30 year old Air Traffic Controller Paul George Dandan was arrested on Friday accused of having a weapon of mass destruction and was later found guilty and charged. He had been given a homemade pipe bomb by another man, Derrick Fells, who had -- according to investigators -- planned to 'use it against a neighbor with whom he was involved in an ongoing dispute', but changed his mind.
There are so many issues and worrying details of this situation. For one, it is scary and dangerous that an average man can make a homemade pipe bomb. I think that this incident should be a wake up call that it needs to be harder for people to get explosives because the pipe bomb that Dandan had could have led to a much more devastating outcome. It is not yet known what his plans with the bomb were, but if you need a pipe bomb for your plans, they probably shouldn't be going on.
It is also scary that someone that works at an airport was in possession of this bomb. According to a statement from the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Dandan 'had no access to the restricted areas of the terminal or ramp.' This statement does not make me feel super safe though because while he may not have had access to the planes and may not have brought the bomb to the airport, the bomb could have been brought to the airport and he would have had a much easier time getting the bomb onto a plane than someone who didn't work at the airport. Clearly I am only thinking about the worst case scenarios but that is an important thing to do. Airports need to be proactive and take this as a learning experience to make sure that they are protecting passengers from people who want to hurt others.
I hate that there is so much violence in the world and that an any moment, someone could attack someone else or a group of people and kill them -- most likely for no personal reason. So many attacks recently have been on random people in random places. it is so crazy that someone can do everything right and be kind to everyone and still be attacked by crazy people with too much access to weapons. People should not have to live in fear, I hope that the current worldwide violence dies down soon because I hate that there are weekly headlines about mass murders. I don't want this to be the state of the world.
http://wncn.com/2017/11/10/nc-air-traffic-controller-arrested-accused-of-having-weapon-of-mass-destruction/
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/10/nc-air-traffic-controller-arrested-on-weapons-charge.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/11/us/north-carolina-air-controller-weapon-mass-destruction/index.html
