I was sitting in the palm beach airport yesterday with my family waiting to fly home when I got a news bulletin on my phone that there was active shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport, about 40 mins away. We prefer PBI when visiting my mom but often fly out of FLL as the prices are often much better. My daughter and I had just gone through the badge claim looking for the lost and found we were told was there, hoping to retrieve something she had left on our flight going down.
As some people have mentioned, these type events happen much too often and while I do of course feel sympathy for the victims, I feel one has to somewhat remain detached to a degree, otherwise I truly think it would be hard to leave the house in the morning. However, due to our proximity as the event occurred, and it being a real “this could have so easily been me” moment, I’m having a hard time shaking this one off. My first reaction was really the desire to gather my family in our house and lock the door.
My husband found out just a few days ago that a very close colleague of his was just killed in a freak accident abroad. We are both throwing to use these two events to remind us to live our lives to the fullest and be grateful for every moment…
It just came out that the only thing he checked was a handgun. No other baggage.
Why would that not raise red flags? Do people just routinely travel with only a gun?
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article125142924.html
Three of the victims have been identified by family members.
“It just came out that the only thing he checked was a handgun. No other baggage.”
Perhaps everything else he just carried on. A lot of people don’t check luggage at all these days (fee and hassle) Carrying on a gun isn’t an option so I could see a situation where someone would only check a gun for a flight if they were carrying one on their person.
Wanting to own and travel with a gun is something I don’t get.
@doschicos I’m also someone who never checks bags, but they made it sound like he literally had nothing else with him. Of course, I could’ve misunderstood them.
Given the current climate, I think (with great sadness) that it’s highly unlikely that a policy of questioning passengers who are checking bags containing guns would be allowed.
Given the current climate, I’m afraid racial profiling will become an even greater problem in such circumstances, @rosered55
@doschicos, I agree.
》》 I don’t think this guy was prepared to blow himself up like a “terrorist” would.《《
Sources?
“The gunman was taken into custody after throwing his empty weapon down and lying spread-eagle on the ground, one witness said.”
albert, I ask this in all seriousness, have you paid attention to this thing at all?
I do think there have been great improvements in safety in the last 20 years. Columbine changed a lot of things in the physical protections and in how law enforcement responds, but there are still shootings at schools. The shooter got into the elementary school in Newtown, but only after shooting his way in because of the safety feature installed. How are you going to completely secure a public place?
The interior of airports is much more secure, but there is only so much they can do to protect the areas outside the concourses where anyone can enter. The Brussels bombing was in the ‘open’ part of the airport. This shooting was in baggage claim, and open area, and the way FFL is any taxi can pull up to the baggage area and someone could just walk in with a gun.
I tell my kids to get in and out of the ‘open’ areas as quickly as they can, but yesterday my daughter was in the baggage area of Orlando for about 2 hours as she was waiting for her boyfriend on a delayed flight. Sometimes you have to stand there to rent a car, or to rebook a ticket, or to look for lost luggage. And of course we still go to public areas like airports and movie theaters and Costco and stadiums. It’s really not possible to make every place secure. People have been shot in courtrooms with armed deputies standing right there.
We have to start taking mental illness seriously in this country. Stop looking at it as a character flaw and judging people rather than seeking to compassionately treat their ILLNESS. Especially for our veterans who come home from horrific experiences with emotional and psychiatric scars. They are not weak or evil. They are ILL. This shooter demonstrably ill and there was no treatment provided for him.
Let's blame ISIS. Let's blame evil. Let's blame gun laws. God forbid that we should blame our cultural view of mental illness.
Rant over.
So the definition of a terrorist is someone who blows people up? Trucks, planes, guns, axes, and other weapons are the causes of other attacks, only bombings are terrorist attacks? Got it. Okay then.
Go ahead, blame the gun. According to CNN, his gun (which they believe was the same one used in the attack) had been taken away from him during some mental health evaluation, and was returned to him after he left that. So what happened there? They had a chance to take the gun away for good if he wasn’t mentally sound enough to have it. There are already laws for that. Perhaps @romanigypsyeyes should have evaluated him, since she would have certainly been able to predict his behavior.
I may be wrong about the terrorism being the main cause. I just find it bit more sensible to blame the possible influence of organizations whose purpose is to kill mass numbers of innocent people (which was mentioned by the suspect himself) than merely a piece of metal.
“So the definition of a terrorist is someone who blows people up? Trucks, planes, guns, axes, and other weapons are the causes of other attacks, only bombings are terrorist attacks? Got it. Okay then.”
Who ever said this? Where? What I did read: “Terrorists are going to carry out their acts with whatever they can get their hands on.”
Other countries have mentally disturbed people.They don’t have our statistics on deaths by gun violence because they don’t have the rampant gun ownership and loose gun laws that we do. I’m really tired of the “guns don’t kill people” garbage. Yes, they do kill people.
In my state, the reporting of an individual to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) or our state Crime information center is only mandated if they have been involuntarily committed or has been declared incompetent. Different states have different rules. Am guessing if he was evaluated and didnt meet criteria for involuntary hospitalization (imminent harm to himself or others) and declined voluntary hospitalization, he was given a referral for follow up care and sent on his way. Sad state of our system.
Okay, albert69, are you going to seriously maintain that a person who walked into an FBI office and said what he said should EVER be allowed to have a gun unless he had received intensive medical treatment and spent years living in a completely stable manner? He needed hospitalization, not to have them turn him loose with a gun. The fact that the gun was returned to him so quickly only goes to demonstrate the sickness of our gun culture. The only reason he wouldn’t have received significant hospitalization is because our society is so incredibly cheap when it comes to mental health care. We’ve made it extremely difficult to keep someone hospitalized against their will, but IMNSHO it is not because the system actually gives a damn about the civil rights of the individual, it is because we are CHEAP and a certain segment of society doesn’t believe that mental illness is the same as physical illness. If we were not so cheap, we would have an adequate system of group homes and assisted living and theraputic living situations that were part of a universal health care system that would enable mentally ill individuals to receive the care they need in appropriately secure–in the broadest sense of the word–settings.
Leaving aside the unmet needs of millions of civilians who suffer from mental illness, I’m sick and tired of hearing a certain segment of the population yapping about “thank you for your service” and “aren’t veterans wonderful defending our liberty” but flatly refusing to fund the help they need after they come home
So what gun laws would have prevented this? Please elaborate. Perhaps banning all veterans from owning guns?
》》 Okay, albert69, are you going to seriously maintain that a person who walked into an FBI office and said what he said should EVER be allowed to have a gun unless he had received intensive medical treatment and spent years living in a completely stable manner? 《《
Not at all, that’s precisely my point. I’m wondering how he was deemed mentally stable enough to have his gun at that point if he was babbling about being mind controlled to watch ISIS material. Perhaps there need to be some more stringent requirements on mental health evaluations in that sort of case.
Albert, seriously bud, if you’re going to attempt to put words in my mouth, you should at least make sure I haven’t specifically said something just the opposite in the last page of posts:
More stringent requirements on MH evalutions? What exactly would that entail? If he says the right things and is not deemed to be at imminent risk for harm to himself or others at the time of the evaluation, he is not likely to be seen as qualified for an involuntary admission. Again, states differ on their rules for an involuntary admission, but the risk for an “unlawful detention” (i.e. habeas corpus issues) is weighed againt evidence of criteria for involuntary admission and evaluation.
BTW, let’s PLEASE NOT turn this into another gun thread.