Why doesn’t Washington keep nuts out of the sky and prevent Austin like tragedies? The answer is simple. It can’t be done. At least not in a free and democratic society.

As a private pilot, I have a few thoughts on this. And as a trucker and a bus driver, it's become pretty clear to me that a reasonable solution is not within our reach.

I’m tempted to ask, “Why not prevent all errant misfits from flying a plane into a building, all truckers and bus drivers from loading up with fuel and driving at a high speed into a crowded city street with a busy lunch time restaurant, or a tug boat or ferry pilot from ramming their tug or boat into a dock with a crowded dockside restaurant?” We already saw the havoc a runaway tug can cause to busy pier–side shops and restaurants just a decade ago in New Orleans.

The fact is, there are always going to be a means to cause heartbreaking destruction as long as we have commerce and a free and democratic society. It doesn’t even take someone with access to a plane, a truck, or a boat as Timothy McVeigh proved with a rental truck and determination.

Any attempts at limiting the rights of private pilots is merely window dressing by the government simply to make the public feel good and show that the government is doing something. But it does nothing to solve the problem. The problem you see, is people. And as long as we have people walking our streets, we have potential misfits with intent and the means to wreck havoc on the rest of us.

So, the bottom line is this. If we want to solve the problem that a handful of misfits present, we simply limit our population. Less people, less exposure and less the probability of misfits. I wonder how China fared with their population control? Or we make everyone carry a government issued “certificate of sanity.” But I guess that’s an oxymoron, a government issued sanity certificate. Oh well. Maybe not such good solutions after all.

Until some way is discovered to identify people with evil intent, I guess the rest of us just have to be watchful and alert to suspicious activity. But even that would not have identified the pilot of the Austin event. And who would we report “suspicious activity” to? And what would they do about it?

Democracy and freedoms do come with a cost.
Russ Kelly
Westminster, SC