Gunman Opens Fire At LAX 520
McGruber tips news that today at 9:30AM PST, a man removed an assault rifle from a bag at Los Angeles International Airport and opened fire. The shooter moved into the screening area, and then further into the terminal. One TSA agent was killed; roughly six more people were injured. The gunman was a ticketed passenger. (Early reports suggested he worked for the TSA — this does not seem to be the case.) Police engaged him in gunfire, and he's now in custody. His motive is unknown at this time.
Re:Harder than killing him... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why not kill the guy? (Score:5, Informative)
He was shot and is in critical condition. Happy?
Firearm Legal Status (Score:5, Informative)
An assault rifle, by definition is a machine gun. The gun used at LAX wasn't (as best we can tell from the available information). So the first sentence in the summary is inaccurate.
There's speculation, based on a photo on Twitter that the rifle is a Ruger Mini-14, in which case it may not have qualified as an "assault weapon" as defined by Federal Law. Under Feinstein's last [failed] assault weapon ban, the Ruger Mini-14 with a collapsible stock was banned, but the other Mini-14's were ok. It would depend on whether or not the stock folds/collapses.
Under California law, the pistol grip, and ability to accept a detachable magazine are sufficient to classify it as an "assault weapon."
Looks like high capacity magazines were used, although they may have had inserts to render them legal (i.e. limit them to 10 rounds). If they are large capacity and he owned them before 2000, they're legal. Otherwise they would only be legal if they were limited to 10 rounds (or fewer).
We can say with high confidence that a semi-automatic rifle was used. Under the previous Federal assault weapon ban, and the more recent failed Federal effort, this rifle may or may not have been considered an "assault weapon." Under California law this rifle is an assault weapon. The magazines may or may not have been legal.
Re:Article summary sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The NRA must be pleased (Score:4, Informative)
but few, if any, would argue that it documents a right to discharge their firearms in such a manner.
But a whole bunch of people spend a whole lot of time and money making sure that nutjobs have access to guns that fire 60 rounds per minute.
Re:Great... (Score:3, Informative)
I'll assume this is a real question from someone that doesn't know the quote.
There is a legend of how the universe is constructed that the Earth lies on the back of a giant turtle. But wait, what does the turtle stand on? Ummmm, well another turtle. OK, what does that stand on? Eventually you get to "turtles all the way down".
It's become a phrase in some situations where you wave away a hard problem by having more and more layers of the same, turtles all the way down.
Re:Great... (Score:5, Informative)
Whereas since banning handguns in the UK, handgun crime has gone up (that is, crimes involving handguns, not possession of one), and all firearm crime has gone up by more. Look at the graph on this page [bbc.co.uk]. about 1/2 the way down. Handguns were banned in 1997, when gun crime was on a downward curve.
Also, see this [google.co.uk](PDF, sorry about the google cruft, can't be bothered editing) police statistics report. It shows that serious handgun crime more than doubled in the 4 years after they were banned, despite having been dropping for the previous 10 years or so, when they were legal.
I don't own a gun, probably never will, but I dislike the government telling me what I can and can't have based on poor logic. Also, It had been demonstrably shown that in the UK, barring other factors (and I doubt there were _that_ many other factors), banning handguns increased handgun crime.
Re:Great... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, but you've been lied to.
The homicide rates [aic.gov.au] in Australia did not decline after their gun ban. Or rather, they declined (averaged), but at the same rate they were declining before. In fact, that brief spike that you see on the graph is right after the ban.
Suicides also do not show any correlation [ic-wish.org] with gun ban. Suicides by gun declined, yes (again, at the same rate they were declining prior to the ban), but suicides by hanging actually increased.
Violent crime rate [aic.gov.au], meanwhile, has increased, mainly due to increase in assaults, and in particular of sexual assault. Robbery rate actually spiked after the ban, but then went back to where it was. Everything else didn't change.
So, no. Australia did not solve anything, the laws were purely "feel good" kind of stuff.