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Macbook Saves Man's Life During Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooting (chron.com)
A 37-year-old credits his MacBook Pro laptop with saving his life during a shooting at the baggage claim of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. An anonymous reader quotes WPLG Miami:
He placed it in his backpack, but didn't think of it when he felt an impact on his back during the shooting... When the bloodshed was over, he said he went to the men's restroom and saw a bullet hole on the laptop. He gave it to FBI agents. And he was in shock when they found a 9 mm bullet in his backpack. That was when he realized a gunman aimed to kill him, but the laptop took the bullet for him. "If I didn't have that backpack on, the bullet would have shot me between the shoulders," Frappier said.
Good thing he didn't have the new MBP - would have been too thin to stop the bullet...
For those that didn't read the article or summary, apparently the gunman hated the new MacBook Pro so much that he shot that instead of the man.
Didn't he know you can only put Apple approved bullets in a Mac? Same as regular bullets, but a proprietary shape and size, double the price, and needs a dongle to connect to the shell.
It are the same kind of (bullshit)stories as the deck of cards stopping the bullet, or the cigarette case stopping the bullet, or the bible stopping the bullet.
How many other people at the airport which got shot did have their macbook with them and didn't get the chance to use it as a shield?
bash$
Far more likely is was a ricochet or was slowed by a book in his backpack, a direct shot with a 9mm at reasonable range would mean they were surgically removing macbook pro bits from the bullet wound on his shoulder/back if he survived.
Sure - anyone would feel safer with one of the older, thicker MacBooks on their back. But to face a gunman with only a paper-thin new MacBook? That takes courage. And at Apple we will always have the courage to take those risks for you.
TC
It are the same kind of (bullshit)stories as the deck of cards stopping the bullet..,
How is it bullshit if it worked?
What the MacBook has over most of those items is a greater area it offers protection for.
How many other people at the airport which got shot did have their macbook with them and didn't get the chance to use it as a shield?
Probably most, but think of it this way - it offers a concrete reason to sling your backpack over your back if you are running away from a shooting (or slinging it in front of you if you are running towards one).
It might even save someone life hearing this story if they think to do the same in the future...
I've often wondered if it would be a good idea to have a backpack made from kevlar... apparently that is a real thing (I espceially like how the results include a QuickClot bandage in case you go too cheap).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
a direct shot with a 9mm at reasonable range would mean they were surgically removing macbook pro bits from the bullet wound on his shoulder/back
It was only handgun ammunition probably from a good distance, and it's not like we have not seen a MacBook stop a bullet before...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And here I thought Oracle was supposed to be "bulletproof". {rimshot}
No need to thank me, just throw money!
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The Ft. Lauderdale shooter self reported to the FBI. They were too busy to deal with him.
For a 9mm to do that he'd have had to be close range. It's got no real punch. Cops sometimes shoot people four or five times in the back and they keep running.
Seriously, did we have to hear the exact brand and type? A solid object that happened to be a laptop in a backpack is what stopped the bullet. In fact, a textbook or a small stack of magazines would have stopped the bullet equally as well. -_-
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
On another side note, this guy just voluntarily gave the FBI his laptop. Now they can rifle through his files and see if he's likely to have committed any crimes.
The article said it was a laptop issued by his school. Not likely to be anything incriminating on it, assuming the storage survived, which is perhaps likely given how small the drives are today.
What I was thinking about is that he just gave the FBI something he did not own. It's not likely the school is going to bother a shooting survivor over a few hundred bucks lost on a laptop, given that is now quite obviously destroyed and potentially evidence in a crime. A less public incident like this could be construed as an elaborate theft. Going to school and saying, "a terrorist shot my homework" might sound exceedingly unbelievable without some sort of evidence to back it up.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Yep, that's why I carry a .45, 'cause I've seen 9mm bounce off windshields.
For those that don't get the reference:
http://www.imdb.com/character/...
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Now, had he had a Nokia with him, the bullet would have been bounced back to the shooter, and he would have been hailed as a hero!
Actually, they should buy a Lenovo, which would be thicker AND cheaper, and do a better job saving lives
Now his nightmare begins; trying to get a replacement from the school he works for and not getting charged for breaking it.
Or murderous robots from the future.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
IBM keyboards have been able to stop bullets for about 40 years now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
and the bullet stopped at the signature of Steve Wozniak on the inside of the case.
So what. A thinkpad might have saved his life. Or a hardcover book. Or just about anything one might find in a backpack. This isn't some testament to the quality of macs.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
IME schools treat them like the school books as in you break it or lose it or for some other reason fail to return it you get they charge you some rather large and arbitrary number of dollars to replace said item.
They will not press charges theft charges against a student.
Thankfully the law allowed us to press charges instead because they CBA to do it.
End result student with a felony because nobody wanted to repay $200.
The school could have stepped in and handled it or the student could have repaid the money but nooooo nobody wants to take responsibility for anything not even apple.
Apple needs to be checking for apple based MDM supervision on their activation lock page.
If the device says it's supervised it's stolen! Apple won't tell you that. Nor will anyone tell you that you need to check for it or for that matter even HOW to check for it.
Apple still doesn't mention years after implementing it which is really fucked up.
Hey we have this great new anti theft feature for enterprise. Lets not tell anyone about it muahahahaha.
You wouldn't buy a Iphone that had an activation lock the person claiming to own it couldn't turn off right?
Same deal with MDM but apple won't talk about it. WTF?
It's a great feature and I like it it's just that if someone asks you hey is this device clear to sell don't outright LIE to people and say it is like apple is doing now with their icloud lock page not checking for it.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
They've always suspected body-armor — if you have one, you must be up to no good. And laptops always took extra scrutiny of their own — easy to conceal a bomb in one.
Now it is going to be double-trouble for anyone traveling with it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What's breathtaking?
If you are speaking to someone retarded, obviously you must make your writing far more clear, breaking up the subject into a separate sentence plainly will not do! If this conversation is to work you cannot ALSO be retarded.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is why I should purchase extended warranties.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
Yeah, go to Germany or France so you can get run over by a truck!
>"It also makes me think of how we've disarmed good people in "gun free" zones so that they cannot defend themselves against someone that violated that law on not bringing in guns."
+1
I am sure this shooting has the anti's lined up to make propose more laws trying to strip guns from good, law-abiding people and create more so-called "gun-free" zones. Because, you know, that evil shooter in the airport really paid attention to the laws.
I thought I was doing so well too.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
Really this just demonstrates the only good use for a macbook.
The baggage claim area is not a gun free zone. It's outside security and literally anyone from the street could come in with a gun, in addition to someone who had a gun in checked baggage. I don't know if this shooter had actually declared his gun or just put it into his checked luggage (I thought they scanned all checked luggage these days).
The "solution" to this has nothing to do with gun control or kevlar underpants and everything to do with mental health care.
This guy walked into an FBI field office claiming the government was trying to make him watch ISIS videos. They thought he was deranged, so they passed him off to local PD who got him run through whatever cheap mental health screening they use for nuts off the street and then he was set loose again.
The sad story here is that nobody has dime one to provide mental health services for a person claiming the government trying to make them watch videos. This is quite literally tinfoil hat territory, and because there was no money behind him (insurance or private dollars) he gets a social worker with a form designed to satisfy some lawyer's idea of liability. Just how might this have turned out differently if he had been seen by a psychiatrist, talked into a 7 day in-patient evaluation and possibly been given some medication (even if it was just xanax) to get him closer to normal -- or at least seen long enough by trained people to see if he had a more serious long term condition? This guy had been discharged for being a fuckup in the military, so chances are he had a long-term problem.
So many of these spree shooters are people walking around with sign around their necks that says "I HAVE SERIOUS MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS" and we just don't give a shit because nobody will pay for mental health care, so they just roam free. We're not even smart enough to pay for the low-end therapy where they just sedate him in-house for a few days, it's literally a rush to get them out the door before they cost somebody money.
Good thing he wasn't a danger to others, huh?
Self-reporting such a thing is about the same as me reporting you to the feds for trafficking in kiddy porn... there is no evidence, so little cause/reason to move forward with any serious investigation/acts.
Go to the police and say you are thinking about harming yourself? Probably going to get the same result.
Really want to make sure you don't hurt anyone later? Cold-cock the cop and grab their gun in the presence of other people... that will get you locked up... or just go for more simple form of 'robbing' a bank or drug store with a note, then wait outside for the cops to arrive to arrest you without incident.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Ditto for the area beyond 'security' as all literally anyone from the street walk in with a gun, open fire at anyone attempting to stop them from entering the 'secure' area.
There are also plenty of less obvious ways to get a weapon into that area, alas for you the dotted security line only provides security theater.
And that solution is... ?
And? The ACLU and others fought against involuntary confinement long ago and won. Today, if you can say where you are and why you are there, short of any overt acts of of violence, you aren't going to be held for very long as like it or not... even the mentally ill have the right not to be held without due process.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I wasn't a danger to anyone. They still locked me up till I stopped making with the crazy talk.
I thought Lenovo switched to just using plastic for the chassis?
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
The baggage claim area is not a gun free zone.
Yes, yes it is. Florida law prohibits the carry of a firearm anywhere in the airport for self defense. People can and do travel with firearms on flights in and out of Fort Lauderdale but the firearm must be unloaded, in a secure container, etc.
It's outside security and literally anyone from the street could come in with a gun, in addition to someone who had a gun in checked baggage. I don't know if this shooter had actually declared his gun or just put it into his checked luggage (I thought they scanned all checked luggage these days).
Reports stated he traveled with his firearm in a manner consistent with the rules on bringing a firearm on a plane. It was unloaded, in a locked container, in checked luggage, and so forth. What he did though was illegally remove the firearm from the container, load it, and fire upon the people in the airport.
The reason he was so successful in his mass murder is the rest of the people OBEYED THE LAW! In this case the "gun free zone" in the airport existed only on paper. Blood stained and bullet holed paper.
I thought the laws existed to keep us safe, no? Well, we have another failure of the "gun free zone" and people paid for government incompetence with their lives.
I generally agree with your comments on the mental health issues. We can do both you know, address mental health and remove stupid anti self defense laws. Instead of spending this money on disarming the public we should spend it on health care. It would save lives and possibly save money too.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Shit, should have invested in a Toughbook. Or will plastic's viscosity slow bullet down to survivable speeds?
New MacBook continues to take flak...
Tempted to say: "and nothing of value was lost".
On the other hand, looks like we finally found a use for Mac hardware!
(I have on my asbestos underpants...waiting for the Apple fans to show up...)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Someone needs to remind Apple they're in the business of making computers.
Well, perhaps they're not. It's all consumer electronics nowadays and with recent iterations that means the Macs as well. Say what you will about OS X and Apple's marketing before, but Macs *were* computers.
And back then, Pro meant pro. It meant something you could switch out the RAM on, upgrade the storage on, connect a bunch of shit to [without dongles], etc. The style crowd at Apple may not comprehend this, but people still want to do all of that.
Oh, and some of us crazy ones want actual touchscreens... like the Windows users.
I agree in general this freedom makes sense, but if you imagine a scenario like this baggage claim. Let's say a well trained and well intentioned gun owner is nearby, and close enough to his baggage to safely whip out his gun in an instant to help out.
When the police come in and see not one, but two or more civilians engaged in a firefight, they will now be forced to make a split second decision who to shoot: Which one is the target and which is merely exercising his second amendment right to self defense. That might prove to be detrimental in stopping the perpetrator.
(The same thing could happen with a second concerned civilian: once two people are engaged in a firefight it might be difficult to identify which is the criminal and the resulting confusion could lead to many more deaths.)
...the prosecution plans to use the gunman's slaughter of a Macbook as proof that he's sane enough to stand trial.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The reason he was so successful in his mass murder is the rest of the people OBEYED THE LAW! In this case the "gun free zone" in the airport existed only on paper. Blood stained and bullet holed paper.
I thought the laws existed to keep us safe, no?
No, they don't. They exist to improve the chances of safety. They do not create total safety. Neither do guns. Black and white thinking is nearly always wrong. (See what I did there?)
And no, the reason he killed five people was NOT because the rest of the people obeyed the law. It was because the rest of the people were cowards, ignorant, or both, and ran, hid, or otherwise did 100% the wrong thing.
Run from a knife, charge a gun. If everybody within earshot dogpiled on him after they heard the very first shot, they could have cut the number of fatalities to as little as none. Maybe one. Maybe two. Definitely much less than five.
Shit, he was using standard hand gun magazines. He RELOADED TWICE. Stopping him before he used every round did not even require physical bravery. Anybody could have waited until he was reloading, then jumped him, with zero chance of getting shot. And any asshole who has played CounterStrike, or a zombie shooter, or shit, watched the fucking Lone Ranger knows that you can't get shot when somebody is reloading.
So no, the "gun free zone" is not the problem. Having guns everywhere is not the solution. Teaching people what to do is the solution. Bravery is the solution. The false bravery of a concealed carry "hero"? No, we don't need more of that.
Don't be stupid. Everybody knows being killed by a truck is less terrible than being killed by a gun. Because... YOOROP! No debate. Anyone who disagrees with me is a fascist and should be silenced. YOOROP!
Yeah, go to Germany or France so you can get run over by a truck!
To appropriate the favourite argument of gun advocates: But those trucks were illegal!
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Praise the Saint Steve Jobs. A miracle, I tell ya, a true miracle!
I might buy 2 macbooks, one for the back, and another for the torso.
The reason he was so successful in his mass murder is
because of lack of affordable mental healthcare and easy availability of guns.
It's the exact same thing every time in the US. Guy with mental health problems has access to guns.
Good guys with guns won't help much. It's an airport, there were cops and security staff with guns in the area. By the time they got there he had already discarded his weapon, laid on the floor and and was waiting to be arrested. If one of the civilians in the area had been armed, at best we would have maybe one or two fewer victims and a dead suspect.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
For those that didn't read the article or summary, apparently the gunman hated the new MacBook Pro so much that he shot that instead of the man.
Airports... One of the few places on Earth where the Apples' are separated from the fan boys, BAM! the distorted anodised aluminium body of a Macbook Pro slams to the floor, a T420 preloaded with linux thrust into the shaking hands of the owner by the gunman, BAM! the spindly casing of a MacBook Air splits into layers and cartwheels down the x-ray conveyor belt like paper plates, a Dell XPS 13 is dropped into the now empty tray, BAM! BAM! BAM! a myriad of traumatised fan-boys litter airport security clutching their replacements in the fetal position, conflicted with the void of their precious and the strange non aluminium chassis of their new device.
This is what happens to your brain after being exposed to South Park for too long.
Unfortunately, even if you could get this message out to everyone, the natural human reaction to danger is to move away. From flinching away from pain to running from sudden sounds, it's hard wired in by evolution.
The only way to overcome it is with military style training, getting people used to gunshot sounds and running towards people shooting at them. I doubt many people will be willing to go through that.
A more practical solution would be free mental healthcare to prevent the shooters ever getting to that stage.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
we just don't give a shit because nobody will pay for mental health care
More like we can't afford to pay for healthcare controlled by a guild/cartel. Taking care of this guy would require hundreds of thousands of dollars. The high-paid phonies pretend to be able to treat patients, but containment is the only real service they can provide. Holmes and Rodgers were under psychiatric care, and you can see how well that worked.
If you have free mental healthcare then people won't get to the point where they need 24/7 care so often.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Interesting... your only complaint with my comment was who I credited... yet you didn't follow the logical course of actions to their conclusion.
I'm not sure if you are aware... but books or speeches do little on their own. Either they inspire legislation, or other action... like litigation, which is what happened and why involuntary confinement is so limited today.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
"Get a Mac."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
146million people in France + Germany, and last year 72 dead. My odds are 4.9E-7 of not getting hit by a truck last year.
389million people in the USA, and last year, and last year 15002 dead.
Please show me to the nearest truck. I have better odds there.
According to NHTSA, in 2014 (the latest year for which they show data) nearly five thousand pedestrians were killed by motor vehicles in the US.
https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
I know that you meant "run over on purpose by a truck", but let's keep the final result in focus.
A more practical solution would be free mental healthcare to prevent the shooters ever getting to that stage.
Eureka!!!!
It always amazes me that the most simple thing we can do to stop all the violence committed by mentally disturbed individuals is to provide appropriate treatment and make sure all Americans have incredibly easy access to it. It would also help if we immediately took away firearms from the possession of anyone who is hearing voices pending a court hearing on the subject where the matter can be properly adjudicated.
If someone wonders how we will pay for it I would remind them that we spend about 18% of GDP on healthcare already. And if we got a handle on costs per unit of care we could provide high quality, nah luxurious care to everyone in the USA. At the very least why not tax all recreational drugs after legalization including alcohol and mandate that the funds go to mental health. For example place a $5 on every bottle of wine or $2 on every bottle of beer.
This also reminds me of why we need much more intensive outpatient care for some people and longer term stays inpatient for others (albeit humanely done). Doing so literally saves lives.
Two telephone books (do they even print those anymore?) will (just) stop a 9mm. That's FMJ -- and a reasonably large metropolitan area telephone book. Even a .22 LR will penetrate a couple of inches.
Military rifle ammo won't stop for much short of a couple of railroad ties. (The old standard for 7.62mm NATO and similar was that it had to penetrate a steel helmet at 1000 yards. Modern 5.56mm (.223) stuff is a little wimpier -- but will still easily go through a car door at close range.)
-- Alastair
Yes, that does happen. This is a training issue for police, not cause to disarm the public. Are you saying that the reason the government should or does ban guns is because the police are too lazy, ignorant, or mentally handicapped to determine who is a threat and who is a friendly?
I remember hearing of a friendly fire incident in New York City. The police saw two armed men running down an alley, one chasing the other. The shot the pursuer believing him to be the threat. When they got to him and began to give first aid they found the man was wearing a police academy t-shirt under his buttoned shirt, then they realized the man they shot was a plainclothes detective and they let a felony suspect get away.
So, how do you propose we address this? Should we ban plainclothes police? I say we train police to think before they shoot.
Also, do the clothes make the man? Is it inconceivable that someone in uniform might be a threat? I'm not saying that the person in the uniform is always an officer, someone could be wearing a false uniform. The police, and the public, should consider that as well.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Don't worry, Amerikuh will have it's very own spate of truck terrorism as soon as it becomes harder for a would-be terrorist to get a gun than to steal a truck (at knife-point, if necessary). The ready availability of guns and ammunition in Amerikuh is why there hasn't been a major truck killing. Yet.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Clearly evidenced by the subject of this article being shot in the back as he was fleeing. Only saved by the macbook in his backpack.
Asshole
What country would that be, I have heard of no country that doesn't have anyone getting shot. Australia, an Island with strict gun laws still has gun crime:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Heck, even the UK, the bastion of zero firearm crimes has some firearm crime:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-eng...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Frankly, since this is the first incident of its kind, why would I ever be able to find something that doesn't exist.
Find me a single country where this happened before last week.
So, you characture a country based on one incident, and I am the one who has a diminished mental capacity?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Unfortunately, even if you could get this message out to everyone, the natural human reaction to danger is to move away. From flinching away from pain to running from sudden sounds, it's hard wired in by evolution.
The only way to overcome it is with military style training, getting people used to gunshot sounds and running towards people shooting at them.
That may be true, but there's no evolutionary response to gunfire. It hasn't existed long enough.
Yes, people are accustomed to gunshot sounds. Hollywood gunshot sounds. They are accustomed to gunshot sounds that sound a lot scarier than real gunshots. The pop of a real pistol or the crack of a real rifle are almost unrecognizable to most modern people. The T-800's gunshots in Terminator 2 were famously a combination of a manipulated sound of a .38 pistol being fired, a rifle being fired in a canyon, a cannon firing, and the sped up sound of a cannon firing, all layered together. It sounds nothing like a real gun of any kind, but it was so iconic, and so culturally pervasive, that James Cameron's thumb now rests permanently on the scale of gunshot sound effects.
For decades of film-making, gun battle scenes were shot using blanks. The guns involved fired rounds with the correct amount of real propellant in them, just with no bullet in front of them. The audio of the "fight" was recorded and actually used in the final print. They don't even bother with that anymore. Yes, that was at least partially because of some accidents on set involving injuries (blanks can still hurt, even kill), but a lot of it was because the whole philosophy of filmmaking with respect to guns shifted. Now they just fire smoke squibs, and the sound they make is irrelevant to what is heard in the movie. The sound editor is just going to replace it all anyway.
So people have neither an evolutionary response nor a learned response to real gunfire. Evolution hasn't had time, and what they've learned isn't real.
All those people who fled the terminal building in Fort Lauderdale? Almost none of them saw the shooter shoot someone. Almost none of them heard a shot fired, and the vast majority who heard a shot fired didn't recognize it. They ran because everybody was running, and somebody said "shooter!" It actually happened a second time that day, when no one was firing a weapon anywhere in the airport. News commentators on site by then were baffled. "Why is everyone running again?" one said. All it takes is for the first few people to run. That is the evolutionary response. A panicked crowd could probably trample a shooter to death by accident because of that instinctive reaction, if those first few people would run towards the shooter. Everybody else will too.