Who likes the TSA? They've made traveling by air so unpleasant, I avoid it when at all possible, but apparently, some take it more seriously. Paul Anthony Ciancia took it with all the deadly seriousness only a madman can muster. How he could walk into an airport with a rifle under his arm, like someone on a hunting trip, I don't know. Airports in Europe that I've been in have armed commandos in plain view, but apparently LAX does not and it seems almost miraculous that more people were not shot yesterday morning. At this point I don't know who was responsible for wounding him multiple times, but fortunately he was captured before his suicide-by-cop plan came to fruition.
Ciancia was obviously deranged and apparently suicidal according to family members who called LAPD. At this point, I don't know who was responsible for wounding him multiple times, but fortunately he was captured before his suicide by cop plan came to fruition. We shall see, but at this point, the usual sources have been, since the original reports, concentrating on the military appearance of his "high powered" rifle as though that mattered in this day of handguns with 30 round magazines. If experience teaches anything, I'll bet that the choreographed media response will concentrate on repeating failed approaches and avoid any discussion of how people like Ciancia can buy any kind of weapon, how anyone can carry a rifle into an airport unopposed and how the anti-government hate mongers can act appalled while they continue to tell the idiots and madmen of America that the government is out to rob them of their freedom and property and put them in death camps.
It seems as though the TSA at LAX has been confiscating a frightening number of handguns, most loaded, at security checkpoints. We should be concerned. We should wonder why
Because something is happening here.
But you don't know what it is.
Do you, Mister Jones
Another shooting; another mentally unbalanced young male. And good question, Capt.: Why do these young, angry, men easily purchase lethal weapons so they can express their illnesses and anger by killing innocent people? Wait. I think I know.
ReplyDeleteThis country is mad as well.
Over the past week, I've had the opportunity to have discussions with visitors from Paris, Toronto, and London--couples in their early 40s. They are astounded at this country. First, by the ongoing bitter controversies over the A.C.A. They're all covered by national health plans and none of them understand the opposition to having the same sort of coverage here. Second, they don't understand how individuals who are sick in the head can get hold of lethal weapons. They don't understand ANYTHING about the violence we perpetrate on each other.
I had very few answers for them.
They're as likely to steal or borrow them as not. My family is kind of international and yes, they don't understand our horror of access to medical insurance we are now allowed to purchase through the same old insurance companies. My Swiss relatives are particularly amused at the idea that this is communism, being from the most capitalist nation anywhere and which has a very similar health care plan, but then our psychotic antipathy to anything that can be dressed up as socialism is our national insanity and is behind most of the evil we're done in the world in the last century.
DeleteSadly, the mass shootings have become a part of the American fabric. Much like nanotechnology, they appear to be doubling in density every few years. It will take quite a stretch of domestic tranquility to convince me that this is not continuing. To me, it's breaking down into roughly four categories. School shootings, random public massacres, disgruntled former employees or students and those with a beef against the federal government. Timothy McVeigh being the grandfather of the latter class, albeit his choice of weaponry was more sophisticated.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to see all four problems relating back to the near worship of guns as fetish in this country. Idiots that get out their guns while binge drinking with friends and end up cutting a hole in someone's head. Boys in Texas out for a hunt on Grandpa's ranch with too many beers. Just playing with guns in general instead of treating them with caution. Pages and pages of NRA gear from fashion to ammo holsters. Little tiny rifles for boys and girls. Perfectly normal people squandering their time and treasure at shooting ranges. A group that will not appear in public without their body holsters loaded up and ready to go. A U.S. senator defending the psycho killer George Zimmerman.
I don't see it so much as the price of freedom as the price we pay for the mass indoctrination and propaganda of outlets such as talk radio and FOX News. Mostly just to keep the people angry and cowed and submissive.
I personally have no problem with TSA since they got rid of the full body x-ray machines.
ReplyDeleteWe've always had a lot of guns in America. We haven't always had rampage shootings. I still have to suspect that media glorification of the "go out in a blaze of glory" meme has much to do with these things. Shoot up some public place and you'll be the center of attention for weeks. Jump off a bridge and nobody notices or cares.
I don't know enough about this particular POS to know whether or not he stole the gun, lied on the paperwork or what. Perhaps, as I suspect, it will come out that he wanted to die anyway. Perhaps it was all about the hate he absorbed listening to far Right talk radio. We will have to wait and see, but I 'd like to know why LAX has been intercepting so many passengers carrying loaded weapons of late. Is it just stupidity or do they have a reasonable expectation of getting away with it? Were they planning mayhem or were they like the many people I know who don't feel safe unarmed and feel naked without a firearm. Every last one of them is a far right, Tea Party, government fearing, Fox watching, apocalypse expecting Republican and most are convinced that life is very very dangerous. The media breeds and feeds these folks, but it does the same for people convinced that their neighbors will freak out and start shooting randomly. Paranoia starts deep as the song goes, and is contagious as hell.
One thing I do know is that such fearful people aren't typical gun owners and The people you see at gun ranges are the same sort you have been seeing for a century, whether the ranges are on country club grounds, college campuses or open to the public. Squandering? Seriously? Do you know what it costs to play golf? People will pay a grand for a fishing reel and 300 grand for a boat to use it on and that's just a starter boat. It's easy to pay over a million.
People have their passions and a love of guns and shooting sports is as old as the hills. A hundred years ago shooting exhibitions were the national passtime. Annie Oakley was not the only sharpshooting rock star. Rampage shooting is not a time honored institution, even though mass bombings were for quite a while. . Something is happening here and I don't know what it is. . . and the only thing I'm confident in is that our certainty that we do know will get in the way of doing anything effective.
You and I really are not that far apart on this, Cap. The more people we have thinking about it, maybe we can all do something to reverse this disturbing trend.
DeleteIt is very troubling that this happened at LAX. I have not been there in several decades as San Diego usually has a direct flight or a connecting to flight overseas through Dallas or some other major hub. It is similarly disturbing to me that so many idiots are attempting to carry on loaded weapons. I assume that it has the same general system as Lindbergh Field. There is one level of security at the curb and in the outer perimeter of the airport. And then there is the line to go through TSA security and metal detectors where we once travelled the same corridors freely to meet our grandparents and loved ones at their respective gates. Oh the joy of seeing them come off of the plane! What a golden era was the jet age of the Boeing 707!
You can bet that we will see some serious responses to this incident. Los Angeles is no backwater in a red state. There will be a definite increase in curb to detector security. More federal police and agents of many stripes. Less and less freedom. Ironically brought about by our own citizenry. Let's all work through it together with joy and perseverance.
More and more hassles and inconveniences as traveling becomes more like being a refugee or trying to get around in a war zone.
DeleteWar mongers are always trying to tell us freedom isn't free, but this is more like the real cost and for sure, safety isn't free.
I can't help thinking that some of the blame for this one sticks to the anti-government rabble rousers though. Criticism is one thing, but the rage against government can't help but to incite the marginal people, the crazies, the paranoids to take violent action. When armed resistance to democracy is seen as patriotism, we're in trouble.
Seems to be-
Delete"LAX Shooter Was A 'Pissed Off Patriot' With Extreme Anti-Government Views And Emotional Problems" -Business Insider ...the word 'patriot' is beginning to lose its
true meaning as it becomes adopted by the TP type. Meanwhile, 2nd Amendment collateral damage continues.
Patriot now means paranoid. We need a new word for someone who respects his country and wants it to be about liberty and justice for all.
DeleteI think repealing the 2nd amendment is a lost cause however. We don't have 300 million guns here because people fear and loathe them. I think we need to continually redefine what is legal and what isn't, but I don't think there's a simple and workable solution to allowing so much power to the people without danger.
Promotion of the idea of modern life being very dangerous still sounds like the TP and NRA game in reverse. Considering how many people pass through airports every day of the year, one person killed means the odds of it happening to you or me is still miniscule. Around 3 million people fly every day in the US and more people than that enter airports. What's that - like a billion to one odds of getting shot by the batshit brigade?
They say in the ad business that sex sells. Fear sells a hell of a lot better.
'Fear sells a hell of a lot better'.. seems to, but IMO, it is a two-edged sword: some folks, like Gabby Gifford, would feel safer if the 40% of firearms sales at gunshows
Deletewere subject to background checks. Some folk, like many in my area are packing heat to protect themselves- so the fear tends to spiral in opposite directions. These armed citizens are not trained police, although most cc training involves cautious
judgment when deciding to shoot. Road rage and drinking turn a reasonable
person with a firearm into a potential shooter. Airports seem safe enough, but given
the occasional kook and lots of armed folk, I'd be concerned about civilian free
fire zones one of these days; and it seems more little kids are getting shot accidently than back in my day. So, I agree, there is no 'simple and workable
solution, but we should be thinking about some.
Last week, I was traveling with my mother’s ashes - for an interment ceremony later in the week – and was afraid of a hassle going through airport security. I came prepared with documentation; and the TSA did take extra precautions to verify the contents. Although worried, I was polite and forthcoming with the TSA, and they in turn were more than respectful and considerate of my concerns. After a delay of only a few minutes, I boarded the plane: No problem.
ReplyDeleteIn my view, the TSA is merely another scapegoat – one of many - in the delusional mind. In an article I wrote some months ago, Gunz and Kulkture, I referred to “cultural artifacts,” the sum total of messages, symbols, and feelings that crash in the mind. Perhaps the article was misunderstood or muddled in an attempt tackle a very complex subject within the context of limited space. Some readers took offense at my comments about the prevalence of guns and missed a larger point: The prevalence of subliminal violence in the form of cultural artifacts.
About six weeks ago, this article appeared in the NYT: The Violence in Our Heads. Apparently, the author had been struggling with the same issues that vexed me:
“An unsettling question is whether the violent commands from these voices reflect our culture as much as they result from the disease process of the illness. In the past few years I have been working with some colleagues at the Schizophrenia Research Foundation in Chennai, India, to compare the voice-hearing experience of people with schizophrenia in the United States and India.
The two groups of patients have much in common. Neither particularly likes hearing voices. Both report hearing mean and sometimes violent commands. But in our sample of 20 comparable cases from each country, the voices heard by patients in Chennai are considerably less violent than those heard by patients in San Mateo, Calif. (skip)
These observations suggest that local culture may shape the way people with schizophrenia pay attention to the complex auditory phenomena generated by the disorder and so shift what the voices say and how they say it.”
Perhaps I should revisit and rewrite the original article and try again.
I just read an interview with Jimmy Carter about this in Sunday's paper. He is of course, an advocate for effective gun laws but if he's right, only about 4% of violent crimes are committed by mentally ill people. Too many? yes, since one person can do a lot of harm, but somewhere this matter must have a heart and I'm not sure we know what it is. I don't trust statistics without asking questions, but I've read that something like 1% or less of violent crimes are committed with guns bought at shows, yet I hear voices suggesting that this is responsible for the madness. I don't think so even if the statistics are off by a factor of two. The illegal drug trade is a big sponsor of murder but we react to some kinds of murder far more emotionally than others and we perceive danger to ourselves in a most irrational manner. If you spend all day every day in an airport, you're still far safer than if you live in certain neighborhoods of Chicago, but the level of public concern and alarm is quite different. To some extent I have to blame the voices from the TV as much as voices in heads.
ReplyDeleteI quite buy into the idea that solving problems with violence is part of American culture and anyone who watches our most popular movies and TV shows or looks at our foreign policies over the years might just agree, What do the ancestral voices say elsewhere? I would be interested to know.
But we have more than one kind of violence and more than one kind of motivation and what may help reduce one probably won't have an effect on another. I think we have a number of acts to clean up. The only reason I mention this is to reiterate than we're not going to find a simple solution and the love of simple solutions is as American as Smith and Wesson.