Stun guns a better choice.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Norman Mineta, secretary of transportation, is right. Allowing pilots to carry stun guns would be preferable to letting them use firearms to repel terrorist attempts to take control of a commercial airplane.

Mineta's reasoning parallels that of the airline industry, but is counter to pilots' demand that they be allowed to have firearms in the cockpits. The industry rightly opposes the arming of cockpit crews because of the danger that flying bullets might damage planes and trigger lawsuits if passengers were accidentally shot.

Stun guns use a compressed gas charge to fire two small probes tethered by 20-foot wires connected to a device that supplies an electric charge. The dartlike probes can penetrate most clothing, including leather jackets. Manufacturers say stun guns are effective more than 90 percent of the time. United Airlines has already ordered 1,300 stun guns in anticipation of placing two in the cockpits of the company's 543 planes. Other airlines are expected to follow suit.

"I think that stun guns are the way to go," Mineta told The Los Angeles Times.

The airlines are under federal order to replace their flimsy cockpit doors with stronger, bullet-proof doors. As a temporary measure, metal bars have been installed in most commercial airline cockpit doors in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Current rules require that all cockpit doors be locked during flight.

The pilots unions have petitioned the Transportation Department to allow pilot volunteers to be trained as deputy air marshals and issued semiautomatic weapons. The pilots contend that they would feel safer if they could respond to in-flight aggressors with lethal force. Such weapons might make the pilots feel more secure, but at the expense of the security of passengers.

Another terrorist-related request on the Transportation Department's table comes from flight attendants, who want to have stun guns in the passenger cabins. Mineta says he opposes this request because of the danger that a terrorist might seize the stun guns and endanger all passengers. Again, Mineta is right. Putting stun guns in the cabins would be too much of an invitation to trouble.

It's easy to understand why airline pilots and flight attendants want the ability to resist attempts to take over their airplanes. But a secure, impenetrable cockpit, with stun guns available to the cockpit crews, would provide the necessary in-flight security without endangering a planeload of passengers or the airplane itself.