Sometimes, during free time, they’re allowed to get privately-owned firearms out to go to off-base shooting ranges, too.
I’d agree. And I would tend to think that this will turn out to be some type of disgruntled employee / personal vendetta kind of thing. As someone that travels a lot and also thinks about what kind of attack would be likely, I was just saying that I thought if there was a airport based attack like this it would be the generic killing spree type of killing we would be hearing about. This doesn’t seem to be the case.
Given the stress they must accumulate from working with irritable and angry travelers, the idea of a TSA agent becoming disgruntled and snapping doesn’t seem too surprising.
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Looks like the gunman had nothing to do with the TSA…
except that he shot a few of them… that looks to be the extent of their relationship.
Why can no one leave the terminal?
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Now on the jump, it says it was a “ticketed passenger”.
I always wondered why the government was only obsessed with the boarding area and planes. The airport, itself, could be a catastrophic location for a terrorist attack, since there are usually so many people there.
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I was of course referring to the actual military hardware and the idea that all soldiers are walking around the base armed. But you knew that. With taking quotes out of context skills like that, you should apply for a job with Fox or Huffpo. 
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That and more restrictions on guns…
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By “white house capitol lady”, do you mean this incident? Because she didn’t even have a gun. She tried to drive through the barricade with her car. Others have already mentioned how few people actually go around armed on a military base, so that covers the rest.
The original point still stands - posting a sign that says “gun free zone” doesn’t actually keep out guns. At least, it doesn’t keep out the guns you need to worry about. It will keep out the guns belonging to people who don’t intend to go on shooting sprees, but those aren’t a threat. Anybody who is prepared to break the “don’t shoot people for no reason” law is certainly not going to sweat the “don’t bring guns into gun-free zones” law. No potential mass shooter has ever got to the planned location, seen a sign that said “no guns allowed”, said “aw nuts!”, turned around, and gone home.
Boingboing is, in general, opposed to security theater. Gun-free zones are security theater. “Assault weapon” bans - which CA already has one of - are also security theater.
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Fair enough, but it’s also clear that although most personnel on military bases are not armed, there are armed military police and internal security. In Fort Hood the perpetrator was quickly accosted by MPs while in the Navy Yard armed internal security reacted within a minute or so.
I suspect that these places are no more gun free than most other public spaces in the US (and certainly less gun free than public spaces in other Western societies), which makes it difficult to believe there is some correlation between gun free zones and crazy people intent on hurting others.
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The intended point isn’t that “gun free zones cause shootings”, it’s that "gun free zones do not prevent shootings.
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They don’t worry exactly because there are so many people. The constant stream of travellers flowing through duty free shops and restaurants would be a nightmare to secure. It’s as unfeasible as locking down a shopping mall.
That’s clearly not the intended point when you say “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.” They always do it in gun-free zones? That’s a lot different than saying they sometimes do it in gun-free zones, and sometimes in other places.
Also, I spoke of correlation, not causation.
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Autoplay video FTL.
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Well said. The Boingers are in the awkward position of being generally against security theater, and also generally against guns in the hands of citizens, as far as I can tell.
It’s a little bit contradictory.
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I never said she had a gun. I included in response to a vague statement about “when some lunatic does something like this,” which I interpreted as a lunatic engaging in homicidal behaviour in public. I would also apply it to situations where someone goes on a knife rampage, though these incidents only tend to happen (and with much lower mortality) in countries where there is effective gun control (which also suggests that state prohibitions on firearms actually does have some effect in altering behaviour, because it’s pretty clear that these knife-wielding maniacs are somehow dissuaded by firearms restrictions).
[citation needed]
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It’s not all that awkward. When you actually pay attention to how often armed citizenry prevents or contributes to shootings, you notice that advocating everyone being able to carry guns as a way to stop them basically is security theatre.
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Actually, no. Military members do NOT carry weapons routinely: as far back as the 1980s, if you lived in barracks or the BOQ/BNCOQ, you were required to keep personal weapons at the MP/AP/SP vault. Only the cops who responded at Fort Bragg and at the Navy Yard had weapons. In practice, unless out on an exercise that REQUIRES people to have weapons issued, bases are pretty much gun-free zones.
And the crazy White House / Capitol lady was entirely unarmed. All weapons in that incident were Secret Service, Capitol Police, or DC Metropolitan Police. . . .
Vetnoir was quite correct: mass shootings DO tend to happen where nearly everyone else is prohibited from carrying a weapon. . .
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Yes, it really is. You’re telling the government we can’t trust to not spy on us, can’t trust to secure their own systems, and can’t trust to set up a decent insurance sign-up website, to handle tight regulation of guns. Oh, and while police tend to be municipal, county, and state, it’s the same kind of people who can’t be trusted to stop harassing people for being in public while black, and can’t be trusted to get the right house when they have a no-knock search warrant.
Those of us who live in places where it takes 20min. for law enforcement to show up, don’t want to have to rely on them being close.
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Actually, they are MORE gun free than other public spaces in the US. And add to it that carrying a unauthorized firearm on a military base is a more serious federal crime than anything civilian.
Yes, I can see how it would be difficult to form that correlation except for the very fact that this ALWAYS happens somewhere guns are restricted or posted as being so.
And also be aware that yes, there are MPs and the like at military bases however as a percentage of the population of those on base they are equivalent or even less in number than in the general civilian population. And reacting within a minute or so, is a LONG time when you can fire >1-2 shot a minute. A moderately trained person can get off a aimed shot a second and a untrained one can shoot even faster using the pray and spray method.
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