Oh boy, where to start? 
STORY
What part of 'guns kill people' don't we understand?
Nicole Brodeur / Times Staff Columnist
I didn't walk in the Million Mom March.
I wasn't in Washington, D.C., to mourn the nation's gun deaths and to join the voices crying for laws that would turn arsenals to scrap metal and save countless lives.
But I'm marching just the same, and to a drumbeat that is not politically correct, or even, the true believers would argue, constitutional.
But it is heartfelt and true:
Guns . . . kill . . . people.
I don't know why we are so afraid to say that, or so quick to lay the blame on someone else.
This isn't about hunting rifles or your boy being taught to shoot the Thanksgiving turkey. This is about assault weapons. This is about handguns in the pockets of people who are eating out with their families.
This is about getting honest with ourselves and admitting the reason we have guns is because other people have guns.
You can try to tell me otherwise. You can trot out the old "Guns don't kill people, people do" line, as hackneyed and flimsy as the assurances of a used-car salesman.
You can send me autographed pictures of Charlton Heston.
You can fax me copies of the Constitution, with the Second Amendment underlined a thousand times.
You can ask me what I would do if a man broke into my house. Wouldn't I want a gun? (No. I have a child with quick hands and intense curiosity. Too risky.)
Just save it. Save it all.
Instead, consider recent events and then ask yourself whether you still think guns are as essential as cell phones.
Dale Cramm bought two semiautomatic handguns, a semiautomatic rifle, ammunition and high-capacity magazines at a gun show at the Snohomish County Fairgrounds in June.
Perfectly legal in America.
But know that these were replacement guns. Just days before they were bought, police seized five shotguns and six rifles - three of them military-style semiautomatics - from Cramm's Everett home.
It is the same home where, on May 30, Jason Thompson and Jesse Stoner, both 18, were shot to death after a prearranged fistfight between Cramm's son, Dennis, 17, and a 16-year-old boy.
Dennis Cramm has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held on $500,000 bail. His father - after replenishing his arsenal - was charged with three drug-related felonies and with witness and evidence tampering.
I would think that Dale Cramm would wish his guns gone for good after those two young men died. I would hope he would clean his house of every last bullet.
But no. He replaced them like most people do light bulbs. No remorse. No sorrow.
Just more guns.
On the Eastside, officials have closed the 50-year-old Interlake Rod and Gun Club, an outdoor firing range, after two stray bullets knocked out car windows in a neighbor's parking lot.
And earlier this month, the King County sheriff's new, multimillion-dollar practice range in South King County was closed while officials try to find ways to keep innocents from getting shot.
It already happened in Snohomish County in 1997, when a stray bullet from a sheriff's gun range hit a day-care teacher in the leg. She was standing with a dozen children. Another bullet was found next to a sandbox.
In order to get its license back, the Interlake Rod and Gun Club has to prove that no more bullets will leave the range.
I'm anxious to hear what they come up with.
There are so many guns in America that foreigners think we pack them like Life Savers. And in too many places, that's true.
On July 23, a 51-year-old Marysville man was on his way to answer the door when a gun he was tucking into his pocket fired.
Anthony Walsh, 35, was sitting with friends in the neighboring duplex - on the other side of the wall - when the bullet hit him in the back. He died.
No charges were filed because the shooting was accidental.
I asked Michael Magee, Snohomish County's assistant chief deputy prosecutor, to explain.
He sounded tired.
"I don't see any need or necessity for a handgun," Magee said.
"They are the weapons that routinely end up killing people. It's too damn tragic to even talk about it."
The Walsh shooting was an accident, pure and simple. It's just that some people think they need guns to answer the door.
"I am tired of the carnage, frankly," Magee said.
Aren't you?
Take the guns out of any of those situations - the fistfight in Everett, the knock at the door in Marysville, and the firing ranges - and no one would have been shot. There may have been altercations, broken glass, or blood.
But probably no funerals.
The other day, I got a note from someone accusing me of being "the mouthpiece for Seattle's Gun-Hatred Culture."
I like it. It's a good banner to wear on this march.
Nicole Brodeur's phone number is 206-464-2334. Her e-mail address is nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. She shoots with her mouth. (that last is their accurate description)
Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company
[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited August 21, 2000).]
STORY
What part of 'guns kill people' don't we understand?
Nicole Brodeur / Times Staff Columnist
I didn't walk in the Million Mom March.
I wasn't in Washington, D.C., to mourn the nation's gun deaths and to join the voices crying for laws that would turn arsenals to scrap metal and save countless lives.
But I'm marching just the same, and to a drumbeat that is not politically correct, or even, the true believers would argue, constitutional.
But it is heartfelt and true:
Guns . . . kill . . . people.
I don't know why we are so afraid to say that, or so quick to lay the blame on someone else.
This isn't about hunting rifles or your boy being taught to shoot the Thanksgiving turkey. This is about assault weapons. This is about handguns in the pockets of people who are eating out with their families.
This is about getting honest with ourselves and admitting the reason we have guns is because other people have guns.
You can try to tell me otherwise. You can trot out the old "Guns don't kill people, people do" line, as hackneyed and flimsy as the assurances of a used-car salesman.
You can send me autographed pictures of Charlton Heston.
You can fax me copies of the Constitution, with the Second Amendment underlined a thousand times.
You can ask me what I would do if a man broke into my house. Wouldn't I want a gun? (No. I have a child with quick hands and intense curiosity. Too risky.)
Just save it. Save it all.
Instead, consider recent events and then ask yourself whether you still think guns are as essential as cell phones.
Dale Cramm bought two semiautomatic handguns, a semiautomatic rifle, ammunition and high-capacity magazines at a gun show at the Snohomish County Fairgrounds in June.
Perfectly legal in America.
But know that these were replacement guns. Just days before they were bought, police seized five shotguns and six rifles - three of them military-style semiautomatics - from Cramm's Everett home.
It is the same home where, on May 30, Jason Thompson and Jesse Stoner, both 18, were shot to death after a prearranged fistfight between Cramm's son, Dennis, 17, and a 16-year-old boy.
Dennis Cramm has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held on $500,000 bail. His father - after replenishing his arsenal - was charged with three drug-related felonies and with witness and evidence tampering.
I would think that Dale Cramm would wish his guns gone for good after those two young men died. I would hope he would clean his house of every last bullet.
But no. He replaced them like most people do light bulbs. No remorse. No sorrow.
Just more guns.
On the Eastside, officials have closed the 50-year-old Interlake Rod and Gun Club, an outdoor firing range, after two stray bullets knocked out car windows in a neighbor's parking lot.
And earlier this month, the King County sheriff's new, multimillion-dollar practice range in South King County was closed while officials try to find ways to keep innocents from getting shot.
It already happened in Snohomish County in 1997, when a stray bullet from a sheriff's gun range hit a day-care teacher in the leg. She was standing with a dozen children. Another bullet was found next to a sandbox.
In order to get its license back, the Interlake Rod and Gun Club has to prove that no more bullets will leave the range.
I'm anxious to hear what they come up with.
There are so many guns in America that foreigners think we pack them like Life Savers. And in too many places, that's true.
On July 23, a 51-year-old Marysville man was on his way to answer the door when a gun he was tucking into his pocket fired.
Anthony Walsh, 35, was sitting with friends in the neighboring duplex - on the other side of the wall - when the bullet hit him in the back. He died.
No charges were filed because the shooting was accidental.
I asked Michael Magee, Snohomish County's assistant chief deputy prosecutor, to explain.
He sounded tired.
"I don't see any need or necessity for a handgun," Magee said.
"They are the weapons that routinely end up killing people. It's too damn tragic to even talk about it."
The Walsh shooting was an accident, pure and simple. It's just that some people think they need guns to answer the door.
"I am tired of the carnage, frankly," Magee said.
Aren't you?
Take the guns out of any of those situations - the fistfight in Everett, the knock at the door in Marysville, and the firing ranges - and no one would have been shot. There may have been altercations, broken glass, or blood.
But probably no funerals.
The other day, I got a note from someone accusing me of being "the mouthpiece for Seattle's Gun-Hatred Culture."
I like it. It's a good banner to wear on this march.
Nicole Brodeur's phone number is 206-464-2334. Her e-mail address is nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. She shoots with her mouth. (that last is their accurate description)
Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company
[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited August 21, 2000).]
