{"id":63643,"date":"2009-12-04T16:40:21","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T21:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010427607_recentseattleshootingsprees.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2009-12-04T16:40:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T21:40:21","slug":"recent-seattle-shooting-sprees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/63643","title":{"rendered":"Recent Seattle shooting sprees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bearing the weight of the right to bear arms<\/strong><\/p>\n

The kind of recent violence that was perpetrated at Fort Hood, Texas, and the Seattle-Tacoma area can never be completely eliminated in our society [\u201c\u2018I didn\u2019t want him to hurt any more people,\u2019\u201d News, Nicole Brodeur staff column, Dec. 3].<\/p>\n

One can criticize former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas for granting early release to Maurice Clemmons. Or one can find fault with our state\u2019s penal system, which allowed Clemmons to be released on bail recently, though facing charges of assaulting a police officer and raping a child. Clemmons later killed four Tacoma-area police officers before he was shot and killed by a Seattle policeman.<\/p>\n

Much the same can be said for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who killed 13 people in Fort Hood [\u201cFort Hood shooting suspect had shown troubling signs,\u201d News, Nov. 8]. He had been in contact with a radical Islamic cleric prior to the shootings. To what extent did military officials fail to take note of contacts like these on the part of dangerous personnel like Hasan?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, our society has no way of protecting itself from weapons-bearing characters like Clemmons and Hasan. Short of a military dictatorship like Nazi Germany, we can never totally rid our streets of crime and violence. That is the price we pay for a free society like ours, which allows its citizens the right to bear arms.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Joseph Delmore, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n

A million-dollar question for the NRA<\/strong><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t yet read or heard of anyone asking the $64,000 question: Where and how did Maurice Clemmons, the alleged shooter, get the weapons he used?<\/p>\n

If, as the NRA says, the key to gun safety is enforcing the laws already on the books, what went wrong?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Frederick Jessett, Sammamish<\/em><\/p>\n

The bus-stop shooter and concealed-weapons permits<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article in The Times of the woman who allegedly provoked a bus rider with obscene gestures, and then shot him in the chest as he approached her [\u201cBus-stop shooter won\u2019t be charged,\u201d NWWednesday, Dec. 2] shows that civilians who carry concealed weapons can be a danger to all of us.<\/p>\n

A bullet can travel through and exit a human with deadly force, wounding or killing bystanders. The shooter can miss, or the intended target may gain control of the gun and use it against the shooter and others.<\/p>\n

Dangerous incidents and injuries are becoming common as more and more people get concealed-weapons permits, which require only minimal training and skill. Police officers go through extensive training and regular practice in handgun use and, just as importantly, in handling difficult situations without discharging a weapon.<\/p>\n

A handgun carried by a civilian is just as dangerous as a handgun in the hands of a uniformed officer. The same level of training and skill should be required for a concealed-weapons permit.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dan Clawson, Renton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bearing the weight of the right to bear arms The kind of recent violence that was perpetrated at Fort Hood, Texas, and the Seattle-Tacoma area can never be completely eliminated in our society [\u201c\u2018I didn\u2019t want him to hurt any more people,\u2019\u201d News, Nicole Brodeur staff column, Dec. 3]. One can criticize former Gov. Mike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}