One more crazed wacko shoots up LAX Airport. One more crazed wacko who shouldn’t have had a gun, much less an assault rifle. Yea, that’s what many of us call those guns that are used to assault people and can kill lots of people in a matter of seconds. One TSA agent was killed and 2 others wounded.
The shooter was shot in the stomach/chest several times and is in serious condition (obviously). He had contacted his family. They described him as rambling and angry.
Passengers were terrorized and ran for their lives. Services were disrupted well into the night.
Are those of us who watched on TV just desensitized to this gun violence committed by crazed idiots with some sort of piss off at the world? Obviously the NRA will justify why nothing should be done and that we just need more good guys with guns.
What will it take? We have had schools, airports, colleges, malls, movie theaters, shot up. The American public is outraged…well sort of. Obviously not outraged enough to prioritize this issue during elections. Obviously not outraged enough to stand up to the NRA and its talking heads.
I share your outrage, moon. I guess we should just get used to these mass shootings. There has been a lot of grateful rhetoric aimed at TSA this comes as no surprise. Gun hungers should be ashamed of themselves
Well, I’ve never met a ‘gun hunger’ I didn’t like! ; )
How could this have happened at LAX? With the strictest gun laws in the country, California is not supposed to have mass shootings. I guess it is now time to suspend the 2nd Amendment.
There is no 2nd amendment in the California constitution. I just bet that shooter hopped the state line and bought his gun over in Harry Reid’s state. We shall see.
SA and Kelly, do you think this is a joking matter? Are TSA agents dispensible?
There is no 2nd amendment in the California constitution.
What happened in CA is part of the American problem. I am not so sure any of our states have strict gun laws. What do you consider “strict” when looking at California’s gun laws?
Strict gun laws don’t do anything except give courts something to convict someone of when they are caught with a gun. “Wackos” will find a gun if that is their weapon of choice. And what makes you think he went to Nevada to buy a gun? Just because it is next door? C’mon–he could have bought the gun almost anywhere. The District of Columbia tried to have a “strict” gun law but the Supreme Court took care of that.
To be clear on the Second Amendment, I think it is outdated and that the Founding Fathers never meant for it to be what it has been interpreted to be all these years later. None of them were prescient enough to have foreseen the types and lethality of today’s weapons. Someday, perhaps we will become civilized enough to get rid of guns and the Second Amendment but we’re not there yet.
Maybe someday we’ll be civilized enough to free ourselves of the constraints of the entire Constitution, instead of just the second amendment.
It just boggles the mind to think that we still revere an ancient governing document written by and for old, white, slave-owning men.
It boggles the mind to think that some people haven’t grown conceptually since it was written.
@Moon-howler
They are all over the place-you can’t swing a cat by the tail without hitting one.
@Moon-howler
Your reference to the NRA made me think this was a political thread, not an opportunity to express condolences. It was definitely a tragedy, no doubt about it. What I question is the belief that the “right” legislation or ban will somehow prevent future events.
People have been killing each other for a long time. There is a certain segment of society that believes the Old Testament is literal truth. I believe much of it is allegory, but one part that I take at face value is the first recorded story of a family in which one brother killed the other. People will find a way to commit violence no matter what legislation is enacted.
Kelly, not sure what you mean about a political thread….
I think you are probably right about no legislation putting a stop to all killing. However, I have grown so weary of the NRA blowing off any and all attempts to enact any legislation at all. It is obvious that the organization is clearly more interesting in defending rights, as it sees them (as opposed to how the American people see them)than it is saving lives.
The supporters of the NRA also add fuel to that fire.
I don’t think there is any hope of finding common ground.
Seriously, let one nut even, lose his gun rights, and it becomes a federal case.
Sure as anything / among industrialized countries the US shoots more people
dead than any other country. Why? Could it be the old Wild West syndrome?
Got a problem? Have a shoot-out. The good guy in the white hat shoots the bad
guy in the black hat. Kapow! Problem settled.
@punchak
Usually its two bad guys shooting each other over drugs.
Cargo, ever seen any old westerns? Lots of symbolism.
Here’s a daily tally of gun deaths and it’s probably shy of many of those unreported suicides. There are a lot more than two shooters arguing over drugs.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html
That staggering. What leaped off the page at me is that there have been no shooting deaths in North or South Dakota. Some of the poorest people in the world live in these two states–the Lakota Indians (and other tribes) So much for the theory that poverty is always linked with gun violence.
Maybe they can’t afford bullets.
@Cargosquid
Whatever! Americans shoot each other dead more than other nationals not at war.
Could it be because it’s so easy to get guns, or is it some other reason, Squiddy?
Hatewatch Exclusive: Alleged LAX Shooter Referenced ‘Patriot’ Conspiracy Theories
Mark Potok on November 2, 2013, Posted in Antigovernment, Domestic Terrorism, Extremist Crime, Patriot
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(Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
The 23-year-old man who allegedly killed a TSA official at Los Angeles International Airport yesterday was carrying a one-page “manifesto” that included references to the “New World Order,” the Federal Reserve and “fiat currency,” according to a knowledgeable source with ranking law enforcement contacts.
Paul Anthony Ciancia, who allegedly wounded three other TSA workers before being shot and critically wounded himself, also expressed antagonism toward the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its chief until she resigned in August, Janet Napolitano, the source said. Ciancia’s note called former Secretary Napolitano a “bull dyke” and contained the phrase “FU Janet Napolitano,” the source said.
Ciancia’s language and references seemed to put him squarely in the conspiracy-minded world of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement. The New World Order refers to a longstanding conspiracy theory that today, in its most popular iteration, claims that global elites are plotting to form a socialistic “one-world government” that would crush American freedoms. Often, the root of the alleged conspiracy is traced to the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve and the adoption of fiat currency — paper money that is not backed by gold, as it was once was in the U.S.
So-called Patriots also increasingly see the DHS, which produces intelligence assessments of extremists that are distributed to other law enforcement agencies, as an enemy and even a collaborator in the New World Order conspiracy. Many believe DHS has targeted their movement and is somehow connected to the alleged construction of concentration camps by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The purported camps are thought to be meant for those Americans who resist a coming national seizure of all weapons from U.S. citizens.
Paul Ciancia (LAPD)
The TSA, short for the Transportation Security Administration, is an agency of the DHS charged with ensuring the security of transportation, most notably air transportation. Although it has not been widely singled out by Patriots, it has been subjected to criticism by far-right homophobes, among others, who have alleged that TSA agents engaging in hand searches are really sexually groping travelers.
One witness told MSNBC that Ciancia asked people at the airport if they were TSA and, if they said they were not, moved on without trying to harm them.
Yesterday, several news organizations reported that Ciancia was carrying a hand-written document referring to his desire to kill “TSA and pigs.” Pete Williams and Andrew Blankstein of NBC News, who first reported that Ciancia had referred to the New World Order, also wrote that a source said his manifesto “expressed animus toward racial minorities.” Hatewatch was not able to confirm that allegation.
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2013/11/02/hatewatch-exclusive-alleged-lax-shooter-referenced-patriot-conspiracy-theories/
Typical
@Moon-howler
Maybe the Native Americans use bows and arrows and thus are not counted as “gun” deaths.
Good point.
I found it remarkable that there were no gun deaths in a year. Just amazing.
@Moon-howler
I’ve seen lots of westerns…..all of it fiction. The “wild” west was more peaceful than the East Coast. New York was where the violence was.
The point being the black and white hat symbolism.
@Moon-howler
2/3 of those deaths were suicide.
Some include justified homicide.
Is that a new one? Justified homicide?
@Starryflights
If its coming from the SPLC, I’ll wait until there’s another source. The SPLC lies.
@Starryflights
Hit submit too soon.
You forgot to mention that this “manifesto” is being reported only by an anonymous source.
This comment at the link is a good synopsis of Potok’s history of slanted hackery:
A search of the HateWatch archives turned up nothing on Christopher Dorner or his manifesto. He was the “lone wolf” just prior to the Boston Marathon bombing.
The Boston Marathon Bombing has two entries: One which mocked those who supposed that the perpetrators might possibly be Islamic radicals. Then, once it was established that the perpetrators were indeed Islamic radicals, a dry, CYA piece by-lined by Potok himself about lone-wolf Islamic radicals. It’s worth it to note that the extent of CYA Potok intended to buy by posting it was only enough to glibly knock back accusations that HateWatch wrote “nothing” about the incident. The piece did not even mention the perpetrators by name, lacked the apocalyptic urgency he doused this article with, and presented the possibility of an anti-Islamic backlash as it’s central concern.
We could keep going back further: nothing on Clay Duke, a single item on the Cleveland Bridge plotters (again lacking in humid rhetoric about the Occupy movement), and so on.
Can it be that there’s something inconsistent in the SPLC’s reporting here?
Is their willingness – Potok’s willingness – to run to publication with a morsel of soft info from an anonymous source a sign of desperation. Desperate, that is, to have some bloodshed they can paint the domestic civil opponents of the Democrat party with, so they might redeem the shameful history of the “Hope they’re white guys” talk vis the Boston Marathon bombing and their crass exploitation of Gabrielle Giffords?
@Cargosquid
Slate’s reference to 10,000+ deaths are not necessarily including the projected suicides which would bring the estimate to approximately 29,000+ gun deaths according to the CDC.