8/3/11

Rapid City incident not unforeseen

When Garrison Keillor opened A Prairie Home Campanion in the Rapid City Civic Center Theatre on November 20, 1999 he cited a statistic that Pennington County has the highest per capita gun ownership in the United States. A nervous chuckle rolled through the audience.

The number of experiences that i have had in gun and pawn shops in Rapid City that have taken me aback are too numerous to count. Two are vivid: a fifteen year old with mother in tow pointing at a Glock in a case saying: "that one" and a man buying five AK-47s with cash.
Christopher J. Capps, 22, who died of multiple gunshot wounds on Sunday night at Rapid City Regional Hospital, had been accepted by the University of South Dakota – Vermillion. Described as a “very outgoing” young man, Capps was well known around the neighborhood where was shot in a hail of bullets that may have ranged as high as five or six shots from Sheriff Department deputy David Olson, a nearly five-year veteran of the department. [Native Times]
The people involved in this skirmish are not the first casualties of this war; nor are they the last.

4 comments:

freegan said...

Educate people. We are at a time where all main stream Americans read, see, and play (voluntary entertainment) involves vulgar displays of violence. This is the problem not the guns. Its the person that pulls the trigger! get rid of the TV and video games, stop promoting wars and this will lead to a more peace loving people. Our own government tortures other humans. We must stop the linear thinking.

Bob Newland said...

Perhaps the young man who blew up and started blazing away had been rousted by cops unreasonably and repeatedly. Perhaps not.

In any case, it is not an argument to deny people the right to defend themselves by any means necessary.

larry kurtz said...

Shooter has died; looks like he had a tough life. "When ya ain't got nuthin' ya got nuthin' to lose."

john doe said...

Chicago Police Shooting Spree? Halfway Through 2011, 43 Shot, 16 Dead