This deeply disturbing story is from The Oregonian:
Two men have been arrested in connection with the January shooting spree at the Cape Meares Lighthouse, and a preliminary estimate suggests that damage could be more than a half-million dollars, Oregon State Police said Thursday.
The two men, who are roommates and co-workers, were arrested Wednesday at a construction site on the Oregon coast near Florence where they were working.
[I]nvestigators have said they believe that on Jan. 9 or 10, vandals drove down a blocked maintenance road and fired on the historic, 120-year-old lighthouse
The gunfire shattered 15 windows and the rare French-made Fresnel lens that sits at the top of the lighthouse.
This is the lighthouse they destroyed with their guns:
Can we all agree that gun owners are by nature indifferent to (or even hate) all that is poetic and beautiful in the world? A lighthouse? Really? Yes, they are now in decline, but how can you shoot a structure that once guided so many ships (so many lives) away from danger, from death? Only gun owners could shoot at something that symbolizes a love for life.
The image is from Anneh.
I am a liberal and a gun owner (and no, I did not say libertarian). I agree that guns should be controlled. Gun ownership is out of control in our country, and the idea of the need for guns is out of control as well. Too many people are killed or injured and too many beautiful places damaged. That being said, there are plenty of people who own guns who appreciate the beautiful and the poetic. I grew up in a small town where the majority of people hunt. Why? because the closest grocery store is in the next state and people don’t make the kind of money they make here in our little urban utopia of Seattle. Well regulated hunting is sustainable, and far more beautiful and poetic that buying your factory farm meat from a grocery store or even from the farmers market where you still aren’t in any way connected to the process and inevitable killing involved. This is why I am a vegetarian while living here in Seattle (or any other urban area), because I can’t kill my own food, and why when I’m home in Maine I do eat meat, because I know where it came from: the woods….nature’s free range. Mr. Mudede, thank you for drawing out a long chain of comments as usual. you’re always good for stimulating debate.So now I’d like to ask everyone: How do we solve the gun issue? What are some practical ways to regulate? Anyone have some good ideas?
Don’t let the naysayers get you down Charles. I’ve just figured out how we can turn this into a positive thing.
I’m sure most people know that when you wrote “Can we all agree that gun owners are by nature indifferent to (or even hate) all that is poetic and beautiful in the world?” it was clearly a hateful bigoted thing to say. I mean it doesn’t take one them college educated leftest liburals to know that one of the definitions of being a bigot is being intolerantly devoted to your own opinion and prejudices about a group of people you know very little about. Especially when you base your idiotic notions on the acts of just a few of that group.
But this is good because for far to long America has been intolerant of bigots and people with asinine prejudices. It’s time we put a stop to that. Who better then The Stranger to lead the fight. We can now show that The Stranger is a bastion of tolerance no matter what ridiculously hateful things comes out of ones mouth.
This will also really help when Dan Savage goes to refute blanket bigoted statements made by DOMA supporters. The Stranger’s writers can now say to those DOMA supporters “we can recognize that as a hateful bigoted statement you just made because we have a writer who makes spiteful generalizations just like that too also and because”. Absolutely genius.
I’ve got some more ideas to collaborate with you on. I’ll just think them to you later tonight. Just give me some time to take the tin foil off the windows.
@54, that’s a serious question, and it deserves a serious answer. But, given the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller v. District of Columbia, as well as the probable expansion of gun-owners’ rights in the upcoming McDonald v. City of Chicago case, it’s highly doubtful that you’ll see any further regulation of gun ownership in your lifetime.
@56…I don’t believe it. Sure, there’s a lot going on to protect gun owners and even expand their rights, but my life will be long (unless someone shoots me), and there has to be an answer. Things WILL change, it just might be too late when it does (I guess gun control is kind of like everything else)… but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying, or stop asking the intelligent people what the answers are (just in case we someday get an opportunity to change things ). It’s always best to have a solution up your sleeve in case someone ask you HOW things should change rather than the simple question of IF they should change. We need to ask more HOWS, especially to those who we agree with already. IF has become too easy a question to answer.
I have gun-loving friends who take me to the shooting range sometimes. These guys are safety nuts about it, of course, like anyone who goes to a range is.
It’s fun. For me it has the same appeal as bowling.
Charles -. It’s like this: if you never known a homosexual, you’re much more likely to be anti-gay. You need someone to take you to the shooting range so you can get this bigotry out of your system.
Any volunteers?
I disagree with your conclusion, Mudede. I know this may come as a surprise, but I own a 9mm GAP and a WWII era 30-06 and never dream of using them, especially to desecrate a gorgeous piece of history. Hope they catch the rednecks who are responsible (yes, I do assume their necks are red judging by the ignorant behaviours) and strip them from their right to carry.
@ 59- I jumped the gun on that one-I hope the CHARGE the redneck workers who did this, not catch as that already has taken place. How odd of them. I would rather be inside on a cold January night than out destroying history. How pathetic.
The following statement is clearly that of an ingnoranus: Can we all agree that gun owners are by nature indifferent to (or even hate) all that is poetic and beautiful in the world? For those whom wonder what that might be, the denotation is, ingnorant and an asshole.
A vandal is a vandal. I trust that you would hold sling shot vandals to this same standard.
SO far as the statement that “Only gun owners could shoot at something that symbolizes a love for life” Only gun owners can protect something that actually IS LIFE. Oh and did I mention that vandals are vandals still!
In a sense, aren’t we all gun owners? The state is supposed to have a monopoly on “legitimized” violence, and while our ridiculously interpreted 2nd amendment does allow citizens to get in on the action, we, as citizens of the US, are all gun owners simply by the act of paying taxes. So while Bush is the drunken redneck in this weak analogy, we are all fibers of the muscle that pulled the trigger and ultimately shot the lighthouse that is Iraq. And that includes you too, Charles.
Can’t we all agree Chuck Mudede is just another internet troll?
Charles, you continue to prove that you are the biggest moron working for the stranger.You can’t possibly have been hired for your intelligence or journalism skills. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS IDIOT? I would venture to say that 98% of gun owners don’t kill people or destroy property. Grow a brain.
charles, you are right. the comments from gun owners in this thread prove it.
never stop.
Charles, you did a Palin with that spectacular failed leap of logic. To say that “gun owners are by nature indifferent to (or even hate) all that is poetic and beautiful in the world?” based on the action of two gun users (Do we really know that they are “owners”?) doesn’t make any more sense than trying to debunk the idea of global warming by pointing out that it is snowing outside. You owe my intelligence an apology.
That said, a word now to all those above who whose knees reflectively jerk on hearing any utterance of the word “gun”.
There are guns in our society (see comment #40, above). As individuals we each are, for the most part, free to choose whether we will own or not own a gun.
As a teenager I had access to guns. While I didn’t own one myself, I had friends who did. Our shooting consisted of plinking away at tin cans, and on occasion visiting the local garbage dump, where we would shoot at rats. Now don’t go all PETA on me. A). I think that rats make good moving targets, and B) with our level of marksmanship, those rats were safe.
When I became a young man I went into the Army and was taught to shoot properly. I also was taught gun safety. I should have been taught that many years earlier. I am now of the opinion that gun classes teaching both marksmanship and gun safety should be mandatory classes beginning in middle school.
When I left the Army a few years later I had no qualms about buying a shotgun and keeping it in my house. As a gay man I knew that I was at higher risk to be the victim of violence than my straight friends. That turned out to be a wise decision. I answered my front door one evening to find a bunch of thugs armed with baseball bats ready to force their way in and show me “What we do to queers who move into our neighborhood.” When I reached behind the door, grabbed the shotgun and racked a shell into the chamber, the crowd had an epiphany. Apparently they COULD share their neighborhood with a faggot, as they quickly melted away and never bothered me again.
I’m getting old now. I’m in my 60’s. At various points in my life I have seen some very bad people – not those punks who showed up at my door. They just thought they were bad. – but there are some really bad people out there. To those anti-gun folks who exclaim “There is only one use for guns – to kill people!”, I say yep, but some people deserve killing.
I don’t do “Victim”. I stand up to bullies, and I am surely not going to stand still and take it while some fool beats me up or murders me to make his “God” happy or his dick hard or whatever. If someone attacks me with a weapon and I can get access to a gun will I kill him? Fucking ‘eh right!
I personally feel that ideally everyone should be armed. I bet that after a real short period of adjustment, this would turn into a very respectful, polite society.
In the meantime, to those who might think about fucking with me. Ask youself “Are you feeling lucky today?”