“For all the hoops travelers jump through to get onto an airplane, the public areas remain a threat to airport security,” a miamiherald.com’s editorial opines. “On Friday, police said shooting suspect Esteban Santiago retrieved his luggage from baggage claim. Inside was a gun. Santiago allegedly went into a rest room, then emerged armed and shooting. The gun was in a checked bag as per aviation rules. But innocent people were vulnerable anyway. The danger came from inside the terminal this time, but a gunman could have charged in from outdoors. Security experts call this a ‘soft spot.'”

Are you following this? The Herald is saying that even though this attack came from within baggage claim something must be done about attacks that could come from outside baggage claim. Yes something must be done!

Closing that gaping hole seems to be a no-brainer. But nationwide, it’s been the subject of debate between those who would screen everyone coming through the entrances and aviation-industry opponents who cite sky-high costs and inconvenience. Still, these shooting incidents spawn new security measures. This latest should not be any different.

No mention of the possibility of allowing lawful carriers to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms in airports both as a deterrent and an efficient response? Nope. But we can console ourselves with this anti-gun boilerplate . . .

Guns are a problem. Hundreds killed in mass shootings have not persuaded a recalcitrant Congress, a majority cowed by its patron, the National Rifle Association, to take common-sense action on who can buy a weapon and who cannot. And if 20 slaughtered first-graders in Connecticut weren’t persuasive enough, then five innocent victims in Fort Lauderdale likely won’t do the trick, either. That, too, is a tragedy.

The real tragedy: the Herald and those who support its civilian disarmament campaign can’t see that taking away citizens’ ability to effectively defend themselves makes them effectively defenseless.

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44 COMMENTS

  1. Shockingly, all that security theater did absolutely nothing other than pay for pigster overtime.

    • ….. and get fat government contracts awarded to people with political connections (for equipment that generally didn’t work or may cause cancer).

  2. No. Airports need smarter security, not more of the same nonsense we already have.

    TSA provides a lot of security. A lot of shitty security with a very hefty price tag.

    Next time you’re standing in some huge line at a security checkpoint glance around and consider how much damage you could do with a couple grenades. Then imagine your bag is full of plastic explosives and ball bearings and what that would do.

    • I could easily imagine a jihadi waiting in line for ‘screening’, and when he determines he can inflict maximum carnage, pulls out a weapon and starts mowing people down…

    • Shit, just play (or watch a youtube video of) the “No Russian” mission in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. PERFECTLY illustrates how much carnage can be caused. The men open the door of an elevator and open fire with automatic shotguns, assault rifles, and medium machine guns. A realistic level or carnage ensues, at least in the few opening minutes.

      • Played it. I don’t see that is a likely event in this country. Other countries, sure but LMG’s seem doubtful to me here and largish groups seem less likely than one or a few guys. That said, even semi-auto rifles will do a lot of damage to an unarmed group of people corralled together to get through a “security” checkpoint that does nothing other than create a large group of people which is exactly what a terrorist asshole or crazy is looking for.

        One asshole with even improvised hand grenades on the other hand is statistically much more likely due to the ease with which the parts can be obtained the the things can be built. Heck you can buy a book from most surplus outlets, a book made by .gov that tells you how to make the damn things.

        • +1…. just look at the second round of paris attacks: security line FIFA game, cafes, concert hall. All crowded areas with limited avenues of escape. Great parellel and insight in to the *benefits* of suicide attacking a security check point by the way. ISIS/AQI has been doing that since 2003.

    • One of the benefits of paying for TSA pre-check and similar programs is the ability to skip the lines. They mean it in the “saves time” way, but it also gets you out of the target-rich environment faster.

      • Also, travel with your guns in cases that make it obvious what’s inside, not inside your other luggage. Yes, it removes opsec, but it also results in special handling of your bag, and you pick it up from the desk, not from the cattle call baggage claim.

      • “… is the ability to skip the line”

        But only in some airports.

        And only some of the time.

        Not to mention the fact that you have to pay to go through the TSA checkpoint and now they are charging you extra to go through the TSA checkpoint…. a practice called extortion and racketeering that put many a gangster behinds bars back in the day.

    • Reality check– That security checkpoint isn’t there for you or the crowd. It’s there for the airplane. Sure, you’re absolutely right. A grenade or a few pounds of C4 would make for a really bad day, but that’s not what happened on 9/11. Your bag of C4 isn’t going to take out 3000+ people or even just the 300 people if you opt to detonate in the sky.

      If you want to look at it from a super morbid angle, that checkpoint is a tripwire just like any watch position that you may or may not have occupied in the military. Better sh*t goes down there than on the airplane where it can generate exponentially more casualties.

      • Depending on what you do with the plane, most likely missile into a sporting event, you are unlikely to exceed the potential casualty count available the day before the Fourth Thursday in November. If you have some flexibility, look for major weather events that cause ripple delays.

        I was just at DCA the other day and storms in the SE meant that our shared gate area was packed with something in the neighborhood of 1200 people. Could you imagine what would happen if there was a suspicious package in the gate areas and they evacuated the whole airport?

  4. It is amazing how despite how the piece goes over the actual facts, clearly showing how nothing proposed in Congress would have had any affect and then slides into the final concluding idiotic rote paragraph ignoring the piece’s own facts.

    Guns are a problem. Hundreds killed in mass shootings have not persuaded a recalcitrant Congress, a majority cowed by its patron, the National Rifle Association, to take common-sense action on who can buy a weapon and who cannot. And if 20 slaughtered first-graders in Connecticut weren’t persuasive enough, then five innocent victims in Fort Lauderdale likely won’t do the trick, either. That, too, is a tragedy.

    What facts in the article support this idiotic final graph? What facts at all do they have on the circumstance so of the purchase of the firearm and how specifically the shooter would have been prevented from purchase under the Manchin proposal. (just as NOTHING whatsoever in the Manchin proposal would have stopped newton either).

    I mean it is bizarre. It is as if they wrote the piece, and a) at the last minute realized they proved the NRA correct, and decided to throw garbage concluding graph in the hopes most Herald readers are idiots; or b) some editor did not read the piece and threw that in thinking the facts supported it when the facts do not.

    • It has to be (a). Can’t be (b) because there ARE no editors anymore. Proof? Second sentence of last graf, noun/pronoun disagreement. Also complete over-use of hyphenated words.

      I’ve done a bit of writing :). That last graf is obviously thrown in at the last minute in an attempt to change the obvious conclusion. It fits like a top hat on a camel.

    • Just wait until you have to wait in a long vehicle line at the airport entrance…. because a traffic jam won’t be a target at all.

  6. So is their solution to move the security backup to the curb?

    TSA with their 95% failure rate is really security theater.

    The Connecticut incident involved a young man who murdered his mother to obtain the gun. Seems the FBI knew today’s shooter was a problem.

    Perhaps we should make murder illegal.

    • “Perhaps we should make murder illegal.”

      Ding, ding, ding! By George, I think he’s got it. /sarc j/k 8>)

  7. “The danger came from inside the terminal this time, but a gunman could have charged in from outdoors. Security experts call this a ‘soft spot.'”

    What we need is a security checkpoint at the door of the airport. Then everybody at the airport is safe.

    • You’re just not thinking this through. What we NEED, if we know in advance who’s going to be flying that day, is a checkpoint at your door, so that you and your luggage can be screened by TSA before you load it in your car or taxi. Then, we need a checkpoint at the entrance to the airport, so that you and your baggage AND the vehicle you’re in can be screened by TSA. Then, we need a checkpoint where you offload you and your baggage, so that you and it can be screened by TSA. Then, we need that all-important checkpoint where you are separated from your luggage, so that you and it can be screened by TSA. Then, we need a TSA checkpoint for you before you enter the secure area. In the meantime, the TSA checkpoint for your luggage before it gets loaded onto the little cart, and then the one just before it gets loaded onto the airplane from the little cart, will help. You, of course, will be screened once more before you actually board the aircraft, just to be sure.
      If it saves just one life. .

      • The people who would advise all these increases in TSA personnel would undoubtedly also see benefits in doubling or tripling TSA salaries. Because they ARE TSA.

        • Once again, you’re not thinking this through. There are some 93 million unemployed people in the USA; Putting these folks to work at TSA checkpoints would make us all absolutely safe, and would solve the unemployment problem at the same time. This would also provide work for unemployed/underemployed blue fabric and uniform makers, button-plant workers, badge assemblers, and Hijab factory staff.
          We should also not limit TSA to just airports; Train and bus stations, nightclubs, museums, toll booths, theaters, grocery stores, all places where people assemble after or before using any kind of transportation whatsoever would benefit.
          If it just saves one life . . .

  9. The soft spot is between the ears of the Herald’s editorial writer.

    I’m not going to click on the paper’s link just to find out the one thing I’m curious about. Does the editorial mention the fact that by Florida statute, the whole airport terminal, not just the secure parts, are “gun-free” zones where not even concealed weapon permit holders are allowed to carry?

  11. Yep, another layer of “security” at the airport and everywhere else. It would be the equivalent of the dreaded “Double-Secret Probation” at Faber College – and just as effective.

  12. We dont need more laws we need less here in Florida. Todays actions just shows that the current law here making it illegal for me to carry my gun while picking up relatives at the baggage retrieval area shows just the opposite.
    We need less laws here in Florida concerning guns in public areas of an airport.
    This includes not being able to leave ones gun in a parking area should we chose to.
    The law as it currently stands. No firearms on or in any public areas of an airport.
    Complete BS. This law has to go.

    • Jay, you are getting close to identifying the FLL problem. Because Floridians can’t carry when picking up relatives at the baggage claim area there was do hypothetical deterrent. But, this is just one hole in the sieve.

      Close the hole Florida created and you will still leave everyone in the departure area exposed. Odds are that hardly anyone will be waiting with loved ones in the departure area. Usually, drivers just drop their loved ones at the curb and they go into the airport to check-in. Thus, lifting the FL no-guns-at-airport law will just move the carnage to the departure area.

      Since the vast majority of airport goers are bound to/from the TSA “secured” area almost no one is likely to be armed ANYWHERE in an airport. Colleges are another analogous example. Since people of college age are nearly always bound to/from campus they are vulnerable in their commute between home and campus.

      Until we reduce gun-free-zones to the bear minimum (e.g., court rooms and jails) there will remain large de-facto GFZs surrounding actual GFZs. At these bear minimum GFZs we can afford to maintain metal detectors and gun-check facilities so that their surrounding areas don’t become de-facto GFZs.

      • Last time I was in DEN I carried a pistol and 28 rounds all the way TO the security line, and waited until my wife was past the Theatrical Security Associates before I left again.

        Not that I was concerned. I just like looking at her 🙂

  13. So, it is a fact that nearly all mass murderers’ choose gun free zones for their crimes. How about we divide airports into pro-2nd amendment zones and anti-2nd amendment zones. We Free Americans can travel with minimal restrictions, fewer security checkpoints, and our guns. The Democrat Party loyalists’ can stand in line like cattle waiting for their anal probes with signs attached to their necks telling the bad guys they are unarmed, defenseless, easy targets.

  14. Always blame the Muslims, blame the gun, bad security: wake the frell up sheeple. This guy was a problem after he got back from the Bush 2 war. The FBI and the Military knew that he was a nut case and did nothing. Another false flag. Because “Fear is the only way to control the people”

    • Estaban Santiago is 26. That means the he could have enlisted as early as 2008. Let’s see…Who was President in 2008…Let me think…

      It wasn’t Bush. I can’t remember WHO was Pres in 2008, but I AM certain it was someone who promised to END the war, and ended up killing more US soldiers AND innocents than W ever dreamed of.

      Can you remember the name of the President in 2008, or do you blame Bush out of reflex and laziness?

  15. Gimmie security free aiports and travel any day. Standing in the pointless tsa lines is a slow death. We give up hours of our precious time on earthvfor no rea increase in security.

    Those that would give up freedom for security deserve neither- ben franklin

  16. “common-sense action on who can buy a weapon and who cannot.”

    A good example would be, just as a for instance, the background checks which have been in effect for decades, which were promised to do exactly that. System is such a total and complete failure at accomplishing anything whatsoever, it should be eliminated, completely.

  17. I worked at a hospital where a single event caused a complete overhaul of the system(s) that was(were) involved. No one ver seemed to say: How many times has this or something similar to this happened? DO we really need to make major changes for a black swan/perfect storm event? Nope. We have to do something! (Boy does THAT sound familiar.)

  18. We pay enough taxes so the TSA can operate in the airports. What is another couple of salaries?
    Better yet, get rid of all federal police forces and leave that to the states. The Patriot Act has armed many of the agencies that never had police forces. There should be only 1, the FBI. Get rid of the ATF and use local law enforcement for anything the agencies need. If they are investigating corrupt locals, the FBI can do that. Having a federal police force sounds like the Gestapo. The fed is for regulating trade and handling felons that cross state lines to avoid prosecrution. Other than that, the states should handle the law.

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