Tragedy in Seattle



Seattle Times photo

Ironically, just one day after I posted Tuesday's essay -- in which I lamented the prevalence of hand guns in our society, and the reprehensible influence of the NRA and the gun industry -- Seattle made the national headlines when a "mentally disturbed" gentleman shot and killed without provocation five strangers and injured two more. 

Yesterday morning, about 11 o'clock, Ian Stawicki walked into a quiet café, an artists' hang-out, a few blocks from the University of Washington. Within 63 seconds, he had killed four people and left two injured.  He somehow escaped the scene and headed south a couple of miles to First Hill, on the outskirts of downtown.  There, he saw a Mercedes SUV he wanted, killed its owner, and drove away.
News sources at first reported these two shootings as isolated events, giving the impression that the city was descending into homicidal chaos.  Police finally located Mr. Stawicki in West Seattle, where he deprived us all of any explanation for his remarkable behavior by putting a bullet into his own brain.

Seattle has now had 21 homicides already this year.  One week ago today, a man running errands in the Madrona neighborhood was killed by someone aiming at someone else.  Last Saturday, a folk festival attendee at the Seattle Center was injured -- again "collateral damage" of someone's aiming at someone else.  Today's newspaper is full of articles asking what's wrong with Seattle, where have we gone wrong, what can we do about it?

Well, gun control would be an excellent start.  Gun control to the full extent allowed us by Supreme Court decisions disastrously interpreting the Second Amendment.

But let's not exaggerate.  Seattle has gun problems that most cities would happily accept.  I received an email this morning from a Southern California friend expressing his concern and hoping that neither I nor any of my friends were among the victims.  Not really. Life goes on.  Spring is beautiful.  I walked for an hour and a half last night through areas close to the shootings, areas where the local high school and middle school had been on lock-down with all curtains drawn only hours before.  College kids were enjoying a spring night on campus.  The fraternity kids were acting as fraternity kids are wont to act. 

No one openly packed heat; no one looked ready to dodge bullets.  We're a city of over 600,000.  We can absorb a few killings without succumbing to panic.

Of course, if you later learn that my head was blown off as I stepped out the front door tomorrow morning to pick up my New York Times, this posting will seem strangely prescient.  Heave a sigh, should that be the case, print out my final "Confused Ideas" posting, and file it away in your folder labelled "Irony."