Hunger Pain And Suffering Games

Making sense of tragedies like the shooting at Los Angeles' International Airport seems futile at this point. Police have charged Paul Ciancia with murder of a federal officer and committing violence at an international airport. The charges could qualify him for the death penalty. This is horribly ironic, since according to many reports he was suicidal just prior to going on his rampage. It the idea was that he could show up with a loaded rifle and let the nearby law enforcement officers do the job for him, he misunderstood the equation. Mister Ciancia shot and killed one TSA agent, then wounded two more along with a civilian with his assault rifle before he was shot four times while the rest of Terminal Three dove for cover.
It doesn't make sense because it's not the product of a stable mind. Ciancia's duffel bag contained a handwritten letter signed by him stating he'd "made the conscious decision to try to kill" multiple TSA employees and that he wanted to "instill fear in their traitorous minds." Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee observed, "It's very difficult to stop these types of attacks. And you know, it's like a shopping mall outside the perimeter, it's almost like an open shopping mall. So it's very difficult to protect."
Take note, crazy people with guns who live closer to shopping malls than they do to airports. Ultimately, there is no safe place to hide. Which is why I would like to suggest a ridiculous solution to a terrible problem: Create free-fire zones for those individuals who feel moved to end their lives at the end of a gun. Don't make law enforcement officers have to struggle with your motivations. Drive on down to the local shooting gallery, lock and load and take your chances with the other nut-jobs who are alternately anxious to kill or die. It would be substantially less expensive than making sure that people like Ciancia get the mental health care that they need. Instead of medication, money could be spent on ammunition. Why spend all those hours sitting in front of your X Box playing Black Ops when you can live it? And if the government could give up some of its broadcast time on C-Span to broadcast the melee live, it could become a revenue stream itself.
Or maybe we can spend a little more money, time and effort trying to deal with the twisted reality in which we currently find ourselves. The one where a lone gunman can walk into a crowded airport and kill innocent victims.