The LAX Shooting and guns at airports

Friday night the details of how – and why – a man showed up at Los Angeles International Airport with a rifle and shot his way through Terminal 3 are still being pieced together.

A lot is already known.

The man doing the shooting has been identified as 23-year-old Los Angeles resident Paul Anthony Ciancia.

A TSA officer – 39-year-old Gerardo I. Hernandez – was killed and perhaps a half dozen other people, including two other TSA officers, were injured.

And thousands of passengers at LAX and other airports around the country had a travel day seriously disrupted.

More than 700 flights were canceled or delayed. Close to 50 were diverted to other airports.

And pretty much everyone is shocked and freaked out.

Here’s a link to a story from by Brian Sumers and Larry Altman that does a really good job of describing the events of the day. Sumers was one of the reporters on-site and tweeting from LAX most of the day.

A lot more details will surely be revealed in the days ahead and we’ll be horrified by them all.

In the meantime, as it does most every Friday afternoon, the TSA released a tally of the number of guns found – but luckily not fired – at airport security checkpoints this week.

This week 29 guns were discovered at airport security checkpoints. 27 were loaded. 9 had rounds chambered.

And, as we know, one loaded rifle was used to wreak havoc at LAX airport.

TSA GUNS OCTOBER

Courtesy TSA

 

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