What's frightening about this shooting and the cap hill shootings they both could've been a lot worse. Thank god for the cop near the house party and this strong smart woman.

FNARF writes: "...it's got nothing to do with Israel or raves: it's about heavily armed no-hopers who can't face up to themselves."

Do you still feel that way? I generally respect your comments on this blog. But I can't see where you are coming from.

Even if the guy is "just" a nutty loser, the way he manifests his illness is by attacking Jews and screaming about Israel. He could --as I wrote on another post -- have gone to the ID and shot Chinese or gone to Ballard for some Swedes. But he didn't. Do you think it is just some wild coincidence that a Moslem man shot Jewish women?

Is it any more coincidental than a Montana kid getting a hard on for ravers and blowing 'em away? Attaching the religious/political spin to this gives it far more depth than it seems to merit.

"Attaching the religious/political spin to this gives it far more depth than it seems to merit."

I find that statement more than a little odd. The killer himself said it's about Israel and killed Jews. What more do you need? Are we so patronising to Moslems that we can't take them at their word and action? That we think we know their motives better than they do?

Talking about "Orientalism" -- Edward Said would find this a fine example though not in the way he would prefer.

The intentional aiming for gut-shots makes me think this is more anti-semetic and politically motivated rather than just a purely crazy act by a go nowhere loser. If his intention going in was to have his demands met, having a group of hostages slowly dying an excruciating death is a surprisingly goal-oriented (and psychopathic) action.

Unlike the montanta kid, who was out to kill and get noticed, this guy seems more interested in setting up a grim negotiation situation. More like the kidnapping of soldiers than columbine.

That is not to say he is in any way sane. Just that his only motivation wasn't attention after a failed life.

We should all hope to behave with the honor and intelligence of Dayna Klein in such a situation.

Seems simpler - he walks into an office, finds a bunch of women, and freaks. He kills the oldest one, and probably in his mind the one in charge, and shoots everyone else in a manner unlikely to be fatal. Finally he talks to 911 and tries to use the hostage bit to get away, and finally decides to opt for not getting shot. So he's a coward. I don't see much more going on there.
Regarding the motive, if you google "Israel Seattle" for pages that existed prior to the shooting you get the target group as the first brick and mortar result, and you get to a some stuff on their raising funds for *the current crisis in Israel*.
One would not have to be a great screenwriter to get from that to what he did without including the nutty bits that I've seen all over these boards.
He's not crazy. He's ignorant, and he's acting out of his ignorance and passions. In that respect this gunman is the quintessential american.
By the way, dig a little deeper into the fund drive who's web-posting may have set him off, and you'll see it's to help kids and the elderly get out of the border zone for a while. I wonder, had he known that, would any of this happened? Maybe. Or maybe the difference between life and death was a few bits of information and few mouse clicks.
More and more these days, as America's invincible ignorance drives us to do stupider and stupider things in parts of the world we refuse to understand, I'm reminded of Spinoza's lemma, that freedom presupposes knowledge. When you act from ignorance, you aren't acting freely, because you aren't actually doing what you believe you are doing. Your action becomes a random impulse whose effects are determined by fate, not by your will.
I'll leave it as an exercist to thing through how Nietzche would respond.

Gotta hand it to Dayna Klein for keeping her cool. I would be totally worthless in a situation like that.

Isn't there someting creepily sexual about shooting a bunch of women—including a pregnant woman—in "the gut." (The pregnant woman covered her stomach with her arm, and was wounded in the arm.) He was also arrested for flashing, right?

Perhaps he thought he'd get 70 virgins in paradise if the cops came and took him out after he shot a bunch of Jewish women.

Seattle Man -- actually I could take your argument and turn it on its head (that Muslims can't be whacked out), and make it seem just as ethnocentric.

Just cause folks say something doesn't mean that it means that much.

For the sake of argument, let's say John Hinkley had uttered something political when he fired at Reagan. Would that have meant that anyone should have taken him seriously?

I doubt even the most zealous Secret Service folks felt that Lynette Squeaky Fromme was indicative of anything other than a Mansom family crazy acting out. I recall no added crack down on radical left groups at the time (already so well monitored they probably didn't need to).

Did the guy hate Jews? Maybe/probably. Could he have been acting out of anger over what's happening in the mid-east right now? Sure.

I just don't happen to draw any larger conclusions out of it. Same as I didn't after the Huff shootings.

Speaking of which, I do find an odd bit of similarity here. The police report on Huff said that he appeared to lose any real interest in killing shortly after it began...as if his rage or thrill was spent. Kerlikowskie in his press conference said that seemed to happen w/the 911 call.

Here's what I meant, Seattle Man. Yes, obviously this person was motivated by hate for Israel and Jews. But opposition to Israel's policies manifests itself in lots of ways, and very few of those ways involve shooting guns at pregnant women's bellies in Seattle, WA. The remarkable thing about this jerk isn't that he's Pakistani and hates Jews; it's that he's firing his gun at people in our downtown.

Given that he has a mental-problems history, and sexual-problems history, like so many of his countrymen -- sexual oppression is the primary cause of sexual crime -- and the fact that lots of people who are not happy with Israel nowadays have somehow managed to avoid killing any Jews in town here, I think there's something seriously wrong with this creep that political views are insufficient to understand.

Don't mistake me; I'm not trying to set up his insanity defense. I think he should rot in jail forever. But I think he's lying to himself as well as us, and laying the blame for his own pathetic loserdom at the feet of the Jews when it realistically belongs to himself.

It's interesting and to a lesser degree, sort of pathetic, to see such over analysis diluting the greater issue. This is a cut-and-dry case of religious extremism and more than likely a prologue to more Muslim/Arab violence dropped in the front yard of the US. Look, leftist apologies aside, Hezbollah swept down, attacked a Northern Israeli outpost, killed three soldiers and kidnapped two. You see "progressive" commentaries taking the initiative to blast Israel for wanting to reduce Hezbollah's operational ability and by extension the US for arming Israel - completely disregarding the fact that Hezbollah and Hammas are armed by Syria and Iran who happen to be two of the leaders of state sponsored terrorism. Iran and Syria are actively working to engage Israel and the US in these kind of conflicts, not only to destabilize democratic efforts by bolstering sympathy for Muslim aggression but more importantly, to shift attention away from Iran's nuclear efforts - which is the biggest and real issue here. What happened in Seattle and this kind of psudo-justification for Muslim "frustration" is a telling and frightening revelation that not only is the issue weaving itself into the political philosophy of the American public, but this kind of division and violence that spawns it is about to get a whole lot worse.

The bigger issue here is that the shooter is obviously insane. Yes this manifested itself as a crime against Jews. One can be crazy and anti-semitic last time I checked (look at Mel Gibson). If leperchauns told him to burn random things I'm sure he would do that too but it wouldn't be seen as being politically motivated. Yes it is targeting a particular group, yes it is a hate crime but nothing like neo-nazi groups or rednecks and their lawn burnings. This guy seems to be acting alone and is obviously nuts.

I don't see Seattle being overrun by crazed islamic fundamentalists shooting guns at everyone. I see a troubled person acting out his frustrations on what he perceves to be his enemy. It could just as easily been clowns or lawyers or schoolteachers. This was his catalyst.

It's a tragic turn of events nonetheless and he needs jail and mental help.

That woman has what I like to refer to as "Crazy Mommy Power". Once a woman starts baking some buiscuts something INSANE happens in their brains that they can DO ANYITHING. I've seen them on Fear Factor. It last for awhile after birth, but some especially crazy women: it last forever. Ye be warned.

What gives Stranger? Is this issue just too overwhelming to tackle, or are you simply not interested because it doesn't involve teenagers and raving? At this point during the weekend of March 25, you had posted over 20 entries describing the horrific events on Capitol Hill. I think you are at less than five for this shooting. I think there are many implications and important things to discuss here, as well. Is it not a cool enough topic? Please explain.

"The intentional aiming for gut-shots makes me think this is more anti-semetic and politically motivated rather than just a purely crazy act by a go nowhere loser."

They are the SAME THING. Political IS crazy when it makes you shoot a gun at pregnant ladies. The suggestion that we should, you know, separate out this fellow's political viewpoint, presumably because we agree with it, from his hateful action, because, oh no, WE would never do that, is exactly the sort of thing that makes lefties look bad.

This guy is a BAD MAN, and he holds BAD POLITICAL VIEWS as well. He's obviously frustrated by his own inadequacy as a human being, and the equally obvious inadequacy of his culture (Islam, Pakistan) to cope with the ideas of civilization. Lots of Muslims are having trouble with these ideas right now. Blaming Israel for your own civilizational shortcomings is one way out. Shooting random Jews in Seattle is another one.

By focusing on this guy's political argument, you are making sound as if maybe he had a point, but just expressed it poorly. Please don't go there.

Sure, the guy might have been crazy. The problem is that when Muslims go crazy, they tend to shoot guns at Jews. It happens in Israel, it happens in France and now it happens in the United States. This incident is similar to the guy who ran into LAX and shot an El Al employee. So what if he acted alone? In the South, were we concerned when lone white assailants killed blacks as opposed to an organized group of whites. Violence and oppression do not require a conspiracy.

Millions of more Muslims immigrating to the U.S. means violence for American Jewry.

"By focusing on this guy's political argument, you are making sound as if maybe he had a point, but just expressed it poorly. Please don't go there."

I won't. I was just trying to understand this as more than just "what a crazy man."

To be clear, I am an american jew and don't in any way condone his views or behavior, and agree when you write "...This guy is a BAD MAN, and he holds BAD POLITICAL VIEWS as well. He's obviously frustrated by his own inadequacy as a human being, and the equally obvious inadequacy of his culture (Islam, Pakistan) to cope with the ideas of civilization."

I'm really struggling with this. The shooting happened fairly closely to where I work. Seattle is, by far, the smallest and least jewish city I've ever lived in. The fact that his (flawed) poltiically generated frustrations manifested as a fairly organized and horrifically violent act is disturbing in the least.

I'm just fearful that I'll have to live like French Jews live; on guard against someone who is both a crazy AND directed against some bullshit global jewish conspiracy.

Let's talk about psychosis, shall we? (a subject about which I know a bit, having spent too many years in psychology school). One of the hallmarks of psychosis is the loss of boundaries between self and others. For most people who are psychotic this is just plain old ordinary miserable- they feel everyone else's feelings and think everyone else's thoughts, the world is in them and surrounding them and it's scary. Part of why people are willing to take those awful drugs-they quiet down some of the roar inside.
For the tiny, tiny, teensy tiny minority of psychotic people who, like the shooter, are also imbued with another near-psychotic phenomenon--the hatred, not just the dislike of, but the hatred of any entire group of people--the very existence of this other group is intolerable. So they must be wiped out. People who commit hate crimes, be they Kyle Huff (and I consider what he did a crime of hate against people's sexual and emotional openness in the rave world, from what I've read), or Naveed Haq, cannot tolerate the existence of the hated group.
Additionally, they project onto that group everything human/vile about themselves. All humans have vile aspects; we are all covetous, lustful, mean, petty--and most of us get over it, embrace our humanity, stop seeing it as vile, or become sex columnists. But for persons suffering from a paranoid style, the existence within oneself of these oh so human characteristics is also intolerable. So they are projected out onto the hated group/people, who must then be exterminated. Two decades ago we had David Lewis Rice doing this to the Goldmark family, who he butchered because he thought they were Jewish Communists. Friday Naveed Haq did this to JFed workers because in his mind they were all Jews.
Anyhow, class (my former students can all stop yawning now and come out of hiding), the point of this is that Haq's behavior is crazy on two variables. First, intractable hate of Jews. As a Jew I can be completely unthrilled with what's happening in the Middle East without hating Muslims or Arabs. Anyone with intractable hate is crazy in my book, whether they're killing people, or claiming that my marrying my girlfriend invades the safety of their marriage (there's that psychotic process again, no boundaries between me and you).
Naveed Haq was also apparently, based on the news stories, crazy in other ways, in the more garden variety make-your-life-and-that-of-the-people-who-love-you-difficult ways. Ask any parent who's a NAMI member how painful it is to have a kid who once in a while "knows" that you are poisoning his food and so he has to stop you.
But the combo is deadly. Was deadly to a good woman who was a Jew by choice, and lived what we believe, the doing of justice, the creation of the just world.
All of this will be on the quiz. Extra credit for those who can respond to the question "what can we as a culture do to prevent either type of psychosis?"

Thanks Laura, it's good to know someone does actually have a brain or is at least mindful enough to use it. (I'm not saying everyone here is an idiot or anything)

Quite honestly, I don't think violent psychotic behavior is 100%preventable. You can isolate a case and perscribe drugs and therapy in order to prevent someone from acting on a violent fanasy or impulse. But obviously, someone is going to always slip through the net.

I think the only way to "cure" psychosis is to figure out what physical or chemical factors in the brain (abnormalities), or social factors, are the cause and figure out how to permanently alter or (fix) the brain and prevent outside factors. It probably doesn't help that human societies actively promote fantastic ideas and psychopathic behavior. The whole Middle East conflict is like a fantasist's jackpot.

I'm not psychologist though, so I really don't know much about the brain, pathology, psychosis, or neuroscience, so I can't really answer the question in any substantial way.

Hey, Golob -- I know it only takes one scumbag with a gun, but there are a heck of lot more of us with you than against you even in the Gentile city. God bless our Jewish friends especially on this sad day.

"The problem is that when Muslims go crazy, they tend to shoot guns at Jews."

You're an idiot. There are about 1.5 billion people practicing Islam on this planet. The vast majority of them are peaceful. This shooting, like the Huff killings, like the stabbing of that family in Kirkland, like that gunning down of those two women on that trail--are terrifying, but freak occurences. In this case the community targetted just happens to be a religious one.

As always, people just can't wait to shaft the scapegoat. The vast majority of media about muslims comes from the Middle East--it's not an accurate picture of the average muslim.

There's a lot of hatred in Seattle, but let's be serious. This is not the Middle East. This man does not represent the Muslim community.

according to the PI and KUOW, he converted to xtianity about a year ago.

Sp maybe those so quick to hitch their horses to the Muslim/Pakistani wagon, would like to now hitch them up to the dangers of born again Christians/small town America wagon?

Hey, I know: he was bringing on rapture!

KIRO is reporting they found a massive collection of Danny DeVito movies at the shooter's apartment, speculating it may have something to do with the fact that he kind of looks like a younger Arab version of the actor.

Whatever. I don't think it's a coincidence that he killed a 58 year-old woman who looks very much like the 58 year-old Hillary Clinton. The Democrats' frontrunner candidate for president. His recent conversion to Christianity may have a connection to eastern Washington's notorious religious militias.

G

One thing I find puzzling is why none of the people at the Jewish Federation were carrying concealed handguns. Aren't law-abiding Washington residents over the age of 21 permitted to carry them? I'm no gun nut, and I don't believe violence is the solution to anything, but I can't help thinking that if it were legal for me to carry a concealed handgun, and if I worked at an organization which had heavy security because it was a target of irrational hatred, I would have purchased a handgun, learned how to use it, and carried it with me. I don't want to kill anyone, but if it's down to him or me, I'd prefer it be him.