Stand Down, Sky Police

American aviation's last line of defense is quickly evaporating. Disgruntled federal air marshals, according to National Review, are leaving the service at an alarming clip -- in 2014, an average of 10 agents were reported to have left the service's Washington D.C. office every month. It seems only a matter of time until the U.S. government will be forced to consider a major overhaul of one of its biggest post-Sept. 11 security upgrades.

That could be a good thing, but only if Washington is willing to entirely rethink the program. There's little reason to believe that a Federal Air Marshal Service -- which is currently thought to have around 3,500 officers -- was ever the best way to protect the more than 26,000 commercial flights that take off in the United States, on average, every day. America’s planes can be made far safer, far more efficiently.