GUNS AND AIRPORTS

SPECIAL POST

Once more we have a horrific shooting and once more we have to ask ourselves how it might have been prevented or mitigated. The initial reaction I heard late Friday and into Saturday was along the lines of how we just have to prevent people... take more action against potential shooters... by making it tougher to get guns into airports.  

Wow, have they ever gone blind and completely missed the point.    

Schools were chosen because there was an absolute no guns allowed policy at schools; the same with some nightclubs and countless other places where mass shooting have taken place.  This gunman knew, beyond any doubt in my mind, that when he arrived at Ft. Lauderdale he would already be inside the terminal and have access to a gun when nobody else did.  

You've two choices, my friends: (1) hire a million more armed cops to patrol places where guns are not allowed, or (2) reduce the number of places where guns are not allowed so that law-abiding citizens authorized to carry concealed weapons can be there to take down a shooter.  

Those same people who travel from place to place to shoot in sporting events or competition or who want to have their weapon with them when they arrive where they are going, should and do have a safe way in which to transport their weapons by plane.  They have to call ahead to the air carrier and obtain instructions as to how that carrier will accept guns for transport; generally, it involves locking the trigger mechanism, taking out all bullets in the gun and in the magazine, removing the magazine from the gun, separating the bullets physically from the gun and placing the locked gun, magazine and bullets into a locked hard case, which is then shipped in the baggage compartment totally away from the owner.   I do believe that at both ends of the transport the owner should be required to provide identification and that an instantaneous background check should be completed.  

If someone in that terminal baggage area had had a legally carried gun on them, they may have been able to take down the shooter and saved some lives.  And if the shooter had known that people might be carrying guns on them, the odds are he would not have chosen that time and that place to  commit his ugly attack.  

That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.