http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/05/30/how-else-a-day-like-today-happens Comments On: How Else a Day Like Today Happens by Goldy en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Sun, 19 May 2013 23:00:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by chemambru]]> Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:33:55 -0700 The Stranger anyone is a normal impulse, but yeah, doesn't really do any good. As far as lax gun laws allowing crazy people to get guns I have to point out: He wasn't always crazy. His guns all had paper on them and he passed the back ground checks to buy them. He'd never had a conviction. He'd never been committed. There was no way to know that this particular man would do this terrible thing as opposed to any other person who passed the checks and bought a gun on that same day. In this country, you can't (in theory) lock some one up, or abrogate their rights for something they might do. We all might do anything.
Posted by Lissa]]> Sat, 02 Jun 2012 11:52:15 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty]]> Sat, 02 Jun 2012 05:05:54 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Ken Mehlman]]> Sat, 02 Jun 2012 03:16:38 -0700 The Stranger
Incredibly stupid statements like yours are the opposite of anything that is good, progressive, or helpful.
Posted by Theodore Gorath]]> Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:22:17 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Lissa]]> Fri, 01 Jun 2012 08:57:31 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty]]> Fri, 01 Jun 2012 03:10:12 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Tom X]]> Fri, 01 Jun 2012 01:05:02 -0700 The Stranger Posted by smade]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 22:02:14 -0700 The Stranger Posted by NaFun]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 17:32:58 -0700 The Stranger
Goldy, I'm not anti-gun control specifically, but I think that Golob's piece was much more nuanced and well-researched, and gets a lot more into the root causes of tragic incidents such as these. I don't want everyone to run around guns blazing or anything, and I reject the NRA's from-my-cold-dead-hands rhetoric, but I also maintain that I can be all those things in regards to gun control and find this post simplistic, reactionary, and tangential, right?
Posted by icouldliveinhope]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 15:25:54 -0700 The Stranger
There. I said it.

Anything else you want?
Posted by Vance]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 15:10:32 -0700 The Stranger
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/02/25…
Posted by Happy Pills!]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 13:56:36 -0700 The Stranger During the turbulence of the 1960s, the two contrasting faces of the NRA came into focus: the smiling, benevolent sportsman and the fevered, angry Second Amendment fundamentalist. NRA Executive Vice President Maxwell Rich represented the first face. The second belonged to a large, imposing man with a shaved head who looked like a cross between Mr. Clean and a .45 slug—Harlon Bronson Carter. Carter was unyielding in his opposition to gun controls. In 1975, as head of the NRA's newly formed lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), he was asked if he would "rather allow those convicted violent felons, mentally deranged people, violently addicted to narcotics people to have guns, rather than to have the screening process for the honest people like yourselves?" Such a sacrifice, Carter responded, was "a price we pay for freedom.", And it is Carter who defined the modern-day NRA.

http://www.vpc.org/nrainfo/chapter2.html
Posted by tiktok]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 13:46:28 -0700 The Stranger
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweek…
Posted by Gomez]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 13:22:19 -0700 The Stranger
Posted by Lori E.]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 12:48:16 -0700 The Stranger
Most of the people I know in Seattle have not even seen a gun in person, let alone have learned how to handle one. Their experience with guns is all video games, movies, and awful assaults like the one yesterday. It's understandable to me that most people react with a wish to ban all firearms, but it is not the right answer. Guns are out there, they will continue to be out there regardless of any ban, and somebody who wishes to use one will always be able to find one.

What I think would be useful is less glorification of violence in our culture, more investment in education, more services for the mentally ill, more services for the impoverished, and decriminalization of drugs and prostitution to reduce gang violence. Guns are a problem because we live in a quick-fix culture that has a lot of deep problems.

I once witnessed a man get hit and killed by an irresponsible driver. Emotionally, I would totally support an across-the-board ban on cars. Logically, I understand that it was the person driving the car and not the actual car that was at fault.

One last point: Someone above mentioned blaming the family who could see this coming. Do you know what they actually could have done to prevent this? Not much at all under current law.

What happened yesterday was so incredibly sad. It is natural to wish that banning guns will prevent something like it from happening again. Truly, a ban on guns will not address the problem of why people turn to violence in the first place.
Posted by Lori E.]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 12:37:39 -0700 The Stranger Posted by blip]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 12:33:44 -0700 The Stranger
http://www.washingtonarmscollectors.org/

Posted by pbyrne]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 12:23:53 -0700 The Stranger People have survived being attacked by bears. I don't know of anyone surviving being attacked by sperm whales. Therefore, sperm whales are more dangerous than bears.
Do you see the flaw in this logic?
Posted by venomlash]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 12:13:03 -0700 The Stranger
If you were to successfully outlaw gun ownership would you feel any safer? If you would then please get yourself down to the mental health facility of your choice as you are clearly touched in the head. People have been killing other people for as long as humans have existed. For most of that time guns didn't exist. And for those that claim it wouldn't have been as bad with a knife you might be right or you could be horribly wrong. With a 3 inch blade you are likely correct but if the blade is just a slight bit longer, like, oh... a 9 inch blade you get horrible and lethal cuts and a much bigger mess to clean up. The only difference is that the killer has to get close to the victims. If he wants to kill at some remove he will need to get a crossbow. Of course if he is willing to build it himself he can not only have a crossbow he can have a repeating crossbow. I would much rather take a bullet than take a crossbow bolt. People have survived being hit with 10+ bullets in them. I don't know of anyone surviving 10+ crossbow bolts in them.
Guns don't kill people, People kill people using the closest item that they think will do the job. In the current world this tends to be guns but it really doesn't change things without them.

Oh and to make you feel better (NOT). If a magical being popped up and removed every single gun from the face of the Earth it would take me less than one hour to build a nice home-made muzzle-loading weapon using home-made gunpowder. That hour is from starting with nothing I needed to make it till the point it was loaded and ready to fire. It wouldn't be the most accurate weapon ever made but it wouldn't matter since most people wouldn't even have a crossbow or simple bow to shoot back with. The most difficult thing to come up with would be the sulfur needed for the gunpowder. And even that wouldn't take that long to find.

That said I firmly believe that some restrictions on ownership aren't always a bad thing.
Posted by Romial]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 12:05:59 -0700 The Stranger Posted by doceb]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 11:34:37 -0700 The Stranger Posted by blip]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 11:30:03 -0700 The Stranger
"The friends and family of the people whose deaths you enabled will be suffering the effects of this horrible crime for a minimum of two generations"

So, when some drunk driver who got loaded off Costco booze plows into the family of 5, can we also blame everyone who voted for I-1183? That's the logic you're applying here.

We tolerate way more deaths and mayhem to alcohol and smoking, but not many people are suggesting further restricting or banning those products. Sensible gun restrictions? Yes. Better mental health services? Absolutely.

Again, I respect your opinions 99% of the time, but you're being inconsistent here.
Posted by Teslick]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 11:21:48 -0700 The Stranger
Did he have legal possession of the guns? If he did, would he have had legal possession of the guns under RCW 9.41.040 if the State had aggressively pursued involuntary commitment for mental illness or prosecution for his previous violent crimes? Did he seek, and was he denied, Mental Health Services?

This is about the lack of willingness and/or ability of the State to involuntarily commit and institutionalize the mentally ill and/or aggressively prosecute and incarcerate the criminally violent. (Both causes I would happily pay more to fund if I believed Olympia had any real political interest in them.)

“Stawicki could be a troublemaker, he said, but the cafe wanted to be tolerant, and continued to allow the troubled man to enter.”

This sums up societies “progressive” and “enlightened” (tolerant) approach to the mentally ill perfectly. We prefer to let them roam the street, and occasionally shoot up a café, over removing them from society and institutionalizing them. It wasn’t that way before 1975, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, when, nearly overnight, it became politically incorrect to deal with the mentally ill responsibly. We are now paying the price with every Kyle Huff, Jared Laughner and Ian Stawicki we continue to allow to move freely about in our communities.

Let’s review what we “know” about Stawicki so far (from the Seattle Times article http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo… ):

"You could just tell he was a ball of negative energy," said cafe owner Kurt Geissel.

“Stawicki could be a troublemaker, he said, but the cafe wanted to be tolerant, and continued to allow the troubled man to enter.”

“While police said they did not know the motive for the shootings, Stawicki's family said he had a history of anger and mental-health problems that he refused to deal with.”

"Angry. He was really angry toward everything," Andrew Stawicki said.

“Despite his problems, Ian Stawicki would not talk about his mental illness, his anger or other troubles, his brother said.”

"Someone like that is so stubborn you can't talk to him," he said. "It's no surprise to me this happened. We could see this coming. Nothing good is going to come with that much anger inside of you."

“Stawicki was arrested in February 2008 on a misdemeanor domestic-violence charge in Seattle and soon posted $10,000 bail. His attorney fought the charges, and they were dismissed.”

“He was also charged with fourth-degree assault in Kittitas County in 2010, but that case was dismissed as well; court records did not indicate why.”
Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me]]> Thu, 31 May 2012 11:12:25 -0700 The Stranger