Yeah. The "security theater" absolutely does play its part in stopping attacks. Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in. They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

> Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in.

They still are, but I'm not comfortable spelling out details. The 95% TSA failure rate should lead you to this conclusion naturally.

> They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic.

People have plenty of such things with them as it currently stands. Plenty more can be trivially brought on board in a checked bag or even pocket. But again I'm not going to spell it out.

> I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

Well that's unfortunate because it already is. I think the primary things protecting passengers are the cost of entry (the true nutjobs don't tend to be doing so well financially) and the passengers themselves. Regarding the latter, the shoe bomber was subdued by his fellow passengers.

Did you drop a sarcasm tag? Anyone can make a fire on a plane as they allow lighters on a plane, and batteries, and any number of flammable objects. None of that is facing any scrutiny nor stopping crazy people from being crazy.

Most would-be attackers are not suicidal, I suppose. You would have to be in order to start a fire on a plane that you are on.