Yesterday became one of those days that Americans dread.  Something inside someone, some stranger, goes terribly out of wack and the end result is rampage and carnage and death.  Such was the case yesterday where Congresswoman Gabby Giffords met with constituents at a Safeway in Tucson, right there in her district.  By 10 am Arizona time, 6 people lay dead and the congresswoman was fighting for her life along with 6 other people.  One of the dead was a federal judge.  A 9 year old child was shot in the chest at point blank range.

It is all too easy to start analyzing and blaming.  Human nature kicks in real quickly when events like this happen.  All of us start trying to make sense out of something so tragically senseless. 

According to moonhowlings poster Ken Anderson: 

On the web, the TV, everywhere the political characters are playing the same game. Left wing jumps to connect this to GOP/TEA political tactics of the last 2 years. GOP/TEA jumps to cover their butts. Nobody knows the guy’s motivations, but that doesn’t matter. Everything is just another opportunity to take a shot at the “enemies” on the other side of the aisle.

Six people have lost their lives. Could we wait a day at least before we start to calculate the political fallout?

I think Ken Anderson is right.  Let’s not start pointing fingers and casting blame on anyone other than the shooter.  From all indications, the shooter was a seriously emotional disturbed individual and not part of any political movement.  That fact, however, does not remove us from any responsibility as far as what we say and how we say it.  Casting aspersions on our political opponents, Giffords’ opponents, or those we feel have made threats in the past simply proves nothing and is unproductive, especially on a blog. 

Perhaps this is should be a time where we come together to try to resolve our differences rather than create an even wider chasm.  It appears that is exactly what our elected officials in Congress are doing.  All voting has been suspended for next week.   Hopefully some peace and understanding will emerge from this tragedy.

Our congress men and women should be able to move about freely in a free society.  When they are unable to do this, perhaps we are no longer a democracy. 

99 Thoughts to “Post-Shooting Reflections”

  1. Juturna

    DHS is linking the shooter to American Renaissance – another group that is focused on being simply “against”. Lovely. Anger and hatred is out of control. Good manners, don’t laugh, have been discarded from napkins to speech. Just like crime, reducing nuisance crimes prevents the major crimes.

    This is an opportunity for this country to change course and begin to re-teach our children and ourselves that respect and dignity for human life (granted to us by a higher being) is not only an obligation but is a necessity for our survivial.

  2. Emma

    All good, Juturna. Except that you will always have nutjobs who will commit violence no matter what the political climate. Has there been a period in history where that has not been true?

  3. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    Fundamentally, I’m in agreement with Moon-Howler, but a quick scan around twitter, the blogosphere, and other comment-oriented sites tells me this was and will be used for politics from the very beginning. I’ve seen discussions out there that are just unbelievable. Seems like a real shame. Quite a path we’re on, here!

  4. Juturna

    If we reduce the volume we will reduce then number of nutjobs.

  5. Juturna

    If we LOWER the volume…

  6. Pat.Herve

    But we have people in positions where they can connect to a large audience, and spew out hatred and conspiracy theories – every day – and an audience who even Tivo’s the show so that they do not miss one word of hatred. And there are some, who, will not believe any other word other than spoken by the one they listen to, no matter the evidence. They are not interested in the truth, solutions, or moving forward – they are interested in ratings. Many of them aren’t even consistent with their own convictions, and will spin an issue so that they get the most bang out of the story.

    People need to turn off the 24 hour programs, get off the internet blog-o-sphere and find other entertainment – we are a couch potato society, and getting less active, fatter and more unhealthy every day.

  7. Emma

    @Pat.Herve You have absolutely no idea whether this 22-year-old was even paying any attention to anything other than voices in his own head. Yet you’re willing to join the chorus of blame. Would you have made some assumptions if the young man’s name was Mohammed? Somehow, I have my doubts.

  8. Emma

    “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”

    Barack Obama, June 14, 2008

  9. Juturna

    Excellant Emma – excellant. It’s not party it’s simply people. This nation that has learned to accept violence along with street talk and low performance/expecation. We’ve medicalized almost all bad behavior to the point no one is ‘bad’ anymore. We pat down 78 year old ladies boarding a plane becuase we’re afraid to use logic that might be offensive to some. Most viable tips in law enforcement come from citizens noticing odd behavior they are acted on but we choose to pretend that other means are ‘better’.

    It’s not wrong to be honest with courtesy and respect and it’s not weak to be polite and to look the other way once in a while.

  10. Morris Davis

    An article in today’s N.Y. Times said: “Mr. Loughner had exhibited increasingly strange behavior in recent months, including ominous Internet postings — at least one showing a gun — and a series of videos in which he made disjointed statements on topics like the gold standard and mind control. Pima Community College said he had been suspended for conduct violations and withdrew in October after five instances of classroom or library disruptions that involved the campus police.” It made me think that we haven’t learned much since the Virginia Tech massacre about how easy it is for the mentally unstable to acquire handguns. The other headline this morning is that a policeman and another person died and another policeman and five civilians were wounded in a shooting outside a bar in Baltimore.

  11. marinm

    I for one, regardless of the shooters political stance don’t want to use politics as an excuse or motivation for this guy.

    He was crazy. Plain and simple.

    I hope that a jury finds him guilty and puts him in a hole so he can wait his execution.

  12. Juturna :

    If we LOWER the volume…

    Juturna, I totally agree with you. The volume has just been too loud. People can voice political disagreement without doing it 24 hours a day on loud and hysterical.

    Quiet, rational moderate doesn’t make nearly as much money.

  13. @Morris Davis

    Moe, I have thought that many times about not learning the lessons of Virginia Tech…and on so many levels, whether it is who is allowed in school (and good for Pima Community for kicking him out), who is allowed to buy guns, or how much mental health services are available. We haven’t learned as a nation. I just read where Virginia is cutting back. Pay me now or pay me later.

  14. The references to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 echoed in other ways. That horror, which killed 168 people including many children, helped then-President Bill Clinton stigmatize extreme anti-government rhetoric and re-energize his presidency at a time when Newt Gingrich and conservative Republicans were riding high in Congress.

    One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

    “They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

    http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47294.html

    Maybe its the above attitude that makes us Teajadists so quick to point out the left’s politicization of this.

  15. Starryflights

    The United States is a civilized society. We do not settle our political differences with guns and machetes, like the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda. The people responsible for this act are animals.

  16. @marinm
    Marin, how will you feel if there is direct proof that a group motivated him? I don’t think any facts should be used to excuse him. I would say the death penalty should be used in his case. I am not sure what AZ laws are. However, if a federal judge is murdered, what more would it take? Of course, I would be much more liberal in my rules about applying the death penalty…but that is another story for another day.

  17. Big Dog

    I’m heart sick over this entire horrible incident and am praying for all the victims
    and am especially moved by the death of nine year old Christina Taylor Green.
    Like my oldest granddaughter, Christina was recently elected to the student council
    of her school and apparently took that honor very seriously, inspired enough
    to want to meet her congresswoman.

    According to news reports, Christina was a remarkable young lady.
    – Born, of all dates, on 9-11-2001. She liked to wear red, white and blue.
    – Active in her church, just having had her First Communion.
    – Talented in academics, music and sports. (She was the only girl on a boys team-
    both her grandfather and father are in professional baseball).
    – Outgoing, well-liked and a good public speaker even at her young age.

    The shootings were a tragedy in ways yet to counted. So very sad.

  18. Emma, I think what you just said to Pat was unnecessary. He has said nothing specific about blaming any group. He certainly has said nothing that would encourage giving a pass to Muslims. There was no reason to fan the flames by bringing up a quote of the President, taken out of context.

    Furthermore, no one has even implied that we should no longer make reference to guns.

    You are just trying to start a fight. Stop it please.

  19. Big Dog, that one really got to me also. I also have a grandson that age. Christina Green’s death has hit me like the kid who won the science contest …. only to get on the plane that was flown into the Pentagon.

    How utterly senseless.

    A congressional aid, a federal judge, a 9 year old bright beautiful child, and 3 older Americans who were just asking medicare questions–all dead because of some freaking screwed up nut burger.

    We really need to look at how negligent we have become as a nation regarding mental illness.

  20. marinm

    @Moon-howler

    There has been information presented that the shooter may have been a lefty. Doesn’t mean I’ll blame Obama or Kaine for the actions of THIS one guy. He was crazy. He was stupid. He needs to be given a fair trial and then punished accroding to our laws.

    Regardless of the political leanings of this man HE took an unlawful action. HE used force against people. He injured and killed innocent people that didn’t do anything to him.

    That innocent bystanders, some wounded, had to take him down and didn’t take out direct vengence speaks more about the true spirit of this country and the character of our people.

    So, pardon me for focusing on that then trying to lay blame on anyone outside of the guy pulling the trigger.

  21. @marin,

    rather than left/right or party, I think one lesson needs to be turning down the volume. I don’t care what a person’s beliefs are, there is simply too much screaming and pontificating and trying to stir the pot–and most of this behavior is for money.

    It needs to stop. I think that is obvious to all of us who are rational, sentient beings not getting a piece of the pie.

    I think that and how we deal with obvious mental illness need to be brought into sharp focus as a result of all this.

  22. marinm

    Last sentence will probably come off the wrong way as it was directed to the people wanting to lay blame at the TP, the commies, or whatever group people want to align with the shooter.

    MH, it wasn’t directed at you as you’ve been more than fair and even in your posts.

  23. The American Renaissance organization has been linked to this killer. Some of those people have attempted to come to this blog. We did not allow that to happen. How do we know? They used their website email address. As soon as we saw it, the comments came down.

    I am not sure I believe it re am-ren

  24. Big Dog

    So ironic and sad that Christina’s life began and ended on such tragic days
    for America.

    1. @Big Dog, that’s right. She was born on 9/11/01. That gives me cold chills.

  25. Thanks, Marin, I try to be. It doesn’t always happen but I do try.

    And I do agree that no one can take the blame but those who did the deed. that is where primary responsibility should fall.

    We all know that we can goad and poke sticks in the eyes of some people though….push their trigger points as it were. Everyone that has a sibling knows that.

  26. Big Dog

    Caution that after events like this, speculation, most of it wrong,
    runs wild. When Reagan was shot, the buzz on a number of talk radio
    shows was that it had to be “liberal plot”. Turned out John Hinckley, Jr.
    was a deranged individual attemping to impress movie star Jodie Foster!

    Stop-look-listen.

  27. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    Starryflights :
    The United States is a civilized society. We do not settle our political differences with guns and machetes, like the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda. The people responsible for this act are animals.

    [ed note: link removed by admin. MH]

    Slowpoke: NO. None productive. What he said makes perfect sense.

  28. Morris Davis

    There are and will continue to be any number of connections, some legit and some purely fanciful, between the shooter and the shooting and past events, like the tragic irony of the poor girl’s 9/11/01 birth date.  One I noticed is that in his final video the shooter chose Drowning Pool’s “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” from their album “Sinner” as his background music.  The same song was played repeatedly at high volume to help break the mental defense capabilities of some of the detainees thought to be involved in 9/11.  Not sure being connected even indirectly to both murder in the U.S. and torture by the U.S. is what Dave Williams imagined when he wrote the lyrics (he was found dead on the band’s tour bus in of all places Manassas in 2002 at the age of 30).

  29. Emma

    @Moon-howler The point is that both sides use gun and shooting metaphors. But the ultimate blame for the shooting points squarely at the killer himself and not at the musings of radio and TV personalities. Otherwise I suppose we could blame Jodi Foster for John Hinckley’s actions, or Twinkies for Dan White’s crimes.

  30. MH, what is “re am-ren”? I was afraid to Google it.

  31. @Emma, yes but no one was pointing fingers. The entire thread post was about NOT doing that. Ken Anderson was very clear in his statement and I endorsed it, to the point that it was the theme of this point.

    I felt like you sent me a big resounding f&ck you and the horse you rode in on.

  32. Pinko, American REnaissance organization. They are located in Oakton. Either the FBI or DHS has contacted them. I do not know the details. I don’t want them back sniffing around this blog. I would hope someone would alert me immediately if that happens.

  33. Juturna

    Someone explain to me the “sides” of a mass murder??? Or the sides of a madman? Or the sides of the murder of a 9 year old child?? Sides?? What on earth are sides in this situation?

    Blaming others is no different than medicalizing bad behavior. Both are as useful as a broken umbrella in the rain. This is an opportunity to modify our individual and collective behavior….. look around. This is about as real an opportunity as we are likely to get. Hope we have not spiraled down so low that this civilization will fail. What’s done is over. What we choose to do and say is just that – choice.

    Example after example of he said/she said is available to no end. Either we sink into that or do something different. Frankly, those that choose to bottom feed should be ignored and left to drown. They are of no purpose. Maybe that is the next round of survival of the species drowning of the bottom feeders…. I can only hope.

  34. Starryflights

    . . . . [Pima County Sherriff Clarence]Dupnik has not stated a motive for the assassination attempt against the Democratic congresswoman. But he suggested that “vitriolic rhetoric” in political debates could have deadly consequences.

    “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 county is getting to be outrageous. Unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital,” he said. “We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

  35. Juturna

    I’ve been reading some things that have been happening in Tuscon recently. Some issues about Hispanic studies in schools most recently. Perhaps, he was simply commenting on what’s been going on in Tuscon, things the Sheriff’s Office has been dealing with. Perhaps here in Manassas we simply don’t know what is going on in that town.

  36. Emma

    @Starryflights
    Maybe Sheriff Dupnik needs to take a page from Ken Anderson’s book and stop laying blame on politics before he knows the facts.

  37. @Starryflights

    Starry, I am putting up the video of Sheriff Dupnik tonight. Thanks for bringing that up.

  38. Starryflights

    @Emma
    I think the sherrif has a better understanding of what’s going on in his community than any of us do.

  39. Emma

    Right. And he’s gotten inside of the head of the shooter already, hasn’t he?

  40. BS in VA

    I hope everyone that posts here will admit that weak minded and easily pursuadable people are overly influenced by saber rattling, artful deception, political bombast, yellow journalism and the fear of boogey men. The weak minded from both sides of the political spectrum are often the targets of such tactics because they can then pursuade other simplistic people to herd together.

    There must be some group, some website, some publication, some Solomon that presents all sides of a political issue fairly and draws no conclusions. If so, then those that post here, as a group, need to direct the weaker minded types there to learn that any side of an issue is not diabolcal nor heaven sent.

    I took a class in college entitled “Problems in Metropolitan Politics”. The text presented urban problems such as lack of affordable housing, failing school systems, economic development by providing three opinions (left, right and middle). When I read the right’s position, I agreed 100%. When I read the left’s position, I changed my mind 100%. When I viewed the middle position, I saw that it was the absolutely correct answer (I know, I now sound weak minded). That class taught that there were no absolute correct positions and that intelligent and concerned people need to work towards a mutually acceptable solution to modern problems. We need to use fact based reasoning to counter the far right and far left fcarnival barkers.

  41. Juturna

    Dupknik will be interviewed by Megyn Kelly on Fox shortly.

  42. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    So Moon AGREES that the shooter was first and foremost settling a political matter. I’m satisfied with that!

  43. Slowpoke Rodriguez :

    So Moon AGREES that the shooter was first and foremost settling a political matter. I’m satisfied with that!

    No, Moon doesn’t agree that the shooter was first and foremost settling a political matter.

    I have no idea what the shooter thought he was settling, nor do you.

  44. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    Yeah, Sherriff Dummkopf is already getting a little of the more-than-appropriate flack for coming out on a political side right away. He’s the one that set the tone for this disaster right off the bat. Typical lib….totally unprofessional.

  45. Slowpoke Rodriguez

    @Moon-howler
    Ah, but you clearly agree with Starry, whose only point was that this incident was about settling political disagreements. “What he said makes perfect sense” To you, I suppose it does!! Like I said, I can live with that!

  46. This whole thing is a tragedy… So much judgment, accusations and taking sides, so few facts.

    What’s done is done… 6 people were killed over a perception.

    a perception…

    Shall we argue back and fourth and generate more perceptions from the rumors?
    How many more people will become casualties of mass perception?
    Is a second civil war worthy to be fought over your perception of your neighbors intention?

    let’s drop the Rhetoric, drop the judgment and seek the truth.

  47. Juturna

    Yeah, he’s a real jerk alright…….. he just sounds frustrated to me.

    Not that the sheriff of a county that stretches 123 miles along the Mexican border is a softy on immigration. His 1,500-member department refers more illegal immigrants to the U.S. Border Patrol than any other law enforcement agency in Arizona.

    Sponsored LinksAnd in 2009, he said it was wrong “to spend the millions and millions and millions of dollars that we do catering to illegals.” He said schools should ask about the immigration status of students.

    He just wasn’t keen on having his deputies spend all their time asking people for their papers.

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