[FONT face=Arial]SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
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The price a culture pays for its love of the gun[/FONT] [FONT face=Arial,Helvetica size=2]
Tuesday, March 28, 2006[/FONT]
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By ROBERT L. JAMIESON JR.P-I COLUMNIST[/FONT]
Don't blame the rave scene for the Seattle's worst mass murder in more than two decades.
Blame the guns -- and a culture that celebrates firepower.
Blame the murdering madness on a country that has seen Columbine, Kip Kinkel and bullets at the Tacoma Mall, but lacks the common sense to clamp down on weapons of mass carnage.
Blame the gun lobby on the other Capitol Hill -- not the rave crowd on Seattle's Capitol Hill.
Gun advocates like to say guns don't literally kill, and they're right.
People do.
Problem is, people keep killing people with guns, just as Kyle Huff did over the weekend.
The National Rifle Association wraps itself in the Second Amendment and bullies anyone who disagrees.
The uncomfortable truth is, the right to bear arms has become a right for lunatics to get tools of lethal efficiency and shoot up people.
Huff is the latest example of what happens when high-powered weapons end up in the wrong gun user's hands.
He brought rage to a rave after-party, walking into the sky-blue home armed with a pistol-grip, short-barrel shotgun and a semiautomatic handgun. He had two bandoliers and extra ammo in his pockets.
Even more weapons were inside his black Dodge truck outside: a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle with banana clips, similar to the weapon the D.C. sniper used, and shotgun shells.
If Huff had plenty of means to kill at his disposal -- police removed three more rifles from his North Seattle apartment -- he also had a history. In Montana, he faced a felony criminal mischief charge in 2000 for blasting a statue of a moose with gunfire. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
Had Huff shot up a statue in, say, downtown Seattle -- as opposed to in gun-friendly Montana -- he would have been dealt with more seriously, law enforcement and public-policy officials tell me. Had the felony charge stuck and led to conviction, it would have been illegal for Huff to own firearms.
We'll never know if the slap on the wrist for the statue incident was the last chance to alter this tragic trajectory. We do know that Saturday, the 28-year-old pizza deliveryman executed six people before shooting himself and that two of the weapons used -- a 12-gauge shotgun and Ruger .40-caliber handgun -- were also used to shoot the fake moose.
Why Huff stalked and stole real lives jousts with another question: Why did he have so many guns, including the 12-gauge pistol-grip?
This shotgun is easier to conceal than a long hunting rifle, can be used in tight spaces and packs power. That's why Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske says without hesitation that such a weapon has but one purpose: to hunt people.
After Congress let the federal assault weapons ban expire in 2004, Kerlikowske tells me, he ran into a U.S. senator from the South.
The senator predicted that the assault ban would see the light of day, Kerlikowske recalled, "after a few more school shootings."
Or house shootings.
The blood on Capitol Hill should jolt us to our senses about guns in society.
Federal officials ought to take a second look at that assault ban, which, though flawed, had its heart in the right place. The ban, which drew strong support in polls, had outlawed 19 types of military-style assault weapons and limited ammunition magazines, possibly including the kinds of magazines Huff had.
State Senate Bill 5343 tried to close a legal loophole that allows firearms at gun shows and flea markets to be sold anonymously by non-licensed collectors.
These collectors are not required to make criminal or mental background checks of buyers, as are licensed gun-store owners. The bill failed this year.
Huff had guns that were legal to possess. The guns he used in the killings appear to have been bought legally, which is disturbing, given the sneaky lethalness of his 12-gauge and his past gun trouble.
The Capitol Hill slayings present an opportunity for people to talk about how our nation is overrun with guns, including high-caliber assault rifles and semiautomatics.
A total gun ban isn't the answer; guns are here to stay.
We do need to talk about stricter gun control, restrictions on some weapons, more thorough background screening of buyers, plugging of loopholes and tough penalties for guns that are used in lesser crimes.
Seattle now lives a nightmare made possible in a country so much in love with the way of the gun -- fatally so.
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P-I columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. can be reached at 206-448-8125 or [email protected]. © 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
