Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
On Friday, 26-year-old Iraq combat veteran Esteban Santiago withdrew a pistol from his waistband at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and began methodically firing it at the heads of people milling around the baggage claim area, killing five. He surrendered to police after running out of ammunition and was taken into custody.
Over the weekend, Reuters reported that Santiago had voluntarily walked into an FBI office in Anchorage, Alaska back in November and complained that he was being “mind-controlled” by a U.S. intelligence agency. He was turned over to local police, who sent him for a psychiatric evaluation.
“’Santiago was having terroristic thoughts and believed he was being influenced by ISIS (the Islamic State militant group,)’ Anchorage Police Chief Chris Tolley told the news conference,” wrote Zachery Fagenson for Reuters.
During that evaluation, police apparently confiscated a pistol from Santiago, and then later returned it after adjudging him to be mentally sound.
“’As far as I know, this is not somebody that would have been prohibited (from having a gun) based on the information they had,’ U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler told the news conference.
Investigators said they have not ruled out terrorism as a motive and that the suspect’s recent travel is being reviewed,” reads two more ‘graphs of Fagenson’s piece.
So, while the ghouls of the Left use this latest tragedy as a rationalization for disarming all Americans, smart people would do well to let the above bits of information sink in. The same government that wants increased power to decide which Americans’ basic human right to own firearms should remain intact, whiffed on an easy one. Mental illness is a very tough thing to get one’s arms wrapped around. Some sociopaths are truly unhinged, but also very adept at hiding their sociopathy from normal folks and can thus pass undetected among the ranks of the sane for decades. Others, however, walk into an FBI office and tell whoever answers the door there that they’re being mind-controlled by a United States intelligence agency; and then follow it up with an apparent admission of being “influenced” by ISIS.
They gave him the pistol back! How did that conversation go: “Well, Mr. Santiago, here’s your handgun back. Good luck with the whole sensation-of-being-mind-controlled-while-being-influenced-by-international-terror-thing, hope it gets better. You have a good day now.”
Again, full disclosure: I am of the educated opinion there ought to be no government and therefore no arbitrator over who gets to have their human rights violated and who doesn’t. However, we’re stuck with a government that completely sucks, and wants yet more power, including the aforementioned increase in power over who gets to have guns or not. I have always argued against granting the government more of any power, let alone more of this sort of authority. I like to think I make reasoned, rational, well-thought-out arguments to that effect. In fact, I’d go so far as to say no one has ever been able to even come close to defeating me in a debate about gun control. In college, I even won a few converts from the ranks of lukewarm lefties to our side, on this issue at least.
However, in 40 years of life and more than 20 of them spent advocating for less gun control laws, I have never, ever seen a more eloquent, if tragic, argument against the government’s ability to enforce so-called “common sense” gun-control laws based on “mental health,” than this awful event.
Anyone who walks into an FBI office voluntarily ought have their mental state questioned. Anyone who does so and then declares they’re being mind-controlled by a government agency and/or is being influenced by ISIS most definitely should be looked at – again, if we’re going to pretend we need a state and that it should be in charge of these sorts of things, a fallacy most Americans believe. If the government can’t get this one right, it has no business reviewing the should-be-confidential medical records of a citizen and then deciding if their seeking treatment for depression 15 years ago means they shouldn’t be able to buy a gun today.
The objective, material lesson to take away from the Fort Lauderdale tragedy is that government cannot protect you and it will not ever protect you from anything. Fortunately, mass-shootings like these are rare. Sadly, mainstream media sensationalism makes it tough for many to put the aforementioned fact into perspective, therefore an irrational fear seeps in and takes hold. That growing, festering fear of the statistically improbable leads the subject to want to feel safe and protected. That same media machine stoking their fears has “taught” them that this protection and safety can only come from the government and its various agencies of violence. This perpetuates the idiotic cycle we have today of snowflakes crying for the state to “do something” while the wise – their voices muted by the cacophony of caterwauling – shake their heads with a shudder as we remember what happened last time government stepped in to “protect” everyone from a mathematically unlikely demise; now I have Tor on my computer and everyone from the pope to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg puts tape over the front-facing camera on their devices.
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