LOS ANGELES -- It appears the TSA agent shot this morning four terminals over has died. That was the word carried by dozens of people who had decided to walk out of LAX in search of rental cars and whiskey, whose number I will be joining shortly. (One report has the shooter, in custody, as "a white man in a white shirt." Investigation is ongoing.) Terminal 7 is gradually coming to life again; flights here will be delayed, but we are not a crime scene, so things likely will get back to normal by nightfall. There are bomb squads with dogs wandering about. The ticketing area is abuzz with low cellphone conversations reassuring loved ones that everything's okay, and that folks are likely going to be a little late going home. Every now and again, a person in a TSA uniform will wander by. They have the 1000-yard stare going. The shock waves are weaker, but you can still feel them moving through the place. A cop just ran by. Everybody turned and stared.

There already is some talk about this event being a "random" one. But it is not. These things are becoming as regular as rain, as predictable as the summer heat. The only thing "random" about it is the shooter. He could be anyone, and that's the point. There are people who spend money making sure that he could be anyone, and there's nothing "random" about how they do that. There is nothing "random" about this country's ludicrous disinclination to regulate its firearms. There is nothing "random" about the millions of dollars that the NRA spends to convince people that they should have the right to carry their assault weapon anywhere they want to carry it, including into an airport terminal, if they so desire. There is nothing "random" about the politicians who truckle and bow to this lucrative monetization of bloody mayhem. These are all deliberate acts with predictable consequences. There is nothing "random" about how we have armed ourselves, and there is nothing "random" about the filigree of high-flown rhetoric with which we justify arming ourselves, and there is nothing "random" about how we learn nothing every time someone who could be anyone decides to exercise his Second Amendment rights by opening fire. There is nothing random about how we got where we are today, here in Terminal 7, where people have sought refuge from the bloodshed, four terminals over. There is nothing "random" at all. We have chosen insanity over reason. We have done it with our eyes open. It is time for me to walk out of the airport now. I am leaving behind a terrible event. But I am not leaving behind something accidental. I am leaving behind what America has determined must happen from time to time, if we are to be a free people. I am leaving behind what America has determined is part of the cost of being an American. I am leaving behind the blood that I am told I must accept as part of the price of being a member of a free society. I am leaving behind a place of death, and I am joining my fellow citizens, as we make an odd pilgrimage out of a place that is now another altar of the blood sacrifice that I am told we must make, regularly, in order to be truly free. I am a free citizen, I am told, of the Republic of Murder, my rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Moloch. I am leaving.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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