KNIVES ON PLANES?

By Adolf der Schweinehund

The Unconventional Gazette / March 15, 2013

Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole has announced a new policy that will allow passengers to carry small pocket knives aboard airliners. Knives permitted under the policy must be able to fold up and have blades that are 2.36 inches (60 millimeters) or less in length and are less than a half-inch (127 millimeters) wide. The policy is aimed at allowing passengers to carry pen knives, corkscrews with small blades and other small knives.

Besides knives, the policy will also allow passengers to include in their carry-on luggage novelty-size baseball bats less than 24 inches (610 millimeters) long, toy plastic bats, billiard cues, ski poles, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks and two golf clubs. Items like box cutters and razor blades are still prohibited.

The policy change brought about an immediate response from the Flight Attendants Union Coalition which represents 90,000 unionized flight attendants working for the nation’s airlines. In a press statement issued Thursday announcing its campaign to reverse the TSA's decision, the coalition said: "This policy reversal is against the best interest of the security of crew and passengers in the aircraft cabin and we will stop at nothing to fight it."

During a Congressional hearing in which Pistole defended the policy change, he ran head-on into Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. Jackson Lee said Pistole needed to change course on the rule change — fast. “You need to stop this now,” she said. “These cause bleeding. These cause injury. These can cause a terrible tragedy. And I don’t want to take it to the next length. It can possibly cause someone to lose their life.”

One of Jackson Lee’s colleagues, many of whom call her ‘motormouth’, remarked that this was the shortest statement she’s made in all the years she’s been in Congress.

A flight attendant who did not want to be identified told The Unconventional Gazette:

__We sure as hell don’t want any passengers carrying knives onboard our planes. We’ve got enough trouble keeping male passengers’ bare hands from groping us as it is now. It is not uncommon for some drunk to reach up under our skirts and try to finger our privates, if you get what I mean. And now the TSA wants to let them have knives? Fuck no!

The Unconventional Gazette also talked to Craig Price at Rhode Island’s Adult Correctional Institution in Cranston. Price, a serial killer also known as the Warwick Slasher for stabbing four women to death when he was only 16, told us:

__Man, I often lie awake at nights thinking about running up and down the aisle of an airliner, slashing away at the flight attendants and women passengers. I think about it till I get off … then I go to sleep. Just think, when I get out of this joint, I can board an airliner with my Swiss Army knife.

Tie Domi, a retired enforcer for the Toronto Maple Leafs who accumulated more penalty minutes than any other player in the history of that hockey club, said:

__I don’t give a rat’s ass about knives, but I do carry a hockey stick wherever I go now because there’s lots of fucking hockey fans that really hate my ass. Whenever one of them gives me a bad time, I give ‘em a whack with my stick … that usually quiets the fuckers down. I stopped flying when they wouldn’t let me bring my hockey stick along … now I can fly again.

Hans Schnabel, spokesman for Victorinox, said his company welcomes the new TSA policy. “The sales of our Swiss Army knives have really suffered in America since knives were banned from being brought onto airliners. The new policy should give a good jump start to increased sales of our outstanding product.”

Helmut Braun, spokesman for Wenger, another manufacturer of Swiss Army knives, said the new TSA policy was good news for his company. “We have lost about 40 percent of our sales because of the ridiculous policy that prohibited passengers from carrying pocket knives aboard planes. The new policy should help restore our sales to where they were before the ban.”

Rocker Ted Nugent, an outspoken pro-gunner, said:

__I grew up the American way, carrying a pocket knife. It’s about time the government reversed its unconstitutional policies of taking away the rights of individual citizens. As far as I’m concerned, the right to bear knives should be right up there with the right to bear arms. But with Congress all in an uproar over the change in the TSA knife policy, I wouldn’t put it past Diane Feinstein to introduce a bill in the Senate to ban the possession of knives.

Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a Tea Party favorite, said:

__I heard a rumor that the communist lady from San Francisco, Sen. Feinstein, is getting ready to introduce a bill to prohibit the possession of knives. I promise to use any and all means at my command to keep Feinstein’s bill from becoming law. Us Texans don’t cotton to anything that originates from Amercia’s Sodom and Gomorrah.

Despite all the criticism and opposition in Congress, Pistole said he was sticking by his decision.