OTTAWA – Canada’s transport minister said this week that his nation’s commercial pilots would never be allowed to carry guns.
“What’s the next step, arming bus drivers?” said Minister David Collenette. A U.S. lobby group that led the successful drive to arm American pilots promised that guns in the cockpit would make the skies safer.
The pistols will be locked up when they aren’t needed, but available in an emergency, said Capt. Marc Feigenblatt of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance.
Collenette said arming pilots could be the first step toward making guns as popular among Canadians as they are among “our American friends,” a prospect he found unappealing. “We have a better society here because we have stricter gun-enforcement laws.”
