Ángel González of the Seattle Times landed the unfortunate duty of penning the article:
Dane Gallion, 29, told officers he took the gun to Regal Cinemas 14 at the Landing on Thursday night because he was “concerned about recent mass shootings in public places,” according to a police account in a probable-cause statement released Saturday.
That same anxiety prompted him to keep the gun unholstered in his waistband, the statement says.
This is one of those. Gravity. Downhill. Abyss of stupidity. Really, it only gets worse.
To wit:
• According to the police account, Gallion gave inconsistent descriptions of how his firearm discharged while at “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”
• His father, Donald Gallion, had called the King County sheriff’s dispatch to say his son had returned home extremely upset, claiming the gun had fallen out of his pocket and gone off, police said.
• Dane Gallion later told the arresting officer that another moviegoer reached for his crotch and that’s when he accidentally fired the gun, according to the probable-cause statement.
• Finally, at the Renton police station, he told another officer that a man had been bothering him, but declined to go into the details, according to the statement. Gallion alleged the gun accidentally went off and scared him, prompting him to leave; he denied having handled the gun.
Furthermore, the shooter also told police he left the movie theatre because he was afraid people would think he was a mass shooter. Additionally, he allegedly disposed of the magazine in a trash can at the cinema, where police found it; law enforcement also retrieved a spent shell casing and unfired bullet inside the theatre, under the seat behind the woman who had been shot.
Oh, right, we might also note medication for anxiety and alcohol.
And at some point we might say something or other about responsible gun ownership, but since those words, arranged in that order, are complete and utter nonsense, we’ll just skip it.
Meanwhile, there is a policy solution: No accidents. Nobody died, so we don’t even need to send this shooter to prison; well, you know, should we choose to believe the lies. Still, though: Damages, perhaps a tenfold punitive assessment to victims, and he never carries a gun again in his life at risk of prison.
It’s not gun control; it’s idiot asshole shooter control.
You know, when responsible gun ownership becomes something more than a gutter slogan.
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González, Ángel. “Man who says he feared mass shootings accidentally shoots stranger in movie theater, police say”. The Seattle Times. 23 January 2016.
This Is 