The limitless benefits of increased airport safety
In order to prevent future airport attacks, we must take charge of increasing airport security immediately.
January 30, 2017
Since 9/11, great strides have been taken towards assuring the complete safety of airplanes. After the horrific incident, reforms in the aviation industry focused mainly on protecting the airplanes from bombs and hijackers, neglecting to address the protection of airport’s public areas. While this focus can be attributed to the fact that there have been well over a thousand direct attacks on airplanes themselves in the last fifty years (http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/08/opinions/airport-needs-a-security-upgrade-price/index.html), it is impossible to ignore the increasing amount of attacks in airports and how to stop them.
Most recently, the residents of Fort Lauderdale International airport were targeted in a direct attack. A man pulled a handgun out of his waistband and opened fire on the people around him, killing five of them and wounding six (http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/06/us/fort-lauderdale-airport-incident/). He was able to do this by removing the already stored gun and ammunition from his luggage in the baggage claim bathroom, and then exiting the bathroom with the handgun tucked in his waistband. Airport security clearly needs a major upgrade.
A similar attack occurred in 1982 at an airport in Israel. Terrorists simply flew in, made their way to baggage claim, obtained their weapons from their bags, and open fired on innocent bystanders. In this case, the men killed twenty-six people and injured dozens more (http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/08/opinions/airport-needs-a-security-upgrade-price/index.html).
Rather, they have focused mainly on the safety of the actual aircrafts rather than the airport. While this focus is understandable due to the amount of airplane attacks surpassing airport ones, the safety of airport public areas should not be overlooked in any way.
While some blame the TSA for these occurrences, they are not the ones policing the airports. The primary protection force at most US airports are local police, paid for by the airports themselves. These police must be able to respond to issues at screening checkpoints and on the aircrafts themselves. Though they do their job well, a police force does not seem like enough to be able to monitor, prevent, and respond to active shooters in airports.
Airports need more police, and better equipped ones, for that matter. Airport revenue funds the police they have, but not necessarily the police they need to have. What these airports need are active police who are heavily armed and protected, who will actively monitor public areas. Through active and hopefully constant surveillance, the numbers of incidents like the ones in Fort Lauderdale and Israel will diminish greatly and cause a greater sense of safety in airports.
There is no way to ignore the atrocities that have happened in airports all around the world, but there is a way to stop them. Through greater funding airports would be able to afford a hardy, trained police staff that would be at the ready to spot and address any gunman or individual who poses a threat on the rest of the airports inhabitants. Airport safety would go up and likewise benefit everyone who passes through, creating a wholesome environment for everyone. We all travel in some way, it would be nice to eliminate the threat of being attacked while doing so.
