The assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords

[Vekseid]

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/08/132764367/congresswoman-shot-in-arizona?ft=1&f=1001&sc=nd&sc=nd

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was critically injured and a federal judge killed, along with at least five others, Saturday in Tucson when a man opened fire during a meet-and-greet outside of a supermarket.

A 9-year-old girl was among those confirmed dead, as was John Roll, chief judge of U.S. District Court of Arizona. At least a dozen people were injured, including members of Giffords' staff.

The alleged gunman was tackled and held by people at the event until police arrived and took him into custody. Law enforcement sources told NPR the suspect was 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner.

At a news conference Saturday night, Pima County, Ariz. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik declined to name the suspect, but said he "has kind of a troubled past — I can tell you that — and we are not convinced he acted alone."
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was re-elected to a third term in November.

Officials have a photograph of a second "person of interest," a 50-year-old white male, Dupnik said."We have an individual we are actively in pursuit of, but I cannot tell you who he is at this point," the sheriff said.

The suspect still had ammunition in his weapon when he was tackled, Dupnik said. Law enforcement officials had previous contact with the suspect and he had made threats, the sheriff said.

Giffords was specifically targeted, Dupnik said.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09capital.html

...

Ms. Giffords was also among a group of embattled Democratic House candidates who were featured on the Web site of Sarah Palin’s political action committee with cross hairs over their districts, a fact that disturbed Ms. Giffords at the time.

“We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” Ms. Giffords said last March. “But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that.”

...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/gabrielle-giffords-dead-dies_n_806220.html

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, speaking about Arizona:

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

"It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. And that's the sad thing of what's going on in America. Pretty soon, we're not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people who are willing to subject themselves to serve in public office."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/rep-giffords-socalled-hit-list-dems-targeted-sarah-palin/

...

Jesse Kelly, Giffords' Republican opponent in the 2010 mid-term elections, similarly employed guns in a campaign event. He staged an event in July asking supporters to "get on target" and "remove Gabrielle Giffords from office" -- all while shooting "a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly."

...

And this is where the fascist wing of American politics has taken us.

Obtaining power by any means necessary is a central tenet of fascism. This includes the use of propaganda (commentators on Fox seem to think that she was a republican gunned down by democrats - how delusional can you get?), misinformation, and of course, the threat and use of violence to achieve political ends.

Her father Spencer Gifford, 75, wept when asked if his 40-year-old daughter had any enemies.

"Yeah," he told The Post. "The whole tea party."

The dad, who was rushing to University Medical Center in Tuscon, said that politicians constantly faced danger.

"They always get threat[ened]," Gifford cried.

What a way to begin the year.

[Sandman02]

  I've seen this story on a few different news websites already, but I have never seen the story tied together with so many pertinent quotes/references. Well done.

  Of course, people will say that this was some kind of lone wolf nut, and that no mainstream tea partier or republican actually would condone a senseless killing like this, and they'd be right to an extent, but this is still indicative of the fact that the right-wingers have been irresponsibly slinging their propaganda and prodding people's fears with misinformation, and this *is* the ultimate result of that. It would be nice if the Republicans took some ownership of this, but they won't - they'll only spin the story as a way to "prove" how angry people are against health care reform, etc. It's a sad state of affairs, and I'm only in my twenties. It's hard to know whether or not we're hitting a new low or whether we've always been this discombobulated.

  Pretty soon people will have to see that for all their bluster, Republicans have no tenable solutions of their own. ... Won't they?

[Silverfyre]

What really disgusts me is how desensitized the general public is about things like this, especially over an anonymous medium like the Internet.  The very fact that politicians like Sarah Palin would use anything alluding to targeting and killing another person is sickening.  This was not some lone wolf shooter.  He is a product of a whole line of thinking that is born out of fascism, just like Vekseid suggested.  Scary times ahead.

[Vekseid]

Sarah Palin took that infographic down today.

There are rumors that an explosive device was found and that there were multiple shooters. No reliable word on that yet. I haven't heard of or seen any cheering of her death, but there are some rather whack conspiracy theories running around. "Obama did it to make her a martyr!" ...

The guy they have caught is quite thoroughly deranged. He belonged in a mental institution. But we don't do that any longer, we force them to live on the street.

He was a known potential threat. But we can't fund investigations into all of these people. That would be a 'nanny state'.

But those investigations will come. Will we get the transparent investigations we observe, that people can feel confident in rendered judgments in public court hearings, or more people locked up for indefinite terms in unknown situations without trial?

But allowing demagogues to spread their vitriol and media organizations to spread their lies without fear is the greatest sin of all. You have a responsibility to those who listen to you, who heed your advice and your words. If you abuse the trust that society places in you, you are the one at fault.

[Silverfyre]

But allowing demagogues to spread their vitriol and media organizations to spread their lies without fear is the greatest sin of all. You have a responsibility to those who listen to you, who heed your advice and your words. If you abuse the trust that society places in you, you are the one at fault.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Vekseid]

His manifesto, of a sort.

How To: Your New Currency!

Introduction: Jared Loughner

Seems to be a gold fanatic.

[Jude]

I can't help but feel that gun policy important in civilizing the current level of discourse.  You've got Republicans that, on the whole, are just completely enamored with their right to own an object that does nothing but kill people (sure, you can kill someone who is attacking you, but that's all it is for -- that and hunting).  They encourage their voters to bring them to rallies, have events about firearms, and regularly speak of them as if they were as vital and important as medicine.

Even if we can agree that gun ownership should remain legal, that doesn't mean we have to glorify it and pretend that it's patriotic to own a weapon and know how to use it.  Owning pornography is legal as well, but you don't see people parading around their playboy collection in the name of freedom during campaign stops (and I'm sure we can all agree that pornography is relatively harmless by comparison).

EDIT:  Those videos make no sense whatsoever.  All I managed to glean from them is that he's a libertarian sort, doesn't care much for religion (which is corroborated by other people's accounts of him), and he's really for returning to the gold/silver backed currency.

[Callie Del Noire]

I can't help but feel that gun policy important in civilizing the current level of discourse.  You've got Republicans that, on the whole, are just completely enamored with their right to own an object that does nothing but kill people (sure, you can kill someone who is attacking you, but that's all it is for -- that and hunting).  They encourage their voters to bring them to rallies, have events about firearms, and regularly speak of them as if they were as vital and important as medicine.

Even if we can agree that gun ownership should remain legal, that doesn't mean we have to glorify it and pretend that it's patriotic to own a weapon and know how to use it.  Owning pornography is legal as well, but you don't see people parading around their playboy collection in the name of freedom during campaign stops (and I'm sure we can all agree that pornography is relatively harmless by comparison).

I'm a republican, a gun owner and totally tired of having folks throw up Palin as the 'typical Republican'. I'm an admittedly MODERATE republican, with a different view on specific issues from the party platform (Birth Control, Pro-Choice, and a few other points. I'm all for small governement, but I want some regulation of fire arms). Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk are NOT the typical republican, just the loudest ones.

I really think the media needs to back off and give the investigators time to look into this. I watched a 20 minute clip of the press conference today. The poor man at the podium had to keep saying 'can't dislose that right now', 'can't discuss that as it is part of the ongoing investigation'. I was having flashbacks of the poor cop who snapped at the press during the beltway sniper incident.

Addittional Note: I respect the President, I can't say there have been a lot of men in his office that I did when they were in office. If it came down to Sarah Palin or President Obama, I'd have to say that he carries more issues that I agree with than she does. She outright scares me. She scared me when she stupidly put up those target graphics last fall.

[Oniya]

EDIT:  Those videos make no sense whatsoever.  All I managed to glean from them is that he's a libertarian sort, doesn't care much for religion (which is corroborated by other people's accounts of him), and he's really for returning to the gold/silver backed currency.

It's a lot of 'If A, then B', followed by asserting A, and concluding B.  A only occasionally makes any sense, which means he's arguing from false precepts on several occasions.  Don't get me into the whole 'if BCE doesn't start, ADE can't begin' thing.  It makes my mathematical brain seize up.

How does one distribute a currency 'lethally'?  (end of first video)  I have this image of someone loading a handful of dimes into a blunderbuss.  He also neglects one key aspect of creating one's own currency:  Someone else has to accept that it has value.  I can go out, get some sheet metal disks and imprint them with a pretty picture and date*.  I've seen this done with certain campaign-style LARPS.  However, unless you can convince another person that five of those metal disks are worth a piece of bread (or whatever), you have a bunch of shiny metal disks.



*by the way, A.D.E. is completely meaningless.  B.C.E. means 'Before the Common Era', and is a term archaeologists use to avoid 'Before Christ'.  A.D. means Anno Domine, or Year of Our Lord.  The archaeological equivalent is 'C.E.'.

[Sandman02]

  It's not clear whether the purpose of the video was to warn against inflation, and its possible detrimental effects (devaluing your currency to drive down the price of your exported goods could be considered "lethal" to other countries, I suppose), or whether he is looking to some sort of apocalyptic scenario where paper currency is suddenly meaningless.

  The videos are essentially meaningless, but they do suggest that this awful shooting was due to some pseudo ivory tower bullshit. Sounds like another case of fighting for some netherworld cause while neglecting the fundamentals of life and character, such as "love thy neighbor."

  They say that power corrupts, and having a gun that can kill a human being with each bullet you feed in the chamber is certainly power. Despite what Charleton Heston says, I think there may be a connection between such a pro-gun culture and the fostering of fanaticism. Gun ownership is a constitutional right, but for fuck's sake don't fire an automatic weapon at your political rallies to score points with the crazies.

[Aeval]

Talk about desensitization of the general public..I could not believe it when I opened the Sunday paper here in Michigan..the front page left column (about 2 inches wide) talked about the shooting but the MAIN coverage on the front page( 9 inches worth of space!) was "GM'S MR. INTENSITY" (talking about the new CEO)..Really? HE is more important than the loss of innocent life..SIX INNOCENT VICTIMS?!!

[Callie Del Noire]

Talk about desensitization of the general public..I could not believe it when I opened the Sunday paper here in Michigan..the front page left column (about 2 inches wide) talked about the shooting but the MAIN coverage on the front page( 9 inches worth of space!) was "GM'S MR. INTENSITY" (talking about the new CEO)..Really? HE is more important than the loss of innocent life..SIX INNOCENT VICTIMS?!!

Don't tear yourself up on that Aeval, I suspect part of that is your location. Michigan is still heavily invested in the auto industry right? (Not to mention I'm sure the paper's editor isn't entirely clueful :D )

I find the whole event depressing. A lot of anti-gun sediment coming up to bulldoze over the tragedy. The cynical part of me whispers that they most likely wish the congresswoman as well as the judge had died. I'm trying very hard to keep that critter locked up.

Looking over the videos I get the feeling that there is a disconnect. It feels like a much more serious version of the break between my train of thought and disconnects when I was a rapid cycling bipolar. Much much worse. I expect you'll find something wrong with the suspect, something biochemical in his head.

Doesn't justify what he did. God above it doesn't, but I wonder how he could get that BAD without someone noticing.

[Major Major]

Talk about desensitization of the general public..I could not believe it when I opened the Sunday paper here in Michigan..the front page left column (about 2 inches wide) talked about the shooting but the MAIN coverage on the front page( 9 inches worth of space!) was "GM'S MR. INTENSITY" (talking about the new CEO)..Really? HE is more important than the loss of innocent life..SIX INNOCENT VICTIMS?!!

There's an allegorical story that fits here rather well: it's a supposed comment by a British Newspaper editor from about the 1910's.

"In order to be newsworthy, it has have either 100 dead Chinamen, 10 dead Italians, or 1 dead Englishman." Presumably the same applied in this case.

[Star Safyre]

Doesn't justify what he did. God above it doesn't, but I wonder how he could get that BAD without someone noticing.

He did live with his parents.  They had to have known something was seriously wrong or at least that his mental condition was worsening.  Yes, he is legally an adult, but parental responsibility does not stop at 18, especially when the child is mentally ill or handicapped.  If they had reason to believe he was a danger to himself or others, they had a moral and legal responsibility to get him help.  I hope this will make involuntary commitment, such as California's 5150 or Florida's Baker Act, a nation-wide issue with appropriate legislation.

[Trieste]

I find the whole event depressing. A lot of anti-gun sediment coming up to bulldoze over the tragedy. The cynical part of me whispers that they most likely wish the congresswoman as well as the judge had died. I'm trying very hard to keep that critter locked up.

They might yet get their wish; she is not out of the woods yet, and she DID get shot in the head.

[Star Safyre]

James Brady lived and spoke out effectively for gun-control.

Regardless, I hope people don't lose sight of the greatest tragedy of this: rest in peace, Christina-Taylor.

[Callie Del Noire]

James Brady lived and spoke out effectively for gun-control.

Regardless, I hope people don't lose sight of the greatest tragedy of this: rest in peace, Christina-Taylor.

Again.. another point in the list of things in this incident that make me sad.

[Oniya]

He did live with his parents.  They had to have known something was seriously wrong or at least that his mental condition was worsening.  Yes, he is legally an adult, but parental responsibility does not stop at 18, especially when the child is mentally ill or handicapped.  If they had reason to believe he was a danger to himself or others, they had a moral and legal responsibility to get him help.  I hope this will make involuntary commitment, such as California's 5150 or Florida's Baker Act, a nation-wide issue with appropriate legislation.

It can be surprising how difficult it is to see something like that, especially when you live with it every day.  There was a case in Massachusetts recently involving John Odgren, a high school kid, who - for no apparent reason - cornered another kid in the school bathroom and stabbed him to death.  (The commentators made a lot over the fact that he had Aspergers, but as I followed the trial, it was clear that there were other known issues that were a more likely influence, including BPD.)  People around a person who is getting slowly worse over time get acclimatized, the same way that if you're in a room that's gradually cooling you don't notice it as readily as if you walk into an air-conditioned room from the sweltering summer day.

Add to that the fact that Loughner probably knew that the things he was contemplating were against the law.  He probably did everything in his power to keep his parents from finding out about his radical ideas (and assumed, apparently correctly, that they wouldn't track down his YouTube account).  I notice that the YouTube accounts that actually have his name as the channel name are 'mirrors', or at least are created more recently than the Classitup10 account that Veks linked to - and there's some commentary that suggests that Classitup10 wasn't his original account either.  His MySpace account name, that has been taken down, also wasn't his actual name.  Depending on how Internet-savvy his parents were (there are still some who are near-clueless about how to track things down), that may have been sufficient to keep them off his track.

[Revolverman]

I really hope you sane Americans can get this under control, because this is starting to look like the start of an insurrection. This scares the crap out of me.

[Callie Del Noire]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/09/arizona.shooting.rhetoric/index.html

I don't think it's as bad as that Revolverman, but it's been a long time in building. A lot of people on both sides of the party divide have been forgetting one little thing. The person you're arguing with is a human too. They feel, love, bleed and can die. And that is a tragedy.

The link I put up was one of many I found where our leaders are starting to do just that. Lead. Take charge and shape the nation they swore to serve. I hope (again shoving my inner cynic in his closet) that they recall this for a long long time and look up works like 'compromise', 'courtesy' and such in the months to come. I have always felt the best benefit to the people didn't come from one party or another but somewhere in the middle, in the process of compromise and debate. By working for the common good.

I have started to feel the two party system had become a weakness for the US since you don't have to build a consensus government, such as in the UK, to govern.

[AtlasEros]

This was a really disturbing situation.  Executive protection is part of what I do for a living, this has been the topic so far of 4 meetings I've been in.  Sad to see so many lives needlessly lost, so many families affected.

[Silverfyre]

And this just makes me even more sickened.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/westboro-baptist-church-arizona_n_806319.html?ref=fb&src=sp

[Trieste]

And this just makes me even more sickened.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/westboro-baptist-church-arizona_n_806319.html?ref=fb&src=sp

*tears out hair*

The more attention you give those fuckers, the more they'll do the shit they do. That includes reading/linking/commenting on news stories that give them coverage. If it becomes more trouble than it's worth for news agencies to cover the WBC, then they'll stop doing it.

So stop feeding the fire, please.

Edited in order to insert the quote of the post I was referring to, in order to preserve context. ;)

[Callie Del Noire]

*tears out hair*

The more attention you give those fuckers, the more they'll do the shit they do. That includes reading/linking/commenting on news stories that give them coverage. If it becomes more trouble than it's worth for news agencies to cover the WBC, then they'll stop doing it.

So stop feeding the fire, please.

I keep thinking of the song (Dirty Laundry by Don Henley) when I watch the media's coverage of this.  The WBC was almost certain to say something about this sad event, they have to if they want to keep the attention they hunger for.

I think a lot of the divisiveness between the parties has been fueled by the media in the last few years.

[Jude]

I'm a republican, a gun owner and totally tired of having folks throw up Palin as the 'typical Republican'. I'm an admittedly MODERATE republican, with a different view on specific issues from the party platform (Birth Control, Pro-Choice, and a few other points. I'm all for small governement, but I want some regulation of fire arms). Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk are NOT the typical republican, just the loudest ones.

This poll begs to differ:  http://www.gallup.com/poll/114163/Limbaugh-Liked-Not-Republicans.aspx

You're not the typical Republican, so trying to use yourself as a yardstick for your ideology is going to get some inaccurate results.

I'm not saying I'm against gun ownership, I'm just saying, when we make a virtue of it, isn't that dangerous?