Letter to the Editor: Gun-Related Tragedies

» Rambler on 12.19.12 @ 07:14 PM

Thorn, the opposite of “gun control” is something like “guns out of control.” President Obama never even suggested that guns be banned. But if we don’t control them, then we are not arming a “well-regulated militia” - we are arming everybody who wants a gun. Including the violently insane.

Nobody except the most self-deluded can pretend to be bearing arms to keep the government in check. Over and over, all across the world, it has been shown that peaceful means are the only effective means against tyranny, if you don’t want to replace one tyrant with another.

And we do not suffer under tyranny. Your conspiracy theories are worn and wearing, and you should have enough sense not to repeatedly remind us all of how coo-coo you really are. I hope you are psychologically screened before being allowed to buy a gun. I wonder if you could pass.

» youngat85 on 12.20.12 @ 12:01 PM

Amen and Ditto.

» Art on 12.20.12 @ 01:41 PM

“I guess stopping a shooting spree doesn’t make you a hero. Or at least that is what the press would have us believe.

The media, with their sensationalism will go on and on about how unarmed people acted bravely as they died at the hands of a lunatic, but nary a word about an armed person stopping a massacre before it barely begun.

I’m speaking of the actions displayed by Nick Meli.  Actions that gun control zealots and the media would have you believe didn’t exist.  You see, before the Gun Free Zone facilitated 27 murders in Newtown Connecticut, there was an attempted mass murder clear across the country in Portland Oregon.

A masked man stormed into the Clackamas Mall and opened fire, killing 2 and injuring 1.  The shooter had no intentions of stopping.  That is when Nick Meli made his move, drew his concealed pistol and lined the shooter up in his sights.

As with many of these rampage shooters, they are cowards.  They will cull unarmed sheep, but when they find any resistance or have to look down the barrel of a gun themselves, their cowardice is revealed and they often times flee or shoot themselves.

In this case, it was the latter.  Nick Meli didn’t fall into the caricature that gun control crowd draw of gun owners. He didn’t launch a salvo of bullets at the killer, he didn’t think himself some vigilante praying to use his gun.  He was a guy just trying to help.

He saw that there was people behind his target and that if he missed he may hit them.  He positioned himself in a store and waited for his shot.  The killer opted to take his own life. Nick Meli saved countless lives that day.  But apparently, that isn’t sexy enough for the national media.” Tony Oliva

» noleta res on 12.20.12 @ 03:33 PM

Goodland and Rambler, common sense just clanks right off their Bircher helmets. There is no point in engaging them in an argument requiring logic.
Mr Locke you embarrass yourself calling Thorn’s piece “on point”. What point did she make by pirouetting from the imaginary anti-gun agenda of Obama to Islamic terrorism to pathetically uninformed comments about Fast & Furious and Benghazi? This piece is a classic scattershot screed with no point whatsoever.
Art, well that’s what I’d expect from you: distract with trivia about gun mechanics and miss the point. Then bring up Meli’s story as if it actually supports your viewpoint when the opposite is true.
In the first place we’re giving Nick Meli the benefit of the doubt because his story is totally unconfirmed, but if 22 year old Meli saved lives it was by using his brain and true concern for safety, not his gun in public. He didn’t shoot because it wasn’t safe, but no one will ever know if the shooter decided to end his spree because he saw Nick Meli. It’s equally likely that the massacre would have ended the same way if Nick had stayed home. It may also be true he made up a bunch of hooey.

» AN50 on 12.20.12 @ 04:05 PM

The damned problem is the AH shooting, driving, flying or detonating what ever damned tool they choose to inflict death and suffering. In Obama’s case it’s his hatred of success and the printing press, Muslim fanatics an airplane, a white neurotic, a truck full of fertilizer and in Connecticut, a loopy nut who stole his mother’s guns.

It just amazes me to no end how you anti gun nuts can’t see the friggen hand, never the mind, only the trigger. In all the cases above it wouldn’t have mattered what control you can imagine, unless a total authoritarian, totalitarian police state, where all citizens< law abiding or not< are locked down and tightly controlled, would have stopped these murderers. Yet you keep talking about limits and controls that only affect innocent people, not insane psychopaths.

The fact is, had that principal, been armed herself, trained to use that gun, she would have been able to stop a lunatic who stole guns from a law abiding citizen before he was able to kill another human being.

As awful as that sounds to you cowards, capitulators and deluded ideologs, that is how you deal with this kind of situation in a free society. Not through restriction, confiscation, abdication or acquiescence, but by being responsible, vigilant and prepared. You either choose as a people to be responsible for the outcome of your lives and the protection of your offspring or you acquiesce that to an all powerful authority and then deal with your diminished capacity and weakness.

In this case, another gun free zone was dealt a blow by someone who could careless about your stupid idiotic controls, regulations and restrictions. They were totally and completely ineffective as they will always be. You people know it and thus your egregious lie is exposed.

» Art on 12.22.12 @ 01:37 AM

Rambler, I certainly agree with you that we shouldn’t sell guns (or any dangerous weapon for that matter) “to people who can’t pass a psyche evaluation. Make those who buy take a safety course. They should have the guns under their personal control (even concealed carry) or totally secured at all times.”