Following September 11th, the nation began questioning the safety of the crew and

passengers aboard it's airlines flights. Many solutions were proposed, including the very controversial issue of arming cockpit crews with firearms. Commercial airline pilots should be armed because they work in the most crucial portion to the safe operation of an aircraft, the cockpit.

If you really think hard enough about it, anything on board an aircraft can become a weapon. A beverage cart, a seat belt strap, even a soda can. "The Obvious Solution" states:

"My 10 year old son thought it was cool when he figured out how to bend and then rip open an aluminum can, tearing it into a sharp edge... (paragraph 3)

Doing this could easily be used to injure, or even kill the pilots allowing a highjacker to gain access to the controls and boom

Stronger cockpit doors that lock from the inside are a great idea that is being implemented on all aircraft in the United States fleet. These doors would be strong enough to take a blow from a fire axe, or even a bullet. This would easily deny access to any intruder trying to gain entry.

Finally, each and every citizen needs to ask themselves if they would pay a few dollars more for a fare to have real security, or if the illusion of security (such as the National Guard troops we had patrolling with unloaded weapons) will suffice. We need the air marshal program, we need heavy duty doors, but doesn't it make sense to put that final layer of lethal protection where the terrorists want to be as a last resort.

A lot of people say, including Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, that arming pilots would be too expensive to the already crumpled financial state of U.S. airlines

Some common words found in the essay are:
Obvious Solution, Air Marshal, Bad September, Positioning Systems, Secretary Mineta, National Guard, Norman Mineta, airline pilots, september 11th, flight controls, controls flight, marshal program, Airline Pilots, air marshal program, air marshal,
Approximate Word count = 600
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)