In the wake of the failed Christmas day Fruit of Kaboom bombing attempt, our response has been predictable. Add more air marshals. Full-body x-ray scanners that allow operators to see you naked, and don’t work against all explosives anyway. Policies and procedures — like forbidding you from having anything, including a magazine, in your lap 1 hour from landing — that are overly restrictive and totally worthless, since we have no control over the airports in other countries.

It’s more 9/10 thinking in a post-9/11 world: treat everyone like criminals and hope that the bad guys don’t figure out a way around new rules and regulations. Thanks to the current administration, we’re back to playing prevent defense, and as any football fan will tell you, prevent defense doesn’t do anything but prevent you from winning. We need to go back on offense when it comes to finding and killing terrorists abroad. But we’ll leave the Global War on Terror discussion for another time.

If we were serious about airline security, we’d take the following 3-step procedure:

1. For all flights originating from and landing in the USA, if any passenger has a valid concealed carry permit, they are allowed to carry their loaded firearm on the plane. Hiring more air marshals is good and all, but save them for the international flights. Here at home, let the people who have passed FBI background checks carry their guns on the plane just like they would anywhere else. Fears about explosive decompression resulting from an errant round punching a hole in the fuselage are overblown, and the benefits of turning every passenger into a potential air marshal outweigh the risks involved. Common sense dictates that terrorists prefer to target victims that cannot fight back.
2. Get the government out of airport security. Dismantle the TSA. Let each airport be responsible for their own security. More secure airports get more traffic; less secure airports get less traffic, and either go under or are forced to beef up their security. For example: Say you live in Cincinnati and need to travel round-trip to Chicago. You can leave from Cincinnati’s airport, or drive 45 minutes and leave from Dayton’s if you feel that one is more secure. Coming home, you can choose from O’Hare or Midway, whichever you feel is more secure. Some people will say it’s an inconvenience to drive 45 minutes; other people will say their life is worth it. Ultimately, the choice should be up to you.
3. Let the airlines be responsible for their own security. They will choose the airports they want to operate out of, and then spend the money on the terminals they lease to install their own security systems. By doing this, the airlines that have the best security will get more business, while the airlines with bad security will ultimately fail or — because of competition — be forced to upgrade their security. And you could rest assured that internationally, the security for each airline would be the same for a flight coming out of Amsterdam as a flight coming out of Augusta.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that all of these things would work, none of these things will happen. Because they make too much common sense.