Moderate sized birds can take down airplanes and helicopters and have done so in the very recent past. Why is everyone so loathe to admit that flying these near aircraft is insanely dangerous?

I personally think it's an over-reaction to the over-reaction to 9/11.

We were presented with, "Terrorism is unbelievably dangerous! The slightest provocation can take down an airliner. We're all gonna die unless we take extreme measures!"

A lot of people pushed back so hard the other way that they got to, "Air travel is totally safe no matter what and there is never any danger from anything."

For someone without much domain knowledge, "We need to keep drones away from airports so an airliner doesn't get brought down in a collision" probably sounds about the same as "We need to ban all liquids in containers larger than 3.3oz, unless it's contact lens solution in which case it's totally cool."

Things flying into the engines of operating aircraft, especially during take-off and landing, is an extreme hazard that has been documented in many, many cases. Anything airborne poses a serious hazard to aircraft, even tiny particles of ash.

This is nothing at all like the threat posed by liquids. That's a response to binary explosives and is misguided at best. Powder mixtures can do just as much damage and they don't screen for those at all.

Yes, I know. I'm explaining why I think people might believe they're similar, not trying to actually say that they are similar.

It's all sort of irrelevant anyways, since if you wanted to kill a bunch of people, you could just suicide bomb the giant line of people that now forms due to all of these "security" procedures.

Exactly how lasers and birds can take down planes: very rarely.

I'm sure that answer would be of no comfort to anyone whose plane's turbine got struck by someone's toy though.