Reply #289: Subway shooting and this are two completely different situations

[RaulGroom]

You shouldn't conflate them as it hurts your argument. The subway shooting was unambiguosly bad policing and a horrible overreaction to basically nothing at all. This on is much more of a gray area. I guarantee you the guy who shot this person feels horrible about it, and there are definitely things in hindsight that could have been done differently. But try to put yourself in the position of an air marshall who's on a plane with a man who is screaming about how he's going to blow everyone up. Before you say "I would have done this" or "I would have done that" really put yourself in that situation and think about what you would really do.

Now, as is often the case with these sorts of things, we may find in the coming days that some of the reports we've heard about the situation are not true. For example, we might find out he really never mentioned a bomb. That will cast the whole thing in a different light.

From what he have right now, however, it seems like this was a terrible tragedy that wasn't really anyone's fault. The air marshalls acted in good faith and made the wrong call. It happens.