steering wheel won't lock, and sounds like it's loose

In addition to the thoughts above, if we assume that there is some possibility of the column being 'collapsed' causing a danger, it would seem to me that if you had two steering columns, one where it is the normal length uncollapsed, and one where it is shorter because it is collapsed, how would this provide any measure of safety? If you're moving that far forward, you are moving the same distance to hit the column at its full collapsed location whether it starts out uncollapsed or collapsed. Once way or the other, if you go that far, you're screwed. Now if you welded the column in its normal length instead of replacing the pins or just leaving the pins gone, there is where I could see a problem, because now you have caused the distance you have to go forward before the column stops moving to be shorter, and therefore you will be impaled sooner.