History Headscratchers / DieHard2

* I know that security was decidely more lenient pre-9/11, but I'm still positive that they would not have let anybody bring an electric stun-gun on to a plane. In fact, from ''Film/DieHard'', it would have been pretty hard for John to bring his gun on the plane, without having to check it, regardless of the fact that he is a cop (When a cop is off-duty, they're essentially a civilian).

** Honestly, I think McClane was just screwing with the security guard when he threw that out there, to try and make him realize just how serious the situation really was.

* Those Glock 7 guns. We all know guns without metal parts don't exist, but even if they did, wouldn't the bullets inside the gun trigger a metal detector.

** The same reason that there isn't a gun without metal parts in real life, it's the only effective material (assuming you want the person you're shooting at to actually die - plastic won't cut it)

*** As well he should, since "guns invisible to X-rays" have become a recurrent boogeyman of anti-gun rights groups based almost entirely off of the claims of a ceramic gun in ''Die Hard 2'' (Nowadays there is a federal law stating any commercially available gun must contain enough metal to set off an airport metal detector. They're now (2013) considering revising that law to also state that the metal must be sufficiently distributed in the gun so that it can't be removed without rendering it nonfunctional). And people complain about the effect ''Series/{{TwentyFour}}'' has had on the torture debate...

* I know that security was decidely more lenient pre-9/11, but I'm still positive that they would not have let anybody bring an electric stun-gun on to a plane. In fact, from ''Die Hard'', it would have been pretty hard for John to bring his gun on the plane, without having to check it, regardless of the fact that he is a cop (When a cop is off-duty, they're essentially a civilian).

* How do they reconcile the fact that John's wife's plane had 90 minutes of fuel left and was circling around DC...and thus had over a dozen alternate airfields that it would have automatically diverted to if it have no communication with the tower?

** wouldn't the bad guys simply just have jammed that frequency? and any other frequency they might be using to contact the planes?

* John [=McClane=] pulls out a machine gun and starts to spray the police chief right in front of a bunch of other cops! And not one of them shoots him down! [[spoiler:OK, they were blanks, but the other cops had no way of knowing that...]]

*** Considering the chemistry between McClane and the obstructive airport security official, it's easy to interpret the scene as McClane simply trying to bullshit said official, who obviously wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

*** The fact that they lost communications with the planes in the first place is pure PlotHole. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_emergency_frequency There is a specific frequency band used solely for aviation emergencies]]. Every aviation radio in the world is designed to be able to use this channel, and every commercial aircraft is required to listen in on that frequency at all times while in flight. Our heroes could have broadcast in clear to all the planes circling Dulles from any transmitter in radio range that could operate on guard frequency (such as, oh, the one at Andrews Air Force Base, which would entirely make this transmission on behalf of the police and be able to authenticate their bona fides besides), and all it takes to get aircraft diverting to nearby airfields is one simple transmission -- "Dulles International Airport is closed due to a terrorist incident in-progress that has seized the air-traffic-control tower. Disregard all transmissions claiming to be from Dulles Approach and divert to other airfields immediately.".

** Yeah, they're simply not expecting an attack at all (John ''is'' a fellow cop, after all, and they're safe back in the office at this time, not in a potential danger zone), and by the time their reflexes catch up with what's going on, the realization that [[spoiler:John was firing blanks]] has also caught up with them.

*** It would have been easier to squeeze out using leverage from your legs via the ladder than trying to go the other was with you hand pushing in the snow.

** Because the terrorists are still watching the airport and even if you could warn the planes about the bogus ATC and tell them about the signal fire they could have brought shoulder launched SAMs to take a few planes out.