Arkansas Shooter

The New York Times reports on the tragic fatal shooting of the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party, Bill Gwatney, at its headquarters in Little Rock.

The police also recovered a computer, 14 firearms described by the police as hunting weapons, and two sets of keys with the emblems of the car dealerships owned by Mr. Gwatney’s family. Mr. Johnson, 50, died in a shootout with the police after the killing.

To me it seems like Mr. Timothy D. Johnson is one of the ones I've written about before who should not own guns, let alone 14 of them. Is that normal anyway, for a hunter? It seems excessive to me.

My sympathies are with all the victims: Bill Gwatney and his family, of course, Timothy Johnson, victim of his own mental illness and the Little Rock police response, and the policemen who killed him in a shootout. That must be difficult to live with, especially if their response was excessive. I remember once years ago, a policeman went berserk, took some hostages and started shooting up the neighborhood. His colleagues shot him a couple times in the legs and took him to the hospital to get the treatment he so obviously needed. Ever since then, I wonder about these so-called shootouts with the police.