Surveillance footage of the accused guman Esteban Santiago opening fire at Fort Lauderdale Airport last Friday. Video: TMZ website
DAVID ROBIE also blogs at Café Pacific
Just having missed the shootings by a US veteran at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport last Friday by less than a couple of hours after returning from a Caribbean vacation, I have been following the aftermath with intense interest.
From the safety of Little Havana in Miami, I have monitored the Spanish and English-language press (almost 60 percent of the population are Hispanic speakers) and live local television reports on the Fort Lauderdale massacre.
What has struck me most is that several key issues have barely been covered in the media soul-searching, topmost being the bizarre gun culture itself.
A professor commenting on CNN about another issue – the fate of the so-called Obamacare “universal” health law after Donald Trump is inaugurated next week – compared the US culture unflatteringly with the European citizens’ sense of “commonwealth” described his countryfolk as “still cowboys”.
This sentiment was reflected in at least one letter in the press. Writing in a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Rosen noted with irony:
Once again, there’s carnage.
I travel the world to countries where people have no guns but have universal health coverage. How do I explain to them that in my country we let people have semiautomatic weapons but we take away their health coverage?
So proud.
Key issues barely covered in US media reportage include:
· What is it about the militarist culture that leads young soldiers to fundamentally question the morality of their actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere and drive them to carry our vengeful acts against their fellow citizens?
· Why was there hardly any public social mourning for the airport victims (5 killed, several of them bound for holiday cruises at Port Everglades; 8 wounded)? Are Americans so used to these senseless killings that it has become something of a “norm”?
· Is there a serious flaw in basic security design at US airports?
I’ll start with the last question first. Having just personally experienced massive airport security getting into the United States for a start (beginning with first seeking a visa waiver first a couple of months earlier, a tedious process that still lead to family fellow travellers missing the first connecting flight from Los Angeles because “Homeland Security” couldn’t find passport numbers in their system) just before Christmas, this is worth a closer look.
As another traveller noted in the LA Times: “What is striking, and unreported, is that this relatively small and contained crime scene (the shooter did not even try to move around or escape), located in the open public [baggage] area outside of the security area for the terminal at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, morphed into an airport-wide shutdown because of a serious flaw in basic security checkpoint design.
Traveller Mike Post added that the exit lanes from the terminal gates that led to the baggage claim areas had no physical barriers and only limited unarmed security:
Terrified passengers fleeing the baggage area can simply turn around and run back through the exit corridor, ignoring all those ominous warnings, and in seconds destroy hours’ worth of security screening as they surge back into the gate area, rendering the entire terminal and airfield unsecure and at risk.
This type of event was foreseeable. Such a lack of foresight and imagination by our airport security professionals is inexcusable.
When we left Florida, after travelling four hours by bus to Orlando International Airport to start our homeward journey (we had connecting flights to Fort Dallas, Texas, and Los Angeles to Auckland with American Airlines — Qantas flag booking), two of our five suitcases for four people had their padlocks cut open by Homeland Security. A notice from Transport Security Administration was deposited inside the bags by the time we left LA for Auckland. It said:
To protect you and your fellow passengers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is required by law to inspect all checked baggage. As part of this process, some bags are opened and physically inspected. Your bag was among those selected for physical inspection.
During the inspection, your bag and its contents may have been searched for prohibited items. At the completion of the inspection, the contents were returned to your bag.
If the TSA security officer was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the officer may have been forced to break the logs on your bag.
The TSA notice apologised for the action but said the agency was “not liable” for damage.
The lack of public mourning over the Fort Lauderdale deaths was quite extraordinary for us, having recently visited Nice’s Promenade des Anglais Rotunda where on public display is “the outpouring of community love” for the victims of Tunisian truck driver who went on a shooting rampage on Bastille Day last year.
USA Today reported that four days after the 26-year-old accused Alaska-based gunman Esteban Santiago – decorated for his combat service in Iraq — opened fire inside Fort Lauderdale Airport, no vigils or public memorials had been held for victims.
Previous mass shootings have stirred emotions from people in the communities in which the tragedies took place…
While people hurt in the shooting are being supported by their families and friends, there has been a lack of visible response from the general Broward County community.
In addition to a lack of memorials, no official GoFundMe accounts have been created. A single bouquet of pink flowers was left on a bench outside the baggage claim area of Terminal 2. Less than an hour later, it was gone.
The newspaper also quoted the head of the department of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Dr Charles B. Nemeroff, saying US citizens had become “inert” to this sort of tragedy, “as if it is almost a routine part of life” in America.
Rarely did I see reports raising the basic issue about the US gun culture and how urgent it is to change the Second Amendment about the American citizens’ constitutional right to “bear arms”.
According to The Guardian, no other developed country in the world has “anywhere near the same rate of gun violence as the USA. The US has nearly six times the gun homicide rate of Canada, more than seven times that of Sweden, and nearly 16 times German’s rate, according to United Nations data compiled by The Guardian.
The gun deaths are also a major reason why the United States has a far higher suicide rate (including non-gun deaths) than other developed nations.
There are more than 310 million civilian guns in circulation in the United States, almost equivalent to one for every man, woman and child in the country with a population of 324 million.
I think Michael Laws wrote in The Demon Profession, words to the effect that “the US is a can of worms corroding from the inside”.
When I read that years ago I didn’t know what he meant. Now I do!
Santiago had reached out for mental health assistance before he left Alaska. He was known to be mentally impaired after his tours of duty and was still able to access firearms and ammunition.
America is awash with veterans of past and present military engagements, and there is a considerable proportion with psychological difficulties – as there is in Britain also.
And the support when they get back is less than good enough.
Trump’s political party is definitely going to make this worse if they scuttle Obamacare. It’s not great but it does give some hope.
America’s ‘terrorist’ problem seems to come mostly from its own citizens. But, even knowing that (and they do), it won’t stop those humiliating ‘security’ checks and intrusions at airports and border checkpoints.
I think the fact that he had mental health issues is the reason for silence on the matter. Trump said during his campaign that he would support veterens, although he didn’t say how. To be honest they couldn’t be treated any worse than they are now, so something needs to change. Obamacare only helps those who have nothing. Otherwise, premiums have become unaffordable.
Trump has no replacement for the Affordable Healthcare Act. The republicans are consigning millions of Americans to a crazy situation of crippling health costs without insurance cover.
Your fawning support for Trump is noted, Cosmic, but Trump is doing nothing for ordinary Americans. At least you have free hospital care here in New Zealand (if you’re living here,. as a NZ Citizen) so it’s easy for you to deride Obama’s efforts to provide healthcare to millions who never had insurance cover previously.
As others have pointed out, Trump has not suggested one single alternative to the Affordable Healthcare Act. As a result, Americans will die for want of medical care.
There are many cases in the US where small children, even toddlers, get hold of Mummy’s or Daddy’s gun to play with..leading to deadly accidents.
Mass shootings in the US are the new normal, I do not personally consider them to be newsworthy.
The US being full of really easy to solve problems but not wanting to solve them is the old normal.
On that logic, child poverty, domestic violence, high-level financial fraud, or the plague of suicide bombings in the Middle East should not be newsworthy. I’d disagree with that logic completely, however. Of course they are, as are America’s mass shootings. It’s not about what you personally consider, it’s about the fundamental wellbeing of our species as a whole, and the detrimental effect all of these issues have upon it. If you wan’t to bury your head in the sand over one issue or another, that’s your business, but the rest of us might actually still want to be aware of those same issues. News is a collective information pool, not a tailored service to cater to your personal discretions.
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