By Yet another shooting has given the U.S. a reason to mourn.
Last week’s shooting at Los Angeles International Airport has renewed ongoing debate about gun control.
On Friday, suspect Paul Anthony Ciancia, a 23-year-old unemployed motorcycle mechanic, allegedly opened fire in LAX’s Terminal 3 at 9:20 a.m.
As a result, one Transportation Security Administration agent was killed and three others were wounded, according to the Los Angeles Times.
During the ordeal, Ciancia was shot four times in the head. He remains under armed guard at a Los Angeles hospital, according to the LA Times.
While investigators begin to ascertain Ciancia’s exact motives, we hope that some changes will be implemented at LAX.
Adding armed police officers at TSA checkpoints throughout the airport could provide more security and help dissuade future gunmen from inflicting so much damage.
Adding more armed police officers, though, would make only a small impact. The larger issue looming over this tragedy is gun control.
According to the LA Times, Ciancia purchased the semi-automatic rifle he used in the shooting at a Van Nuys gun store.
Because Ciancia bought the semi-automatic rifle legally, one should be able to assume that he intended to use it responsibly.
Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
Instead of focusing on increasing security at LAX, the public should re-examine our country’s gun control policy.
The gunman had no apparent criminal record or history of mental illness. He had no history to prohibit him from purchasing a firearm. So Friday’s shooting could not have been easily stopped.
How can we as a nation prevent another tragedy like this from occurring?
Legislators and policymakers should get together and discuss whether Ciancia exhibited any warning signs.
With the shootings at Aurora, Colo., Sandy Hook and the Washington Navy Yard, it’s easy to see that the incident at LAX was but one of many shooting tragedies in the recent U.S. history.
Instead of focusing on gun control, some have argued that TSA agents should be armed to increase security at airports.
In order to train TSA agents, a great amount of time and resources would need to be spent. But whether arming so many unqualified agents would lead to any lasting change is unclear in the first place.
Anyone like Ciancia, who apparently wasn’t afraid of injury or death, could have opened fire whether or not TSA agents were armed. People could have been killed nonetheless.
To prevent another tragedy like this from occurring, we should discuss gun control in our country and what may have led Ciancia to commit such a heinous crime. Only then will we know what progress can be made.
