The Redhunter

Tom, thanks for posting this. Jack Shafer's piece is great. Notice, too, how much of the "analysis" by the media is nothing but opinion stated as fact.

It's amazing how quickly Sarah Palin and the Tea Party figured into the media's profound ruminations on this crazy. And yet, somehow, they couldn't point to one single, solitary thing linking the shooter to Palin's supporters or the Tea Party movement.

Tom,

In the comment I made on your post about Boehner becoming Speaker, I said:

"I am concerned now by what happened this morning in Arizona, a concern I sort of expressed in my post above (the denial of transplants for the poor being considered "optional" by their governor".

"I don't see why the governor (well, I do see why) took transplants off the list of benefits for those on Medicaid there, when her administration approves expensive additions to a sport venue or for their pork barrel funding of a study on squirrels.

"Now I am shaken by the killing of a Congressman and judge and child and who knows who else by a young man some believe was incited to violence by a "hit" list on Sarah Palin's Facebook page. For Palin to use a phrase such as she used on that vile ad was to release and justify hatred held in for other reasons.

"I have talked to many on the extreme right, and I am apalled by their honesty in their hopes that someone will shoot Obama, that "the blacks have taken over", that illegals are to blame for everything, that they hope for a race or class war, and the most extreme of them, the neo-Nazis who post on the internet that they want to see the demise of all the browns and blacks here".

"Some on the extreme right refused to believe that it was not an illegal who shot the congress lady, and some say that it is what she deserved. That is what this contentiousness is all about---".

So in my comment I expressed an uneasiness with a lot of what has been going on in Arizona, and the Congresswoman who was shot had a premonition about what Palin's ad might lead to. In the article you posted on your Facebook page, they quoted Giffords as saying about Palin: "We're on Palin's targeted list," she said, "but the thing is that the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize there's consequences to that action". Very prophetic.

I know that cartoon about a tea-partier jumping out of a teapot blazing away with a gun made you angry. I understand that; it is not fair. Most of those tea-party demonstrators are decent people, who might secretly wish for certain people to die, but in reality would never kill or allow others to kill, and would feel bad for feeling the way they do when their wishes are granted by a madman.

However, in the case of Palin and her metaphors dealing with guns, she does incite some men to try to look macho by openly carrying and upsetting others just trying to do their daily routine of sitting down at a soup and salad place and not have to see 20 idiots walk in with guns holstered, as if it was back in the Tombstone of the 1880s.

There was a fellow who was armed when the shooter started killing, but the shooter had got off 31 rounds before the other fellow could even get there. So I don't believe that kind of gun should be sold to the general public.

We don't know how much the killer was driven to specifically shoot Giffords. His thinking is all over the place, but why single her out if it wasn't the rhetoric against her?

Sarah Palin has a lot to do with inciting men to "Man Up", "Don't Retreat, Reload!", etc. She shows up to some of her rallies wearing black leather jackets drawn tight against her bosom with zippers all over, looking like a dominatrix or motorcyle mama. What a contrast to Cindy McCain, who always dresses appropriately.

My husband was a Marine, and to him "Lock, Load!" means "Kill the first[enemy] you see!". To some disenfranchised young men, such comments are taken that way, and their enemy is anyone and everyone. Men should "man up" and join our real fighting men like your honorable friend in Afghanistan whose photos I see on your page. Unfortuneately, some young men are so damaged that nothing works out for them, they fail at everything, and get angrier and angrier, and become too dangerous for society.

We have a young man around here that is very much like the AZ killer. He is in his 20s, and he has formed a militia of two. He introduces himself as "Colonel", is a high-school drop out, has been rejected by all the recruiters around here. He shows up at city council meetings whenever there is a controversy about shutting down the local gun club due to neighbors' complaints about noise and stray bullets found on their properties. I wouldn't be surprised if some day I see his name in the news, much as some in AZ were not surprised to see their young neighbor in the news.

Yes, there will always be lone wolf nuts around, but people like Palin, as Giffords said, have to realize the consequences of their chosen language and images.

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA

Tom.,

I just read the Slate article, and the writer said, "I can't be overly critical of the sheriff. After all, he's the one who has spent his career witnessing how threats can turn into violence: gang wars, contract killings, neighborhood rows, domestic disputes, bar arguments, and all the rest".

I don't know that much about the sheriff, but he seems to be a lot like Giffords, a native Arizonian who understands that you can't profile people because of how they look, and that not all people think alike as to new laws having to do with health care.

I think the rhetoric turned so vicious against Giffords because she switched from a Ruplican to a Democrat, though she is for gun rights, etc. a "blue dog".

I see some Arizonians now like the Taliban, not in killing, but in the hatred towards their own people, just over an ideology.

Giffords, a Fulbight scholar, and her astronaut husband are people of quality, people who have more than attained the American dream, yet people shoot out the glass in her office, more than once take a gun to her rallies, etc. It makes me so angry, and I can see why the Sheriff is so angry and frustrated too. The Sheriff must be appalled to have to end his career dealing with this latest atrocity in his state.

Emilie
Port Orchard, WA

snake hunter sez,

Placing the blame on right-wing political remarks is absurd. The shooter was mentally unstable, and stalked the representative for two years, had a "death shrine" in his yard w/ a plastic skull, candles, and a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf; had been arrested for drug paraphenalia, plus several confrontations with campus security, etc.

Our 2nd Amendment protects citizens, and in today's violent world it's a fundamental necessity; however, that should not extend to paranoid schizophenics right to buying a Glock19!
>>
Another thing: Michigan has serious trouble ahead:
See, 'Detroit City, Lost Forever' - Posted Jan 10th.

reb
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The shooting is a tragedy and my prayers are with the victims and their families, even though they are Democrats. America will get through these dark times.