So if the shooter was a TSA agent, then clearly we can reduce airport terrorism by eliminating the TSA. Oh, wait, thatâs been true all along.
Donât jump to conclusions. Early reports are often very wrong.
Excellent point. Iâd support the banning of TSA agents in airports.
See? SEE?! Conclusive proof that the TSA is not only necessary, but not going far enough. Body cavity searches 3 miles from the airport coming to travellers soon - I called it first!
Oh good, this is clearly the perfect way to effect changes in security procedure that wonât make everyone even more miserable.
âŚwow I think I strained a sarcasm muscle there.
I find it interesting that whenever some lunatic does something like this, they always do it in the place where people are prohibited form carrying guns.
From what I have seen so far it looks like the shooter started on the unsecured side of the checkpoint and shot his way through to the secured side. Iâm actually somewhat surprised that he bothered to do that, I always assumed that the next time something like this happened it would happen on the non-secure side where you have tons of people congregating to get though the checkpoint.
So, in one incident, the TSA both caused and suffered more casualties than it has ever prevented? Score.
You are eliding the (far more common, if usually settled in less high-profile settings) case of people who show up with a gun, not with the intention of just spraying rounds into the crowd until the cops take them down; but because they are looking to kill somebody in particular, for reasons of some personal grudge or something.
If your sole criterion is âshoot as many people as possible because $SOMETHING$â, sure, you start at a distance suited to your weapon near the densest unarmed crowd and begin shooting. If you actually want to kill somebody in particular, though, thatâs about the stupidest thing you can do. You get as close as you can, without attracting attention, and ideally make your kill and leave.
The odd thing about this case is that it falls awkwardly between the two: If you have a personal grudge, an international airport is crowded public, and going to have the cops on call on very short notice. Just look up the guyâs home address.
If this was a generic spree killing, it was a remarkably tepid one.
I donât have anything to say about yet another shooting but Iâd like to say the autoplaying video halfway down my feed reader (I use feedly, if it makes a difference) is not cool and Iâd expect a group like BoingBoing to know better.
Have you been involved in something like this? It sounds like you know an awful lot about how to get the best bang for your buck (âdistance suited, densest unarmed crowd, get as close as you canâ) - youâre scaring me, Barney Fife!
Perhaps the shooter thought he had a way to get through the checkpoint with his weapon undetected, and opened fire there only when his intended plan fell apart.
No, no, nah! This PROVES that we must make TSA agents actual police with guns!
AND pass a new law that makes murder of an on-duty TSA agent a crime!
WaitâŚwhat?
(Actually, sadly, nobody will think twice about this when the knees start jerking and the cameras roll.)
Hail Sithis, Carlos.
Right, like the Fort Hood shootings, the Navy Yard shootings, or the crazy White House-Capitol lady? No guns around there, for sure.
Maybe he hated all of his coworkers, and he thought that was the best place to go to get them all at once.
I donât know about the White House shooting youâre talking about, but as for the Fort Hood and Navy Yard shootings, people are prohibited from carrying guns on base. Theyâre actually really strict about keeping all of the guns, even privately owned ones, under lock and key in the armory.
âGuns donât kill peopleâŚâ
but they sure make it a lot f*ing easier for
â⌠people to kill peopleâ
Iâm not sure how the circumstance of the Whitehouse/Capitol Lady would apply seems to be kind of a stretch on many levels. As for Fort Hood and the Navy Yard, your response indicated that you have never been to a military base. The firearms at any military installation are strictly controlled and are only taken from secured storage for training in very controlled circumstances and in times of war. The idea that a military base in the United States is filled with a bunch of armed soldiers is completely false. Most military people spend 90%+ of their time away from and with no control of any type of firearm.
And of course, they will somehow spin this as proving that we need to give the TSA more power. And enough of our fellow citizens will turn out to be bootlicking authoritarian dogs pissing themselves in their eagerness to appease their masters, that theyâll get away with it. You heard it here first.
