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01/26/2011

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Jeremy Billadeau

Great article Mike!... Amen on all counts. But I especially liked your dismissal of hiding behind the argument for that Tuscan mans insanity justifying his actions. It seems we willingly put a lot of band-aids on things that require a much deeper healing and expect it to get better.

Gabe

I'm surprised you didn't mention the guy in Tucson who heard the firing and was carrying a gun. Luckily, he yelled "Drop it! Drop it!" rather than just opened fire because the person holding the gun had wrestled it away from the shooter.

Mike Peterson

I'd have mentioned that, Gabe, if I'd known about it. Sounds like divine intervention to me.

And that's my explanation for everything, Jeremy: We don't need to work out solutions. Deeper healing is hard and thinking makes my head hurt. We just need a whole lot more of Jesus, and a lot less rock'n roll. And guns. We all need to start packin'.

Sherwood

The clip is even better for this purpose if it goes on for another ten seconds.

Mike Peterson

I had trouble finding a clip that didn't include the whole "say what again" sequence as well.

However, this fills out the piece, and, you know, the first time I saw that, I had this moment of "dude, you want to watch where you're pointing that ..."

It's a really well set-up scene, and, as you say quite germane:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4FytR1h060

ronnie

I came by to mention the newspaper interview with the guy who nearly shot the guy who wrestled the gun away from the shooter too - but I see Gabe beat me to it.

This Slate article: http://www.slate.com/id/2280794/ links to a number of original sources for the story.

It's a great illustration of why arming everyone will just lead to mad shoot-outs that leave even more innocents wounded dead.

MrJM

"This is statistical nonsense at a level which equates to a lie."

This straight-forward sentence needs to become a regular feature of our national dialog on so many topics. Well done.

-- MrJM

MrCanoehead

If I recall correctly, there's a scene in Fargo that makes the same point. Wade Gustafson is armed, and knows he's going to confront a criminal, and he *still* gets shot to death.

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