There is still much ink being printed about the self-defense shooting by a law abiding citizen in downtown Seattle’s Westlake Center. My previous posts on it are here and here , and Joe Huffman blogged it here .
Today however, I want to show you the “Letters to the Editor” section of Friday’s Seattle Times, where two Seattlites with and extraordinary lack of intellect got their emotional ejaculations put on display to the public.
First, we have Brian Templeton of Des Moines (scroll down a bit), who decided that the use of a firearm in self-defense was a good enough reason to revisit the topic school shootings.
Another predictable round of American gun owners murdering school kids, and we’re told schools will check their safety measures. So, there will be more ludicrous badges dangling from teachers’ necks, and all visitors with at least a hundred rounds of ammo will be asked politely to check in at the main office before they start killing people.
Wonderfully well-meaning as these ideas are, I just don’t think they’re gonna stop any red-blooded American gun owner with a gun in hand and murder in mind. So, I humbly propose a different idea: Get rid of the guns.
Can’t be done? As a matter of fact, it has been done, in a modern, urban, industrial society. While school shootings are so common as to be barely newsworthy in this country, they never happen in Japan.
I can only surmise that he decided that, because he couldn’t stay on topic, he was to be as truthless and vulgar as possible. Of course, when people know so little about the history of Japan’s feudal system and the US victory in WWII as people do nowadays, it is easy to believe that the general population of Japan ever had access to firearms.
Then, right at the top of the Letters page, we have Brian L. Grant, MD, of Seattle. His MD is in psychiatry which, after what he wrote, makes me wonder exactly what else he is willing to put up with?
It is not a surprise that the first letter published in “Escalating violence” on the recent shooting at Westlake Center was by a gun advocate neatly seeing this tragedy as an example of appropriate use of firearms and the value to society of citizens being armed.
What we know from media accounts is that the deceased had a history of mental illness and violent behavior and was assaulting an armed homeless man in broad daylight on a crowded downtown square. While under attack, the shooter was able to retrieve his weapon and fire.
Had [the shooter] not been armed, would he have been seriously hurt, or would he have focused on defending himself short of using deadly force, or even using his free arm to gain some distance from his assailant? And were any of the many bystanders prepared to intervene or in the process of intervening before the shooter made his fateful decision?
The first rule of self-defense is prudence and escape when it is an option. Unfortunately, there are those among us who, due to poor judgment, mental illness or substance abuse may be physically violent. Most fights in the absence of a weapon are not fatal.
The true victim was the mentally ill man who had a death sentence meted out by his executioner.
Are we as a society more secure knowing that armed citizens making snap judgments are our first defense against physical violence rather than a last option?
Is he really suggesting that the mentally deranged violent lunatic who chose to attack a completely unknown and innocent passerby would have let up after only hitting the man who had to shoot him a few times? Has Dr. Grant forgotten that the attacker actually told the man he was going to kill him?
If so, would Dr. Grant be willing to endure broken bones and blood loss from thousands of law-abiding, gun-owning private citizens from an attack of this nature in exchange for the loss of their human rights to self-defense?
After reading what he wrote, I am sure he would be, so long as he wasn’t the one being attacked.
The same conclusion was reached by Rod Xuereb, MD of Bellevue in today’s Letters to the Editor
Dr. Brian L. Grant suggests people shouldn’t be armed to defend themselves against attack because “most fights in the absence of weapons are not fatal”.
While this may be a true statement, I’m curious which nonfatal injuries he would have his family endure for the sake of a mentally ill person or drug-crazed lunatic? Would a smashed face from a fist requiring multiple surgeries suffice?
Possibly a head injury or ruptured spleen from a good kick would be enough.
As a physician, I too have seen the direct consequences of street fights without weapons. You don’t need a gun or knife to inflict death or grievous, life-long harm to another person. What is your limit?
Dr. Xuereb’s speciality is in Anesthesiology, a profession where lives do, absolutely, hang in the balance. Unlike Dr. Grant’s speciality which is as close to hard science as a cheeseburger.
And Dr. Xuereb gets today’s award for “The Smartest Thing I’ve Read All Day”.
