Another shooting, another family lost
NEEDLESS DEATHS BY GUN FIRE: A Mason County family perished on Feb. 26 at the hand of a man who legally was not supposed to have any firearms. David Wayne Campbell shot and killed his wife, her two sons, a neighbor and himself at the family’s Belfair home.
Shootings with multiple deaths like this one keep accumulating in our country, but ought to be preventable. In this case, the system — and the law — failed to heed a clear danger that left five dead.
Campbell had three felony convictions for nonviolent crimes in other states, which disqualified him from possessing guns. Then after he allegedly threatened and pointed a .32 caliber handgun at an employee at his heating and air conditioning company, a Kitsap County District Court judge issued a protection order for the worker and ordered Campbell to relinquish his firearms.
Campbell had access to a handgun and five rifles or shotguns, according to The Associated Press. Some might have belonged to his wife.
Campbell told a Mason County sheriff’s deputy who went to collect the guns last year that he didn’t have any, and he filled out a form for the court attesting to that.
This points up to a flaw in the law, which could have let police search Campbell’s home if it had been a domestic violence protection order and not a temporary anti-harassment order.
“It’s just an honor system,” Chief Deputy Ryan Spurling of the Sheriff’s Office told The AP. “We couldn’t do anything more than what we did.”
Besides Campbell, those who died were his wife, Lana J. Carlson; her two adopted sons from Kazakhstan, Tory, 18, and Quinn, 16; and neighbor Donna Reed.
As a society, we can do better than this.
TRUMP AND THE VULGARIANS: We keep thinking it can’t possibly get any worse, but last Thursday’s Republican debate marked a new low. Marco Rubio is now vying with Trump for pure vulgarity, having earlier derided Trump’s allegedly small hands and insinuating that another critical body part was also diminutive.
Trump assured us all during the debate that he can “guarantee there is no problem” with said body part.
Pity the fact checkers.
Perhaps unwittingly, this latest fixation provides a strong argument for electing a woman president.
HOMELESS KIDS BENEFIT RAISES $34,000: A Really Big Shoe 10 Folk Fest, the fundraiser performance staged by Entertainment Explosion, raised more than $34,000 for homeless students in Thurston County last month, director and producer Scott Schoengarth said.
Funds are distributed to homeless student funds at all eight Thurston County school districts as well as at Community Youth Services. The money — at $3,500 per district — is used to buy shoes, jackets or whatever is needed.
That’s the largest amount raised in a decade of efforts that has collected a quarter million dollars, Schoengarth said. Ages of the volunteer cast ranged from 51 to 88. This year’s folk theme drew 703 to attend Feb. 21 at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts.
The lion’s share of funds were donated by generous event sponsors. Money will be distributed this month and in April. Donations can still be made via entertainmentexplosion.org.
This was done well by all.
This story was originally published March 6, 2016 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Another shooting, another family lost."