Can We Talk About This? NASA, JSC, Houston, TX

fileId:3096224744092164;size:inter; By Marty Salo

News Correspondent

For those of you yet to hear, there were shots fired at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas, today.

According to an article in the NYTimes, one man was shot, one woman released, and the gunman killed himself.

Â I saw the breaking news as I was winding down my day at work today, checking out CNN.com, and then flipped on the TV for a minute or so.Â I turned it off, and almost rhetorically asked "Why?"

There are some things you don't do.Â ...Â Correct that.Â There are some things you shouldn't do.

Firearms in federal buildings, are one of those.Â Another would be thinking that you could take control of a military base.

I don't know if there have been any takeovers of military bases, other than possible war game scenarios run by war planners.Â (Even then, I'm not sure that such scenarios have been run, I'm merely speculating.)

Â Unauthorized guns possessed by unauthorized individuals in federal buildings rarely ends up with a positive outcome.

Â Does anyone want to try to make sense of this?

Oh hey, the guy seemed to be a 50 something to 60 something employee of a contrator company for Johnson Space Center.Â

What did he think would happen in a positive way from this?Â

Marty Salo, News Correspondent:

Can We Talk About This?, published every day to Gather Essentials: News is about current news.Â Marty is 36 years old and lives in sunny Tampa, FL.

You can find all of Martyâ€™s Can We Talk About This? columns at Can We Talk About This?Â

Keep up with Martyâ€™s other postings and Gather activity by joining his Gather network -- just click hereÂ martysalo.gather.com and select the orange â€œConnectâ€ button on the left-hand side of the page.

Youâ€™ll find Marty and other News Correspondents, plus celebrity content and plenty of other News experts at News.gather.com

Â Â

Comments: 11

Paula C. Apr 20, 2007, 11:51pm UTC

this is crazy! Has the world gone crazy? We have college students killing each other, people carrying guns into NASA and mother's pointing toy guns at Kindergarten students...all in the same week.

I certainly am not qualified to make sense of this.

reply to this comment

Marty S. Apr 20, 2007, 11:51pm UTC

60 year old guy has something against his co-worker, so he kills the co-worker before killing himself.

reply to this comment

Truth Always Apr 20, 2007, 11:57pm UTC

Paula, you took the words out of my mouth. I think we had better get back on the track with God. These things were rare when I was growing up. I think that there is no respect for life anymore, if you believed in God, I dont think there would be as many killings and especially suicides.

reply to this comment

Meryl Johnson Apr 21, 2007, 8:05am UTC

It was also on this morning's news that there were at least a dozen threats against schools and/or school systems across the country since the shooting at VT. I think we're really in for it for a while.

reply to this comment

Randy- Being true to myself Apr 21, 2007, 4:13pm UTC

Another sad commentary of the desperation of many to be recognized for their plight...

reply to this comment

Charles A. B. Apr 21, 2007, 7:06pm UTC

I was surprised to hear of a gun making it into Nasa. I would have thought it to been safer than that

reply to this comment

Marty S. Apr 21, 2007, 7:57pm UTC

This was an employee who brought a gun into the workplace. it should have been much more difficult for a non employee to bring a gun to the area, assuming that the non employee followed procedures and filled out paperwork for a paper visitor's idenntification card.

reply to this comment

arlene (no shame in my game) w. Apr 21, 2007, 9:46pm UTC

What's going on with these Nasa folks lately? Are they going postal?

reply to this comment

William Dotani Apr 22, 2007, 7:18am UTC

The reasons are complex, but instead of dealing with reality, we have bandwagons and politics.

reply to this comment

Marty S. Apr 22, 2007, 9:59am UTC

I think in this instance, an unfavorable job rating lead to this employee's decision.

reply to this comment

Felicia R. Nov 8, 2008, 11:04am UTC

Hello Marty S.,

I just wanted to say I am finally going through my currently over 6,000 pieces of gather new mail that is in my inbox on here. So with that in mind I have finally come to a piece of mail that was addressed to me in regards this article submission you have created to share with the gather community. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your piece with us here at gather. :o)

reply to this comment

Can We Talk About This? NASA, JSC, Houston, TX

Comments: 11

Join the Conversation