Government Hoplophobia Extends Beyond Washington and Wall Street
September 20, 2006

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Governments don’t seem to be the only entities that have a problem with people being armed for their own defense. Lawyers, insurance companies, corporations and much of the media seem to share, or even contribute to, governmental hoplophobia. So intense is their fear that they even shrink from so-called less-than-lethal defense tools such as police batons, Mace and pepper sprays.

But governmental fear of armed citizens goes even deeper. Governments even fear the arming of their own agents or people in positions of trust, like commercial passenger and freight plane pilots or steamship captains.

This irrational fear came to the public’s attention right after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Since those terrorists managed to get into the cockpits of four airliners and turn the planes into weapons of mass destruction, most people of average common sense reasoned that arming pilots—the last barrier between terrorist hijackers and control of the planes—was a fast, sensible and cost effective way to block similar future attacks.

Pilots flying passenger and cargo planes were among the leading proponents of the armed flight officer program which had many advocates in Congress and extremely wide public support. However, the airline companies opposed the plan outright and many bureaucrats in government began to throw up roadblocks.

Armed Pilot Delays
After Congress finally authorized such a program, the Department of Transportation and later the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) dragged their feet and chose the slowest and most costly program. Thus, while almost 90,000 pilots were qualified to volunteer for the armed flight officer program when it began, only a few thousands have been trained and certified in the five years since 9-11.

What’s more, they have to transport their firearms to the aircraft in locked boxes where they are not available for any sudden emergency during transit.

President Bush admitted in early September that while air transportation is much safer than it was five years ago, it is still not as safe as it could be. The media keep flaying the government for its failure to immediately place more high tech screening equipment in place or do more to inspect cargo, not only on planes but shipping as well.

There are plenty of critics of government, usually with well justified complaints. The biggest problem is that governments in general are dysfunctional. Even when Congress authorizes a certain program and the president signs it into law, the bureaucracy has a hard time moving into action, and usually relies on outside contractors to get the job done.

But I can’t blame only the US government for this slow-as-molasses and inefficient approach. Other governs which are presumably representative democracies have similar problems. Computers haven’t helped government functionaries move swiftly; they still generate mountains of paperwork, reports and studies that build a paper trail to nowhere.

Canada Acts—Slowly
Similar snail-like movement by the Canadian government is a case in point. Canada, particularly with regard to border security, is a little more important to us in the Buffalo, NY, area than elsewhere in most of the US because we can drive to and sometime across the border in less than 10 minutes.

The Buffalo News reported on Sept. 3 that Canadian government officials had finally approved the arming of its border guards after years of pleading from the men and women who make up their customs and immigration service.

“Canadian customs officers on the Niagara Frontier welcomed their federal government’s plan to provide them with firearms, but many say it is being implemented far too slowly,” The News report began.

“Canada will begin arming guards along the 3,000-mile border with the United States next September (2007), but only 150 border guards will have sidearms by the following March (2008),” The News continued.

“This is a pittance,” said Fred Milligan, a Niagara Falls, Ontario, customs officer and president of the 300-member Local 16 of the Customs Excise Union, quoted by The News. “We can’t keep taking our lives in our hands and not have the tools.”

He said union members recently met and are “working to speed it up drastically.”

Currently, all Canadian border guards are permitted to carry batons and pepper spray, and to wear protective vests.

“And we only got those five years ago after much lobbying,” Milligan added in The News’ story.

The newspaper reported that the customs union requested a study on border risks and sidearms last year. The conclusion that an Ottawa-based security intelligence company arrived at was simple and direct: “For the protection of the officers and the Canadian public, officers must be armed.”

Because of an on-going effort to speed up commercial and public traffic at the Peace Bridge connecting Buffalo with Fort Erie, Ontario, the second busiest transit point between the two countries, the newspaper also dealt with a related issue: Canada allowing US Customs and Immigration agents to be armed while at joint inspection facilities positioned on Canadian soil.

“It’s too early to tell what effect Canada’s new firearms law might have on a plan for US customs officers to carry out inspections on the Canadian side,” said Shelly Kurgan, first vice president of the Customs Excise Union, according to The News. Canadian authorities had opposed the proposal because the American officers would be armed.

US agents carrying out inspections on the Canadian side was seen as a way of easing Peace Bridge backups under a shared-border accord, but Canada’s refusal to let US agents retain their firearms was a sticking point.

The Canadian approach seems to mirror US government inaction on the armed flight officers program.

“Arming the more than 4,000 Canadian border guards from coast to coast will take 10 years,” said a spokesman for Prime Minister Steven Harper, quoted by The News.

“This protection is already 10 years overdue,” Milligan said. “This needs to happen this year. Since 9/11, the border is a whole different ballgame.”

Busiest First
Customs officers at the busiest bridges will be armed first, beginning with the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, MI, the busiest crossing along the Canada-US border.

The Peace Bridge is the second busiest and the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge located further down the Niagara River, below Niagara Falls, carries the third-largest load.

The next busiest border crossing points are between Washington state and British Columbia in the Seattle-Vancouver corridor, and along the St. Lawrence River between populous and industry-rich eastern Ontario and Quebec provinces in Canada and the New York-New England seaboard.

There have already been cases of would-be terrorists apprehended both at the Peace Arch crossing on the West Coast as well as at the Ambassador and Peace Bridges in the East. So far, the terrorists have not attempted to use small arms, but border security personnel in both the US and Canada believe there is a daily threat.

Until some time in 2008, US border guards in the US will be armed, but their Canadian counterparts, who have arrest powers, will still have to call in other armed local law enforcement agencies in potentially deadly situations. That puts them in the same boat as unarmed citizens who have to call 9-1-1 when danger is apparent.

According to The News, “lack of firearms caused more than a dozen Canadian customs agents to walk off the job in September 2005 after a bulletin from a Kentucky police department warned that an armed robber was possibly heading for the Buffalo-Niagara region to try and escape into Canada over the Peace Bridge. A special team of Niagara Regional Police officers with shotguns was dispatched to the bridge to man the customs booths, but the suspect was a no-show.”
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