Shots on a plane

After the 9-11 attacks, one of the smartest things this country did to prevent future hijackings was let pilots and copilots carry pistols.

All of these men and women are highly trained professionals. Most have military backgrounds. If there was ever a group of people who could be trusted with carrying handguns — and had a clear reason to do so — this was it.

This simple change is the most cost-effective thing we can do for airplane security. Would-be hijackers don’t know if a pilot is packing or not. If they try to take over a plane, they might go to the afterlife sooner than they planned. And best of all, the passengers would go to Cleveland or Seattle as they planned too.

Curiously, the Bush administration dragged its heels on this sensible program. The White House only approved it after Congress demanded the change.

You have to suspect that the gun-lovin’ guys and gals in the Bush administration secretly liked the plan. But they were afraid of being called Rambos or having something go wrong.

Like an accidental discharge of a sidearm in the air. Like what happened to the pilot of a US Airways flight on a landing approach in North Carolina over the weekend.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Fortunately, it was the first time this kind of, uh, little mistake had occurred.

No word yet as to what went wrong. As a sometime shooter, I can tell you what went wrong.

The pilot’s pistol didn’t have the safety on. Or it had a round in the chamber when it shouldn’t have. Or the pilot accidentally nudged the trigger or the hammer. After all, there are only a few ways that a weapon can be fired accidentally, and those options cover 99 percent of them.

Which is why a gun being carried for these purposes shouldn’t have a round in the chamber. When a weapon is carried like that, you can make a dumb mistake and still have 10 toes at the end of the day.

At any rate, this was the first accidental firing by a pilot after many years and countless carryings. So don’t get all nervous and say we need to make cockpits “gun-free zones.”

If I’m flying, I want my pilot or copilot bringing along his little friend.

I also want a potential terrorist wondering if the crew is carrying … and thinking that maybe he won’t make his move after all.