines to come up with some of the answers to those questions about who will be trained? Will they have to go through psychological testing? How will they be trained? Where will those guns be stored?

Now, a United official, meanwhile, which is the airline that has the proposal out there to immediately put these into pilots' hands says that it will be a matter of weeks and not months. So it sounds like, through the back channels, it could be pretty soon.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. Now, how effective are they, Patty? DAVIS: Another very good question. There are some critics who say that they are not very effective. In fact, we did our own demonstration last year. I personally shot seven Fairfax County Police Officers, and none of them were brought down by this weapon. Now, Taser came back and said -- who made that M26 came back and said, in fact, your weapon must have been defective because this does work -- more than 90 percent of the time, 95, 96 percent of the time. So Taser, in fact, has its own studies that say that they are very effective, especially in a three-foot cockpit, where that is the distance that you're shooting. This is definitely going to bring an attacker down.

O'BRIEN: All right. And we should point out the officers agreed to this in advance...

DAVIS: They did.

O'BRIEN: ... and said it was OK for you to shoot those officers.

DAVIS: They did -- and they weren't wearing any protective clothing or anything like that. I have to say I felt bad doing it, but...

O'BRIEN: But you did it anyway. You still pulled the trigger, didn't you, Patty?

DAVIS: It was such power.

O'BRIEN: All right. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. Hopefully that will help.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired June 9, 2003 - 15:37   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now let's talk about arming pilots and protecting passengers. The Transportation Security Administration has approved the concept -- the concept, at least, of stun guns for defending airplanes. Those are electrically charged devices.
CNN's Patty Davis joins us live from Washington with more on today's endorsement -- hello, Patty.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi Miles. You're right, the TSA says that it is convinced that stun guns could have a beneficial deterrent effect to an act of terrorism on an airplane, and it approved the idea.

But the TSA stopped short of giving airlines the go ahead to use these less than lethal weapons and put them in their pilots' hands for now, saying that it needs time to work out the details, including pilot training, weapons storage, and whether flight attendants could use them too.

Both United Airlines and Mesa airlines say that they want stun guns for their pilots. In fact, this is the United class being trained last year. It's already trained about 8,300 of its pilots, United that is, and bought thousands of stun guns. Now, these stun guns would be another layer of security for pilots who already are allowed to carry firearms. The first group was trained in April to use firearms, just over 40 graduated, and another group is set to train next month -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Patty, when they say they approved the concept, these things take time, obviously, to get them in place, get them purchased, get people trained on them. How long before they could actually be seen on planes?

DAVIS: Yes, good question. Transportation Security Administration says it doesn't know the answer to that right now. It depends on how quickly it can work with airlines to come up with some of the answers to those questions about who will be trained? Will they have to go through psychological testing? How will they be trained? Where will those guns be stored?

Now, a United official, meanwhile, which is the airline that has the proposal out there to immediately put these into pilots' hands says that it will be a matter of weeks and not months. So it sounds like, through the back channels, it could be pretty soon.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. Now, how effective are they, Patty? DAVIS: Another very good question. There are some critics who say that they are not very effective. In fact, we did our own demonstration last year. I personally shot seven Fairfax County Police Officers, and none of them were brought down by this weapon. Now, Taser came back and said -- who made that M26 came back and said, in fact, your weapon must have been defective because this does work -- more than 90 percent of the time, 95, 96 percent of the time. So Taser, in fact, has its own studies that say that they are very effective, especially in a three-foot cockpit, where that is the distance that you're shooting. This is definitely going to bring an attacker down.

O'BRIEN: All right. And we should point out the officers agreed to this in advance...

DAVIS: They did.

O'BRIEN: ... and said it was OK for you to shoot those officers.

DAVIS: They did -- and they weren't wearing any protective clothing or anything like that. I have to say I felt bad doing it, but...

O'BRIEN: But you did it anyway. You still pulled the trigger, didn't you, Patty?

DAVIS: It was such power.

O'BRIEN: All right. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. Hopefully that will help.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com