CA:AP Pushes Gun "Panic" at LAX

When criminals with a long history of burglary are caught in the act, the AP is very careful to call them "alleged" burglars.  When a gun owner is spotted by a hoplophobe and denounced to the local authorities, the "alleged" adjective is nowhere to be seen.  Here is the headline:

"Man pulls out unloaded gun, causes panic at LAX"

It was written in spite of ambiguity in the police report, as shown below:

Airport police Sgt. Karla Ortiz said the man either took out the gun or a gun carrying case around 9 p.m. Friday.

The headline leaves no doubt about the illegitimacy of the act of being a gun owner.  No details about how many people responded to the person who transferred some valuable and sensitive personal property from luggage where he was required to place it by law, to somewhere else that made more sense to him.

I can easily sympathise with this fellow.   I have carried a gun dozens of times though numerous airports in the United States, including Reagan International on the very edge of the District of Columbia.  The only place where I met utter panic and official incompetence was in California.  I had to educate  the officials there on the law and their responsibilities.   I cannot speak for New York City, I have managed to avoid them.

I doubt that this fellow did anything wrong, or that he had any indication that he was marked for persecution by one of his fellow air travellers.  

The point, of course, is to make the public exercise of second amendment rights a shameful thing, not accepted by "right thinking" members of the public, backed up by the use of force to demonstrate the power of the state over such "outmoded" concepts as constitutional rights and the rule of law.

Update: Man released, did nothing wrong, as predicted.  From the latimes:

Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad officers searched the man’s luggage before clearing the scene. The man was arrested on suspicion of brandishing a weapon but was later released for not meeting the criteria of the brandishing charge, Ortiz said. He was cleared to carry the handgun.

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