<< And, honestly, who thought of these as weapons before Sept 11th... >>
It isn't that they weren't thought of as weapons. It's that nobody before Sept 11th thought that hijackers would deliberately and intentionally crash the plane they themselves were on. Aircrews had been told not to resist hijackers in the hopes that after the plane landed, the hijackers would be dealt with. In which case, boxcutters, penknives, etc., while certainly capable of being used as weapons, were also capable of being seen just for what they are 99.9% of the time - useful tools that many people (including me, for one) carry, almost all for innocuous purposes. The only thing that might have stopped Sept. 11th (other than armed & well-trained undercover sky marshals on all the hijacked flights) was catching those psychotic murderous scumbag bastards before they got on the planes. Tom Beck "I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I didn't realize I'd also see the last." - Jerry Pournelle
