More safety? BS, I used to carry knives all the time back when...never had the need to use them, but having been trained how to use them in a disaster situation, definitely feel less safe without them. If the plane wrecked and was on fire, how would you cut yourself out of a jammed seatbelt? what would you use for an emergency tracheotomy? severely reduced ability to use my training to save lives, and an equally reduced ability to defend myself against an attacker..and a "safety screen" doesn't screen out psychos..
less freedom? maybe not in the sense that I can still go where I want, but definitely in the sense that I can't take the tools I feel are necessary (fingernail clippers, FFS), and a serious and unnecessary intrusion on my own personal business. While I do agree we need more jobs, I disagree we need to hire more people to watch other people, especially when the watchers don't do their job effectively, and seem, in many cases, to be prone to exceed their authority due to an inflated sense of power, a major loss of "freedom from harassment". Seriously, you think it's OK to pull grandmas or mothers with children out of line for a serious exam, and let a guy thru who would fit the "profile", because "ethnic profiling" is not allowed and to prove we don't do it, we pointedly ignore someone who might possibly fit "the profile"? Thats not far from saying a cop shouldn't pull someone over who's swerving down the road, because he fits the profile of a drunk driver, and profiling is a bad thing. You can bet that a great many of us here would, in fact, be pulled out for a more thorough exam, because we fit the "biker" profile, and it's OK to discriminate against bikers because they're known trouble makers and not an ethnic group.
