It’s a little known fact that mass shooters target specific types of places, that their shooting rampages aren’t random.
It’s unfortunate that this fact isn’t more widely known because the more people realize this, the more lives that can be saved as changes would, then, be made to correct for the problem that makes those locations targets.
And what is that problem? It’s that they are typically gun-free zones. Active shooters typically target gun-free zones so that they have the best possible chance of killing the maximum number of people before someone with a gun (typically law enforcement) can arrive on the scene to stop them.
It’s evil, but if you’re wanting to do evil things, it is a logical way to give them the best chance to achieve that twisted goal.
The best way to prevent them from reaching their goal? Do away with gun-free zones, and enable and encourage more and more people to carry firearms with them daily. Make it harder for would-be mass shooters to select targets that make it more likely that they can gain infamy from their rampage.
Having said all that, when people think of gun-free zones, they typically think of schools and churches, and that’s why those two types of institutions have been common targets for mass shooters.
A recent incident, though, could indicate a new target that mass shooters may choose to go after. From a news story from The Associated Press:
Police arrested a man at Atlanta’s bustling airport on Monday after getting a tip from his family that he was planning to shoot up the place, and found an assault rifle and ammunition in his truck outside, the city’s police chief said.
Billy Joe Cagle, of Cartersville, Georgia, had described his plan to shoot up the world’s busiest airport on a social media livestream, Chief Darin Schierbaum said during a news conference.
“The Cartersville Police Department was alerted by the family of Mr. Cagle that he was streaming on social media that he was headed to the Atlanta airport, in their words, to ‘shoot it up,’ and the family stated that he was in possession of an assault rifle,” Schierbaum said, describing Cagle as a “convicted felon.”
Cagle, 49, arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in a Chevrolet pickup truck that was parked right outside the doors to the airport terminal. When police went to the vehicle, they found an AR-15 with 27 rounds of ammunition, Schierbaum said.
The good news is that no shots were fired, and no one was killed.
But you do have to wonder if airports, especially busy international airports like the one in Atlanta, Georgia, will now become one of the common targets that mass shooters and would-be mass shooters choose to go after in their twisted pursuit of fame.
This is yet another reason that the government should stop trying to regulate and control firearms. If legal gun owners were able to carry their firearms with them at the airport and on planes as they do outside of gun-free zones, it would give pause to those with evil intent, and it would encourage those criminals and criminals-to-be to go someplace else to commit their evil deeds. Or, ideally, to give up on their twisted plans altogether and seek help to get over those intentions.