Seattle shootings already being used to look at Gun Control

[Skribs]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/edcetera/2018325763_is_it_time_for_gun_control.html

In a Seattle Starbucks, a man randomly decided to open fire on the 5 people inside, killing 3 and wounding 2 (actually, one of the wounded died in the hospital). He then ran into the parking lot, killed a woman and carjacked her, and ended up turning the gun on himself when police cornered him.

The article linked focuses more on Seattle's "poor" gun laws (as evaluated by the Brady Campaign), and then takes an interesting turn with an interview at the bottom, concluding with:

I think we live with guns and occasionally worry about them. If this leaves you feeling at a disadvantage, Lynne, maybe you need to get one.

I think this Bruce Ramsey guy is kind of an anti, based on his no-weapon utopia (which ignores the fact that an unarmed 110 lb. woman vs. an unarmed 210 lb. man is a loss for the woman), but his position is that we are never going to get anything passed that is going to do any more than simply disarm a few legal citizens.

---

Someone was talking to me about this, and said "look what he was able to do with a gun." My comment was that if one of those people in Starbucks were armed, he wouldn't have gotten nearly that far.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

Where in the world did you get Starbucks from?

 

[Skribs]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505266_162-57444306/seattle-shooting-spree-stokes-fear/

Ah, guess it was another cafe. The person who was talking to me about it said "something like Starbucks" and all I remembered at the time of OP was "starbucks". They're two-to-a-street-corner in Seattle so that was an easy assumption to make

My first paragraph in the OP wasn't from the article I posted, more of background for the article I posted. My apologies for the error, but the fact it wasn't a Starbucks doesn't change anything else.

 

[cyclopsshooter]

The article does not sound entirely nuts or extreme anti to me...

And aren't all coffee shops in Seattle a Starbucks?

 

[towboat_er]

I think they should look at Chicago or New York, and see how well gun control works.

 

[Mp7]

... if this guy also (like the VTech shooter) had legal guns even though
he had mental disorder history .. it indeed would be a case for better background checks and records.

 

[Certaindeaf]

They alluded that he had had mental problems.. he must have "borrowed" the gun in question?

 

[ApacheCoTodd]

Go figure - for some folk, everything can be related directly to and support their cause. They're for ever out there waiting for supporting actions.

It always strikes me as a shame that these mental deficient turds can't just jump to the "end game" and "turn the firearm on themselves" while they're still at home.

 

[Taurus 617 CCW]

For the gun control antis it's about the agenda of eliminating guns, not reducing crime.

 

[FROGO207]

More stuff coming out all the time about this now. IMHO one or two persons that have "problems" do not make up the whole shooting public any more than one or two drunk drivers that cause problems make up all drivers.:banghead: Well if it HAD been in a Starbucks the outcome might have been much different also.

 

[cyclopsshooter]

This is local for me and the family really is nutty, but the shooter had not been adjudicated. We just all knew not no push his buttons.

 

[phil dirt]

It wasn't at a Starbucks. It was at a cafe called the CAFE RACER, on Roosevelt Avenue, near the University of Washington. The shooter had been asked to leave the cafe on numerous occasions for starting trouble, but for some reason, the management would always relent and allow him to return a day or two later. Yesterday, he came in and started a beef and was told he was permanently barred from entry. He returned shortly and began shooting. Had there been one person in the cafe with a licensed handgun, there very possibly would have been fewer fatalities and injuries. Of course, it didn't come down that way because, after all, this is the extremely liberal utopia of Seattle we are talking about. Too bad. The shooter then killed a women, stole her car and made his escape. Later in the day the police closed in on him. The shooter then put a gun to his own head and pulled the trigger.

 

[HGUNHNTR]

^What do you mean by "licensed" handgun?

 

[Certaindeaf]

A "licensed handgun" is not magich.

 

[ZombieHorde]

Sad. Seattle has a gang problem, not a gun problem.

 

[EmGeeGeorge]

News just reported that he had a valid carry permit for WA...

 

[Certaindeaf]

^
And he probably had a .. nevermind.

 

[coalman]

Since murderers excel at obeying the law already those additional anti-gun laws should do the trick in saving lives.

 

[jbrown50]

News just reported that he had a valid carry permit for WA...

Yes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162...-lives/?pageNum=2&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Stawicki obtained a concealed weapons permit in 2010 from the Kittitas County sheriff's office. The permit shows he owned six firearms.

But........

The gunman's family, meanwhile, is struggling with what could have been had they been able to get Stawicki help sooner.


Ian Stawicki, 40, had suffered from mental illness for years and gotten "exponentially" more erratic, his father said, but family members had been unable to get him to seek help.

Walter Stawicki said he was "bitter" that it was so hard to get his son help.

"He wouldn't hear it," he said. "We couldn't get him in, and they wouldn't hold him. ... The only way to get an intervention in time is to lie and say they threatened you."

Walter Stawicki recalled a son who liked dogs, kids and plants. He joined the U.S. Army after graduating high school, but the Army honorably discharged him after about a year, he said.

And...........

According to the Seattle city attorney's office, police cited Stawicki in 1989 for carrying a concealed knife and, in 2008, a girlfriend who lived with him claimed he had assaulted her and had destroyed her property. She later recanted, and charges were dismissed because she would not cooperate with prosecutors.

Other than a couple of traffic tickets and a fistfight with his brother several years ago — charges were dropped — Stawicki had no criminal record, his father said.

So.....yes Stawicki had a carry permit and was able to legally obtain firearms because, just like the Virginia Tech shooter, his information was never put into the system. The military released him on an 'honorable' discharge after only about one year of sevice , his family's attempts to get him mental intervention were thwarted, and his girlfriend recanted her charges against him for assault and destruction of property.

Society continues down this hazardous road of showing indifference towards the sickness of paranoid schizophrenia. It's easier to simply dump them out onto the streets and blame their murderous rampages on the "evil proliferation of guns" rather than provide them the treatment that they desperately need.

 

[Skribs]

Very good point, jbrown. I took a psych class on domestic abuse, where we went into how little it is reported, and how most abusers use this trend to their advantage. There was another article I read recently about how if someone gets "not guilty by reason of insanity" and sent to a mental health institution, then because he's considered a mental health patient, the hospital cannot disclose to the government or community when he will be released, and when he is released whether or not he's still a danger to society. Scary stuff, especially because I'm not that big or physically coordinated.

 

[dmazur]

I heard a report (radio) which played up the "heroic" behavior of the customer who threw stools at the shooter, distracting the shooter while three other customers escaped. (As well as the somethat tangential reference to his brother, who died in the 9/11 WTC attacks. The customer said he vowed to not go down without a fight, after losing his brother.)

My thoughts were, "The media is so close to the truth, if they can accept fighting back as the correct thing to do."

And the next thing I wondered was whether the customer would have been considered a hero if he'd managed to stop the shooter by killing him with one of the stools.

Despite the reports of "distraction", I imagine the customer was only thinking of stopping the guy. At least, I would have.

So, the rhetorical question is, what level of self-defense is appropriate? If smacking someone with a heavy stool is OK, why isn't it acceptable to shoot him?

 

[Skribs]

So, the rhetorical question is, what level of self-defense is appropriate? If smacking someone with a heavy stool is OK, why isn't it acceptable to shoot him?

Because that is a natural fight-or-flight response, using tools available in the environment to try and stop a surprise attack. If he had been carrying and training for self defense, it means he's paranoid and/or looking for an excuse to shoot someone, and has practiced doing so.

#devilsadvocate

 

[dmazur]

OK, I understand that mindset without agreeing with it.

Thank heavens there isn't support for "being prepared". That would mean carrying a stool around with you, in case the local environment didn't have one.

And then there would be the question of whether a 38 lb stool would stop the attacker, when everyone knows that a 45 lb stool would put him down with one swing...

And whether carrying a stool openly would be brandishing.

</sarcasm off>

 

[Seattleimport]

I've gotta say, that stool-throwing article (http://www.king5.com/news/local/Hero-threw-stool-at-shooter-in-cafe-saved-3-lives-156032685.html) is a huge win for RKBA. If that stool guy had thrown lead instead of furniture, the gunman would never have been able to murder the woman he carjacked. A person would be alive today if that nutjob had been shot dead in the cafe.

I mean, that's indisputable.

That said, the nutjob should never have been allowed access to guns in the first place. I'm all for RKBA for sane people; crazy folk should be legally barred from owning firearms. Not all gun laws are bad.

 

[Skribs]

That said, the nutjob should never have been allowed access to guns in the first place. I'm all for RKBA for sane people; crazy folk should be legally barred from owning firearms. Not all gun laws are bad.

I'm with you on that. The problem is, as was stated by jbrown, that all of the opportunities to portray this man as violent or insane were ignored, and he legally had a permit for it.