House of Reps. member Giffords shot in Arizona today

Does this mean that she prefers such unwarned
surprize attacks as the Japs on Pearl Harbor,
or the Moslems on 9/11/1 ???

R thay more legal or legaler ?
I dunno about that.





David

(Early yet, I missed an important point -- in this scenario, Rush and Glenn and such would have more evidence regarding the shooter's motivations with which to make accusations one way or another than we do at this point.)

Wandel, again, I absolutely decry overheated, violent political rhetoric.

It's partly because I dislike it that I urge caution here. Two parts. One is that I think making baseless accusations only contributes to a poisonous atmosphere. The second is that creating a causal link where there isn't one, yet (and there may be in the future when more evidence comes to light, that would be different) just weakens the position of those who wish to see the overheated, violent rhetoric be toned down.

Rush is currently saying the "Obama's Big Brother" are using this incident to silence "the political opposition." The material in quotes are direct quotes of what he said. Of course, he is shamelessly exploiting this incident for his own purposes--but that's different, right?

Rush is right.

The anti-Individualist forces, anti-freedom forces will get as much political momentum
out of this bloodshed as thay POSSIBLY can.

I think you're putting words in my mouth and assuming ideas in my head that aren't mine. Did you see me "flinging accusations"? I think not. I think you are probably reading some of the garbled non-sequitur (non-responsive) responses to what I have been saying. I say this because if you had been reading what I was writing and not what someone else was saying about what I was writing, then you would know that at most I was saying the climate of political discourse in this country more likely than not influences some of the violent actions against political figures. Kind of hard to characterize that as "flinging accusations", or even "creating a causal link", wouldn't you say?

Hmm.

I guess all I'm saying is that we're not at "more likely than not" yet. It's still possible, but I haven't seen evidence for it yet, and I don't think the evidence is irrelevant.

And that "more likely than not" in its mildest form just doesn't help, and in its more extreme form is just another version of what we're all upset with. (Overheated, violent political rhetoric and implications thereof.)

I did read everything you wrote.

Well see, when you put it that way, it appears as more of just a simple difference of opinion, than what any wrongheaded overheated accusations might say about this exchange of thoughts...

I think part of the misunderstanding has been that while I have been trying to make my comments about the effect of the general political climate, people keep responding to me as if I am still talking about the latest tragedy (which makes sense since I'm posting on a thread named after it). As far as the congresswoman's shooting, I agree - we're not at "more than likely". I think the guy just had several screws loose.

OK, cool.

His booking photo... yikes. If it were from a TV show or movie I'd say the actor was way overdoing the whole insanity thing. He looks absolutely demented.

Jon Stewart may have given the best reason to tone down the rhetoric.

"If for no other reason than to draw a better distinction between the manifestos of madmen and what passes for accepted political and pundit speak.
...
Let's at least make troubled individuals easier to spot."

God, you're dogshit waterboy

I have been taking a wait and see approach about the motives of the killer in Arizona. That said, I do think that demagogues can shift the violence spectrum in politics and at the extreme, make the difference between a disgruntaled person and a dangerous one. By adding focus to the anger and increasing fear, it is easy to convince some small fraction of the population that their only recourse is violence. Describing a 2008 McCain rally:



Palin is fearful! Shouldn't you be too? She's not some brainless dolt (to those listening), she's a sitting (at the time) governor! Does that mean that all Republicans want to use violence to alter the political course in the US? Of course not. It doesn't even mean Ms. Palin wants violence other than at the ballot box. Still, she's lighting flames where there were none and fanning those that were already simmering. Finn (I think) asked a great question earlier - should we blame all Muslims for the Ft. Hood killer? Of course not, but we should blame the Al Queda rhetoric (and in that particular case, US actions in foreign countries) for inspiring lone wolf terrorism. Without continuous incitement, would we see Americans signing up to make car bombs in Times Square? I doubt it. Likewise, the unhinged conspiracy theorist might just be content to blog about his obsessions until he receives a steady diet of national figures supporting his obsession and telling him to take action. If you are advocating a "second amendment solution" if you lose an election, you are clearly calling for gun violence to be used as a political tool. When you publish home addresses of judges and politicians, you are clearly trying to intimidate them. All you need is for .000001% of the population to heed your call to action. Of course the goal of that call to arms is to get people to the ballot box and it will be far more successful in that than it getting people to take up actual arms. To me the question is whether you are willing to have a handfull of deranged people stalking politicians in order to get several million votes. Right now the calculus on the right says yes. It's not just a rampage in Arizona, it is stalking liberal activists, throwing rocks through campaign office windows, shooting doctors, sending white power in the mail. When these sentiments pop up on the campaign trail, conservative leaders (be they on talk radio or in politics) are not shouting it down, repudiating it in the strongest terms and I think they should be. All politicians should be making the point that we are Americans and the option of the ballot box is frequently available at all levels.

To those that claim that is occurs on both sides, you are clearly deluding yourself or trying to delude us. This recent trend started with the abortion debate and has spread into other areas of politics, but almost completely coming from the far right. What is different from other terrorist periods in US history is that it is much more focused and guided by national figures. I think it is interesting that with all the Congressmen and Senators we have and the close interactions they have with their constituents, there have only been five attacks against them in the history of the US. Yet in this last election cycle, several "town hall" type meetings got close to violence and we saw weekly stories of Congressmen either calling off meetings or ending them early due to the threat of violence. I think the event that will set the power keg off will be the leftist nutcase that guns down a Palin or Beck. That will confirm to the far radical right, the McVeigh faction of nutcases, that their fears are true, that the lefties are going to take their guns and liberties away and that they must use violence now or go down without a fight.

Did Palin et al drive this particular attack? I doubt it. If it wasn't a political rally, it might have been a classroom at the community college. This guy is clearly unstable. Does the current atmosphere of politicians creating a climate of fear and the wink-wink attitude of those pandering to the radical right extreme make cases of political violence more likely? I believe so.

That guy's mighty pleased with himself.

One of his friends talked about his desire to sow chaos and get attention, "exactly what's happening now" (paraphrase) -- that expression sure fits. (All the usual disclaimers apply, just musing.)

I was thinking more like "Sloth" ...

NY TIMES
In Tucson, Guns Have a Broad Constituency
By JO BECKER and MICHAEL LUO
• Published: January 10, 2011

TUCSON — “I have a Glock 9 millimeter,
and I’m a pretty good shot.” [Maybe it was not close enuf. David]

The quip, by Representative Gabrielle Giffords,
was made in an interview last year with The New
York Times, when tensions were running high in her district.
It speaks not only to her ability to defend herself
but also to the passionate gun culture in Arizona,
which crosses political lines and is notable for its
fierceness, even in the West. Indeed, the federal
judge who was killed on Saturday in the shootings
here, John M. Roll, had his wife and many people
who worked with him take lessons at the
Marksman Pistol Institute, an indoor range
downtown. One of the doctors who operated on
Ms. Giffords after the shooting rampage was a
member of the Pima Pistol Club, an outdoor range
where federal and local law enforcement
personnel were practicing on Monday.

Arizona’s gun laws stand out as among the most
free in the nation. Last year, Arizona became only
the third state that does not require a license to
carry a concealed weapon. The state also enacted
another measure that protects workers in taking
their guns to work, even if their workplaces ban
firearms, as long as they kept them in their locked vehicles.
It is unclear whether the attack on Saturday will
do anything to shift attitudes about guns in this state,
but at the federal level, gun control advocates
have quickly zeroed in on the “high-capacity”
ammunition magazine used by the suspect,
Jared L. Loughner.

Gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds
were banned under the federal assault weapons
ban until the statute expired at the end of 2004.
Today, just six states and the District of Columbia
limit the sale of such magazines.

The magazine of Mr. Loughner’s semiautomatic
pistol held more than 30 rounds when, law
enforcement officials say, he opened fire on a
crowd outside a Tucson supermarket on Saturday.
It was only when he stopped to reload that
bystanders were able to tackle him.
“The reason he was able to be tackled was he had
to pause to reload,” said Dennis Henigan, vice
president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun
Violence, a group that works to change gun laws
and the gun industry. “The problem is, he didn’t
have to pause to reload until he’d already
expended 30 rounds.”

Representative Carolyn McCarthy, Democrat of
New York, is preparing legislation to prohibit
high-capacity magazines and could introduce a
measure as early as this week, said Shams Tarek,
a spokesman.
Mr. Tarek said Ms. McCarthy’s office had been in
talks with the staff of Senator Frank R.
Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, about
working together on the issue. “We’re trying to
come up with something that’s reasonable, that
has a chance to go somewhere,” Mr. Tarek said.

Public support for more severe gun control,
however, has dropped significantly over the last
couple of decades, and there is little evidence to
suggest that mass shootings change opinions.

In a Gallup poll conducted in October, just 44
percent of Americans said the laws covering the
sale of firearms should be made more stringent,
matching Gallup’s record low on the question set
in 2009. The 1999 Columbine and 2007 Virginia
Tech shootings appear to have had little, if any,
effect on these views.

In Arizona, the repeal of gun laws has accelerated
over the last two years, after Jan Brewer, a
Republican, succeeded Janet Napolitano, a
Democrat, as governor in 2009, putting
Republicans in control of both the Legislature
and the governor’s office.

In the last two weeks, two bills were introduced
relating to the right to carry guns on college campuses,
one allowing professors to carry concealed weapons
and one allowing anybody who can legally carry
a gun to do so.

“Here in Arizona, it’s very difficult to change the
culture,” said Hildy Saizow, president of Arizonans for
Gun Safety, a gun control group “but we’re going to try.”

Federal laws bar anyone who has been
“adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as
those involuntarily committed to a mental health
facility, from buying a gun. Administrators at Pima
Community College banned Mr. Loughner from the
school last year because they had concerns about
his mental well-being, but the episode would not
have risen to the level in which it would have
shown up on a computerized background check, or
legally barred him from buying a gun, legal
experts said.

Similarly, federal law prohibits “unlawful” drug
users and “addicts” from buying guns,
based on recent convictions, or multiple arrests
over the past five years. Mr. Loughner was
arrested in 2007 for possession of drug paraphernalia;
he successfully completed a court diversion
program, which resulted in the charge being
dropped from his record. He failed a drug test
when trying to enlist in the Army in 2008,
Pentagon officials said, but it does not appear
that any of this would have been enough to bar
him from buying a gun.

A handful of other states, like New Jersey, Illinois
and Massachusetts, where more extensive
investigations of individuals seeking gun licenses
are conducted, might have picked up some of
these issues, said Josh Horwitz, executive
director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Mr. Loughner legally bought his Glock 19, the
same type of 9 millimeter pistol that Seung-Hui
Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman used, on Nov. 30 at
Sportsman’s Warehouse in Tucson, according to
law enforcement officials. Not long before the
shooting on Saturday, Mr. Loughner went to a
Wal-Mart in the city to buy gun ammunition, but
left the store before the sales person came back
with the bullets, according to a person with
knowledge of the situation who spoke only on the
condition of anonymity because of the criminal
investigation.

The individual said that Mr. Loughner then bought
the ammunition he had sought at another Wal-Mart in Tucson.

F.B.I. agents visited local gun ranges here on Monday,
trying to reconstruct his movements after he
bought his gun. At the Marksman Pistol Institute,
an agent entered shortly before noon, questioning
the owner over the dulled popping sounds of gunfire.

The owner, Barbara O’Connell, had already
checked the logs. Mr. Loughner had not been there,
according to her paperwork, and no one recalled
seeing him. The story was the same at another outdoor range.

Most people at the ranges said that, if anything,
the shooting would cause more people to carry guns
as a means of self-defense, rather than cause a
retrenchment in the form of harsher laws.

“The criminals are going to have guns, so why
should we as law-abiding citizens be punished for
what a criminal does?” said Ms. O’Connell.

Ms. O’Connell lamented the death of Judge Roll,
who was well known at the range: “He knew how
to shoot, but he’d just been to church, and he
probably didn’t have his gun.”

[All emfasis has been added by David.]

"Helter Skelter" - Charlie Manson

Mr. January on the Sarah Palin 2011 pin up calendar.

Agreed