I thought Delta people just go through the VIP security? The one with no metal detectors.

And my understanding of sidearms was that it they were issued out regardless of your position in case your main weapon failed.

If Delta officially "doesn't exist" (despite the entire world knowing better), why would they reveal themselves to airport security? Who would believe them? Are we going to start handing out Delta Force badges? They are military, so Posse Commitus (or however you say it) applies and they have no legal authority. it's nonsense. Besides, they travel inconspicuously. Going through VIP (what is that anyway? I though FBI types and the crew just showed their badge to the TSA guys and walked through.) attracts attention. waving a long-hair guy in civilian clothes through makes people curious

Nope, that's why you should be proficient in clearing stoppages in your weapon. If your Rifle fails you just yell "weapon down" or "black" depending on your unit SOP and your team-members cover you until you get your weapon back up.

1.
Delta Force officially "DON'T EXIST" in U.S Army, according to themselves. Just some fool politicians didn't really care about the reason why they had to hide these SOF's identity at the conference, and that's why we can now walk about special forces called "DELTA FORCE".

2.
I wouldn't try to argue about whether they are able to carry weapon inside airplane, and nobody gives a damn about the chance they will go crazy and start shooting at the people, ending up crushing themselves in white house, but there is no way anyone without any kinds of authorization from both airliner and central command center for airplanes (i don't know what they call it, but there are some places for commanding planes), not even president cannot carry weapon.

P.S) Exception for Airforce One may apply

3.
When your main weapon jam or fail to fire, the first thing you have to do is reloading the weapon, not pulling out sidearm in order to kill the enemy. The best way is pull out used magazine, pull the charging handle, empty the chamber, put in new mag, and start shooting at all over the place. Pulling out of sidearm instead of cleaning out your MW means you're in some serious shit.

Fed agencies like marshals, fbi, ice, can all carry on planes. Im sure delta would be able to get an exemption.

The point of a sidearm is that you have a backup weapon in the event your primary weapon does fail and you DONT have the precious seconds to do "tap, rack, bang". If all you have is one primary weapon and nothing for backup, then you'd take cover. You also did the process wrong.

If your primary weapon fails to fire, you don't take out the mag first. You lock the bolt back, then you strip the magazine, if that didn't already fix the problem, you look inside to see the problem to see if it is a double feed or if the bullet is jammed in there. If it is jammed in there, you have to physically pick it out. Otherwise, you rack the charging handle a couple times until the jam clears. Then you reinsert a topped mag and power stroke the charging handle one time and fire. That's for double feeds.

If it's just a simple bad round, you just tap the mag, rack the charging handle and then fire.

1. I was mentioning about dropping a mag when if the whole mag goes wrong or mag is being suspicious(like spring goes wrong, etc). I know that i wouldn't pull out whole mag and dump it only because of double feed. That's waste of ammo, and also stupid action in battlefield.

2. When i said "Pulling out of sidearm instead of cleaning out your MW means you're in some serious shit", that means you're in tough fight when you have to pull out sidearm instead of trying to solve the malfunction because it means that you don't have reaction time of cleaning your main weapon, but still needs to have a working gun on your hands. I don't think that pulling out of sidearm in range of 300 meters from enemy when your main weapon fails to fire. Maybe i should've mentioned about range condition first :)

If Delta, why not SEALs? Force Recon?, Ranger? Green Berets? Where do you draw the line? Delta can't, because they are military and have no authority (aside from the "i have a gun, you don't" bit). I'm sure letting them carry would violate Posse Comitatus(like I mentioned earlier) Here's Wikipedia, the all-knowing Internet God of Truth, accuracy, and The American Way, says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act.

So Delta can't because they are DOD, not DOJ. Any questions? let's get back to the original topic.

That's not what sidearms are for in the United States Military;(excluding any Spec-Ops who you could be right about for all I know). Like others have said before the purpose of sidearms primarily is to arm those who aren't likely to see combat but still have a need to be armed, but don't need to be encumbered by carrying a rifle around all the time.

Like I said before if your weapon goes down you take a knee and yell weapon down so another squad-mate will cover your sector while you fix your weapon.

I remember reading once how "pistols are among the hardest kinds of firearms to aim, thanks to how many lack a buttstock, another full place to grip with the off-hand, and the short sight radius," so it's not a surprise that rifle form is emphasized first in the regular Army.

So, what would it take to make the first steps towards replacing the M9 with something like the Glock 20? Same magazine capacity of 15 rounds, much better stopping power in FMJ, flatter bullet trajectories and better range, along with more compact options (such as the Glock 20SF, the Glock 29, or even a Glock 29SF) should the need arise for those with hands too small.