My Own Side

My first thoughts are of sorrow for the students and families most directly affected by this horrible act. Most decent people would pause out of respect for the families.

Unfortunately, across the world many in the press couldn’t wait to start blaming America first for the act of one sick person. Here and here are some roundups of the international reactions to the shootings. There have been many paragraphs written about it, but it can all be summed up as “The Americans Had It Coming.” Reading the articles, it is depressing to see the perpetuation of the bigoted stereotype of the American as a foul, brash cowboy shooting up the saloon.

The communist controlled state media in China was particularly enthusiastic about the virtues of a disarmed populace. Do I really need to spell out why?

The Virginia Tech campus had been declared off limits to all guns. The end result of this was that all law-abiding citizens with concealed carry permits were disarmed when on that campus. The politically correct term for this is a “Gun Free Zone”. Perhaps a more accurate term would be a “Defense Free Zone”. Or maybe just a “Killing Field”. You read the heart-rending stories of some of the survivors and a common theme is the terror of realizing that they were utterly defenseless, and could do nothing but wait for their turn to be killed.

As misguided gun control advocates try to exploit this tragedy as an excuse to further disarm law abiding citizens and render them defenseless like the students and faculty at Virginia Tech were, we should remember something that Ronald Reagan said.

It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun control laws. I happen to know this from personal experience.

On Friday, July 28th 2006, Naveed Afzal Haq pushed his way into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building, said “I am a Muslim-American, angry at Israel” and shot six women, including one who was pregnant. One woman died at the scene, three of the others were critically injured. The woman who died was a member of B’nai Torah in Bellevue, according to a Rabbi that I spoke to at the scene.

The pregnant woman was shot in the arm, however, she may have saved her child’s life by covering her belly with her arm when she saw Naveed point the gun at her.

You can see the security, including a camera in the upper left corner. Below is a picture of the security pad. The early reports are conflicting. Some say a women had just entered the code when Naveed pushed past her and others say that he held a gun to the head of a 13 year old girl to gain access.

Daniel, a Christian, was there with Israeli and American flags showing his support for the Jewish community.

Unfortunately, not everyone was supportive. A young woman had left her anti-Israeli message on cardboard next to the flowers. She was mad at the idea that all this media attention might cause some to feel sympathy for Israel. How sweet.

As nasty as that was, it was topped by this guy, out for a stroll with a little girl that I assume is his daughter.

As he walked by and saw Daniel with the flags, he yelled down the street “F**k Israel! Burn that flag!” while flipping us off. She looked a little scared, but if you want to train your kids up for Jihad, you have to start training them early to hate Jews, I guess. How disgusting of an example.

I have some more pictures in my gallery here.

Washington Times story.

Seattle Times here, here and here.

King County Journal here.

Seattle Post Intelligencer here.

Also, check out the photo gallery here, pictures 6-9. There are reports that Naveed had left his Muslim faith and converted to Christianity last year, causing a fallout with his Muslim family.

As the ashes of the Kirkland home of Leonid and Olga Milkin and their two young boys cools, bleeding heart liberals writing news stories have to decide what angle to put on this horrible crime. It is sickening but predictable that they would chew up columns at a furious pace trying to excuse the creep who slashed the throats of Andrew (3 years old), Justin (5 years old), their mother Olga and her sister Lyuba.

We now know far more than any of us care to about his MySpace musings, his divorced parents, his disgust at his alcoholic dad and his inner turmoil. We know his hobbies are aquariums, playing pool, reading, cooking, video games and talking to people one-on-one. Unfortunately they have to mention somewhere in the story that his hobbies also included binge drinking and drugs, but they want to get all the other stuff mentioned first. Just in case you might be tempted to think that something was wrong with him.

After all, friends and former employers say that he is a caring young man, introspective, a nice guy and a gentleman.

Conner Schierman said he woke up in the Milkin’s home, covered in blood, gashed on the face (apparently from when Olga or Lyuba tried to fight him off) and surrounded by dead bodies. He took a shower (in their bathroom), changed into spare clothes (probably belonging to the father), spread gas around the house in several places and then burnt it to the ground trying to cover everything up.

Sorry, but nice guys don’t slash the throats of little children. It’s time for another angle.