Philadelphia Navy Yard Shooting

Looks like we had our own incident in Philadelphia too. Lone gunman enters the Philadelphia Navy Yard Business Center and kills three people at a board meeting, then turns the gun on himself after a brief confrontation with Police.

UPDATE: Looks like the guy was a disgruntled investor from Newark, DE, who blamed the board for loss of his investment.  According to KYW, the weapon involved was an AK-47.  I can hear the editorials now “Clearly the blame can be squarely laid at the foot of Delaware’s inadequate gun laws that allow people have access to these deadly killing machines”.  Well, at least that’s how it would go if the board meeting was being held across the river in New Jersey.  Surely our Philadelphia media will use this as a reason to push for an across the board assault weapons ban in the state, even thought the weapon wasn’t purchased here, in all likelihood.

These are becoming incresingly more common, for people bent on suicide to go out in a blaze of glory. Carrying at work is not possible for most of us because of company policies against the practice, and social expectations in a business climate. But policies and social expectations aren’t going to protect anyone except the person who snaps and decides he wants to take a few hated coworkers with him.

I won’t advocate people risk getting themselves fired, but I’ve never understood why returning fire isn’t an acceptable means for dealing with workplace violence. You’ll never see that one in your company’s training video, I’d wager.