Joe Cunningham: “Mr. Chairman, I support not only the underlying bill but the DeFazio-Thune amendment, and let me tell my colleagues why.…”

“Mr. Chairman, I support not only the underlying bill but the DeFazio-Thune amendment, and let me tell my colleagues why. I spoke a little bit on the bill itself. Two percent is a good step, and I commend the chairman and the ranking member. And we had 70 percent of our pilots qualified up to 1987; as a matter of fact, our mail planes required that a weapon was carried to protect it prior. And so that is in place. I disagreed with one of the Members that spoke earlier that we do not mandate different folks. Very seldom can we take a car or in a post office or something like that and kill 3- to 10,000 people at one time. If we save one airplane, if we save one lawsuit, if one life that is lost, we are going to more than pay for this program. I support, 100 percent. I do not think that we will ever get to 100 percent, but all that does is allow the airlines of those people that are qualified. And I would demand strict regimentation in the actual training because I do not believe everyone should be allowed to carry a gun on an airplane because they are not predisposed either psychologically or physically to do so. I do not believe everybody is. A large portion of our airline pilots today are former Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and I think they are predisposed to do that; they have carried those kinds of weapons. But our passengers deserve to feel safe.”