"Such security may not have stopped a 22-year-old man with a concealed-weapons permit who is suspected of injuring three people at the festival last weekend. But a higher level of protection would work in the way that random, thorough checks at airports discourage certain behavior. Festivalgoers mindful that they face spot checks would think twice before bringing guns."

He had a concealed weapons permit. Even if a gun was found in his bag, he would be totally within his rights to carry it around a public place. Security wouldn't have prevented him from being at Folklife. Nor would it have stopped him from roughing up a drum circle (I'm with him on that one). The cops, who were security enough, grabbed him quickly. Sometimes, Times, you have to just admit that nothing else could have been done.

You're certainly not a slattern. I should know, I am one, and you're never at the meetings.

Except the ones riding fixies or sk8rs.

thank you for keeping tabs on these reactionary, pants-wetting pussies. it's the only way i'd have any idea what the Times shit-puked up on the editorial page.

Dan, I agree with you 100% now and then *(on the Cap Hill massacre).

If only you had a vehicle to get these opinions of yours out into the public sphere beyond the drunks and drug users who tend to read the Stranger.

Solution! You should write a guest editorial for the Times!

Only then, can we be truly safe.

Oh yeah, and that plastic bag tax, too. Truly safe, free, and eco-friendly.

These ultra-safe reactionary editorials are pathetic.

But I'll make an exception Dan.

"Fuck. Yes."

There you go. Pat yourself on the back and moon the Times offices. You deserve it.

How's a FREE festival going to pay for all this security you have imagined in your fairy-land? You guys gonna pony up? Cheers to that, motherfuckers.

Worst.Newspaper.Ever.

P.S.: Yer old.

And if the Seattle Times thinks the event should remain free, just who do they think should pay for the fence around the entire Seattle Center and dozens (hundreds?) of extra security guards?

All this for something that wouldn't have prevented the only shooting in 37 years.

Brilliant.

Jesus christ.... WA state is so fucked up.

I practically fell off my chair laughing at the slatterns line.

If they were capable of offering intelligent opinion, local news that's worth reading, or national news that they wrote themselves, then they'd still be popular. My junk mail has more interesting articles and less advertising too.

Yes Frank, some people never forget.

Oh, BTW, just because you have a concealed carry permit doesn't mean that private venues, such as Key Arena, have to let you in with your gun. The announcements are very clear, no weapons are tolerated. Having said that, however, can we please just regard this incident as a "one-off" and get on with the music?

dogs

cats

frogs

or balloon animals.

Especially the last ones.

Oh, and people with blowguns who look longingly at pigeons.

If these become a regular occurrence we can start 'taking action', but until then lets not get all worked up about random shit.

Fellation, I presume?

Fellatio, I presume?

Crime IS down - overall in the city. However, there's no contradiction between this general downturn and the fact that certain specific types of crimes (e.g. gay-bashings), or criminal activity in some specific neighborhoods (e.g. CapHill) may nevertheless be on the upswing.

Blah, because we don't pass knee-jerk discrimination laws. Especially against a group that numbers 540,000 people in WA and isn't statistically more violent than the general population. If you want to pass a discrimination law that will actually have a major effect on crime, ban white males from owning guns.

It's only fair.

I totally dont care how good of a kid his dad thinks he is, either. ugh.

Ok, so, which mental instabilities would qualify for revoking or disqualifying an individual from owning a firearm?

Would you draw the line at schizophrenia? or would you include depression, bipolar, and anxiety disorders too?

Would you also suggest that a person who had been assaulted and suffered from PTSD as a result should also not be permitted to protect themselves from another assault because they are now too unstable for your comfort?

Do you think, perhaps, that this might lead some to not seek treatment for such "instabilities" if it meant that a diagnosis would leave them with less rights than the rest of us and that such a diagnosis would leave their medical information as part of public record, accessible to all, because of it?

Would you propose that they should continue to suffer a reduction of rights due to seeking treatment in the past even after doctors declared them mentally fit after treatment was completed?

Is it less scary to you that such changes to the laws would encourage people with mental illnesses to not seek treatment?

Is an unmedicated and untreated mentally ill person with a gun more or less frightening to you than one who sticks with their treatment plan and voluntarily follows their doctor's advice?

I think that people need to be careful with the knee-jerking and make sure they think things through very carefully before demanding actions that could make the cure worse than the ailment.

Truth be told, I don't own a gun and guns frighten the crap out of me even when in the hands of supposedly sane people. I'd rather, if I had my druthers, that nobody have a firearm if you could get rid of all the illegal weapons out there.

However, don't you think it's a bit disconcerting for people to advocate that one group of Americans should have guns and another group of Americans should be prevented from having equal means to defend themselves against that first group?

It is, in essence, advocating that if you have a medical condition (which is what mental illness is after all) that it means you have less rights than another person... that you are less human, less deserving of the same protections, that you are a lower caste than everyone else, due to no real fault of your own doing.

But, as I said, that fact gets lost while everyone is knee-jerking in lock-step unison.