<p>I’m hanging on Allmusic’s limb, too. The guy was a nutjob who hated jews.</p>
<p>I think there are a couple of other things that are simultaneously true, as well. First, that there are some sane Muslims who take the call for violence against infidels seriously, and second that we, as a nation right now, have a problem with calling Islamofascist terrorism by its name. Like the LAX shooting and several other things. I don’t think it’s a grand conspiracy, but I do think that we are afraid to admit that there are actual people living in our country who want to kill us and will do so if they can. Now, I’m not saying that there are a huge number of such people, but I am saying that when it happens, we twist and contort to find some other explanation. Because the acknowledgement is horrifying and would demand introspection and action.</p>
<p>I think one thing we should be doing is putting more safeguards in place around weapons.
Do we really need big guns to defend ourselves?
How many guns do we need?
Assuming the guns are registered, do we have safeguards to insure that the owners are still capable of using them properly?
Would either the Belltown killing, or the Capitol HIll killings have occurred if they didn’t have guns?</p>
<p>I think you are looking for excuses to obfuscate the obvious. Very few killers have spotless mental records–that would be pretty scary if they did. It does not make them legally insane. He planned to make an anti-jewish politcal statement to the extent that he wanted the 911 operator to patch him through to CNN. The plan was detailed enough that he must have done some research on the building and the security in place.</p>
<p>I don’t think too much planning was involved. Up here, we’re more laid back, anyone could walk into just about any building or office for any reason. Not alot of security concerns… I guess in the past eh?</p>
<p>As far as gun control, beyond background checks (maybe including medical history) what can you do? Remeber a couple years ago they had to shoot the guy downtown with the samari sword. Unbalanced people may use anything as a weapon from a car to gun to whatever.</p>
<p>* Remeber a couple years ago they had to shoot the guy downtown with the samari sword. Unbalanced people may use anything as a weapon from a car to gun to whatever.*
Yes I remember when Tony Allison waved a sword around for 11 hours shouting gibberish, but how many people did he harm? ( and how much of a threat did the police consider him to be, if they let him do it all day?)</p>
<p>How long did it take Kyle Huff to kill the people on Capitol HIll? How long did the Wah Mee massacre take?
I think I like the odds of one person with a sword better than one person with a rifle</p>
<p>From what I have seen from King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, he tends to withhold his intentions for a long while when it comes to asking for capital punishment. I guess this is a good thing in that we expect our prosecutors to be deliberate in possible insanity plea cases. But I don’t think Maleng is above playing-out his decision in the press.</p>
<p>And since the Wah mee case was brought up, someone please remind me if Maleng sought the death penalty for Willie Mack. As I recall, Willie Mack had a mistrial and a re-trial. Was he executed?</p>
<p>The building had a couple levels of security. he waited for someone ( 14 year old girl) with the door code to come along and then forced her to use the intercom to be allowed in the next level by pointing a gun at her. </p>
<p>The guy in Kirkland killed 4 people with a knife. I could easily imagine using the 14 year old girl with a knife on her throat to get the people to lie down on the floor and tie each other up. Then he could kill them one by one. Of course a gun makes it all much easier but guns are not the issue, being a failure at life is not the issue, even having some mental issues is unlikely to be the issue.</p>
<p>The guy waited for the person in front of him to punch in a security code so he can gte inside the building. If he were just insane he would kill the guy opening the door. Also a crimminal witth the intent to kill will always find a gun. He does not need to buy it legally. Put more and more limitations on gun control will not do anything to stop gun crime. How many murderes do you think legally purchased their weapons?</p>
<p>“How many murderes do you think legally purchased their weapons?”</p>
<p>So should we abandone any type of background checks? Are they truly useless? </p>
<p>Listen, I truly believe guns don’t kill people…people do. If we don’t attempt to limit what type of person can own a gun, will it be better or worse? </p>
<p>Is it 100% effective? no, what is? </p>
<p>And I love a sub machine gun as much as the next guy, I just don’t want my neighbor to own one, so I won’t either. That’s a trade off I’m willing to accept to be here.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I agree with you about outlasting the sword guy. There is too great a risk. </p>
<p>However, the recent shooting of the guy in the tree (for being in the tree) was a bit much… The officer meant to taser him and grabbed her service weapon, but again why? He’s sitting on a branch of a tree and won’t come down…so shoot him?</p>
<p>I wasn’t really thinking of out lasting the nut downtown, but I would rather wrestle with someone who has a knife ( indeed I have ) rather than a gun</p>
<p>THis is a bit off topic, but I see so many different reactions by police.
We have one guy in Belltown who is obviously harming people, but they allow him to surrender, we have a guy with the sword, who forced closure of a swath of downtown, but then there are other cases, where people have been killed just because the police thought they saw a weapon</p>
<p>The guy in the tree was a strange case
They wanted to get him down, before he hurt “himself or others”
How many people were in the tree with him? anyone? what was he going to do, throw pine cones at them?</p>
<p>Albany NY police just changed their restrictions on alcohol intake to 8 hours before shift from “at their own discretion”. These officers had GUNS and could (and did) go directly to work as a police officer.</p>
<p>The city didn’t give their citizens the option of driving (without guns) to drive “at their own discretion”.</p>
<p>I fully support the right to arm bears (and others who the police find in trees)</p>
<p>There’s no question that the vast majority of people who commit criminal acts while suffering from some form of mental illness - even serious mental illness - are considered “responsible” for their acts under the law. </p>
<p>But there’s also no question that mental illness, even if it doesn’t rise to the level of a legal defense, may be highly mitigating for sentencing purposes - particularly if the question is whether or not the individual deserves the death penalty.</p>
<p>If this guy’s mental-health issues and history are substantial, my guess is that the State won’t seek the death penalty.</p>
<p>This was interesting though…in his own words. Hate crime by a nutcase indeed:</p>
<p>Shooter’s Motive: In His Own Words</p>
<p>“These are Jews, and I’m tired of getting pushed around,” Naveed Afzal Haq allegedly told a Seattle police dispatcher Friday when the pregnant woman he had shot handed him the cellphone she had used to call 911. “I have a gun to her head. This is a hostage situation. I have a hostage.”</p>
<p>“I’m not upset at people. I’m upset at your foreign policy,” Haq told police, after having shot and killed Waechtner. “Our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.”</p>
<p>I look forward to the weekend
to the hydroplane races
to a sunny day
but * look forward* to a wackjob, getting sentenced?
Not really what floats* my* boat.
But to each his own</p>
The officer meant to taser him and grabbed her service weapon, but again why? He’s sitting on a branch of a tree and won’t come down…so shoot him?</p>