Belize Ahead of the Curve on Guns in One Key Way

I’ve always been of the opinion that if law-abiding American citizens were allowed to carry guns on aircraft, 9/11 would just be another random date with no meaning for most of us.

Instead, it was the most horrific day in our nation’s history. Not only was the death toll higher than at Pearl Harbor, but the World Trade Center was a civilian target.

But because of the threat of terrorism, guns are prohibited on planes in the United States.

In Belize, though, an incident involving a Saint Louis County man suggests that the tropical nation is ahead of us on gun rights in one way.

A U.S. man that hijacked a small plane in Belize before being shot and killed was from the St. Louis area.

Investigators said early Thursday morning, the terror went on for nearly two hours over the skies of Belize.

Police said around 8:30 a.m. St. Louis time, U.S. military veteran Akinyela Taylor hijacked the plane and went on a knife-wielding attack.

…

Investigators said the airplane was carrying 14 passengers and two crew members at the time.

“When the plane landed, we immediately made our way to the runway. I must say at the time the plane landed, it ran out of fuel so again, God is good,” said one investigator.

Taylor’s nephew didn’t know his uncle allegedly stabbed two passengers and a pilot until 5 On Your Side’s Robert Townsend told him this afternoon.

Investigators said one of the wounded passengers eventually shot and killed Taylor.

In fairness, because it was a small plane, it might not have had to go through the typical security checks we might find at a major airline. Guns aren’t exactly prohibited on all flights in the US–charter planes, mostly, or private aircraft as the only two examples I can think of–but federal law does restrict how people can travel with guns in such a way that no one besides law enforcement is legally armed on any given plane.

Belize somehow doesn’t, apparently.

They’ve got gun control laws aplenty, mind you, but it seems you can have a gun on a plane, and that worked out to put down an American with a knife who hijacked a freaking plane.

As a result, this incident was resolved with a good guy with a gun putting an end to the threat.

Of course, there’s a lot we still don’t know about the incident and, frankly, since this didn’t make major headlines throughout the world, I doubt we’re really going to find out the details, but I will point out that yet again, bad people do bad things and will use whatever they can do do those bad things, but a good guy with a gun puts an end to all of that.

Unfortunately, this is a debate we’re not going to have here in the United States.

While this illustrates the benefits, too many people are way too invested in keeping the status quo as it is with regard to guns on planes. They don’t trust you or me with them, even if we have a valid carry permit for the state we’re in and, at a minimum, reciprocity with the state we’re going to. They don’t care about our constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, either.

But we can see the benefits of doing so.