http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ja ... ng-arizona

Horrific. One of the dead is a nine year old girl, born on 9/11.

It's more shocking that before this, her political opponent and Sarah Palin both used the imagery of guns as part of the election campaign.

I just listened to a phone interview with the mother of that 9 year old girl. Saddening and senseless. Hopefully justice will be served to the fullest extent of Arizona law. Also sad to see that politics is being used in this case as well. I guess some see any opportunity to use tragedy to illuminate division rather than unity in difficult times.

GA - if a lone but radicalised muslim had attacked a politician, and there were links to radical preachers, then we would be talking about that aspect. Indeed, that's precisely what happened when a British MP was stabbed recently: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/0 ... ker-guilty

But apparently, we can't link the use of a gunsight target on Gifford's seat by Palin, and her opponent using the line "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly" to publicise an event to what happened yesterday.

Yes. How dare we bring up politics when a politician is shot, apparently by someone with a political motive (not that it's clear exactly what it is). I think that it's obvious that there is some division at the root of the matter. It's not a one-off either. Someone brought a gun to a previous event run by Gifford in 2009. During the election period her offices were attacked.

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw this story was "Don't retreat, reload !".

I'd say something along these lines has been coming for a long time now. A heavily armed society, a radical fringe that believes in the notion that they and their weapons are all that stands in the way of tyranny and a more mainstream political movement which has been cynically stoking up the crazies into believing that the Democrats are an existential threat to the nation. This is sad but ultimately unsurprising.

danivon wrote:shot, apparently by someone with a political motive (not that it's clear exactly what it is).

Have you read his blog writings? The man is clearly schizophrenic. He thinks the gov't is controlling his thoughts through rules of grammar. I can see how a schizophrenic might pick up some stray thoughts from the real world of rightwing (or radical leftwing) politics, and I certainly don't condone the use of violent imagery in political discourse, but you can't really start saying that people should censor themselves based on the effect their speech might have on schizophrenics. We'd have to eliminate all talk of Jesus, Napoleon, radio, outer space, and so on.

HERE is a piece at HuffPo by an "advocate for [the] seriously mentally ill." I don't know enough about commitment laws to know if I agree with him or not, but it does seem clear that we have some problems in this area. This thread, and the story of this shooting, shouldn't be about Sarah Palin; it should be about how we can properly identify individuals like Loughner and intervene appropriately without trampling civil rights, and how those closest to Loughner might have been helped to be better able to recognize him for the danger he was and take effective action.

Yes, he appears to be a very odd guy. The police are looking at whether he was acting alone - and have issued a picture of an older man who was seen with him beforehand. It's not even certain that this was simply down to one young man's individual issues yet.

The problem is not that there has been a couple of things people have said, but that there has been a wider use of violent (particular gun-related) imagery used in politics. Sass recalls the "Don't retreat. Reload" line. This is not a 'stray thought', it's a consistent use of phrases and images to convey the idea that electoral politics is some kind of life-or-death struggle. Combined with the American love of guns as part of a defence of individual liberties, that's pretty toxic.

Making people (even politicians, as they are human at the end of the day) into targets is denigrating. While a direct cause between a single bit of discourse and a violent act like this is hard to link, it's harder to dismiss the likelihood that cumulative effects over a period of time can have some influence. It's not even as if this if the first time that there has been murder with a political angle in recent years in USA.

Sure, we need to identify possible dangerous people, although as you recognise, there are always going to be cases which raise issues of civil rights, wherever the line gets drawn. Yes, dangerous people are more likely to do dangerous things. But they don't live in a vacuum - validating their urges with violent political discourse is no better.

A hundred years or so ago, anarchists were implicated in the killings of political figures. The actual killers often tended to be oddballs, rather than key figures. But the rhetoric of the anarchists of the time was a clear link.

Reports I've seen suggest shooter was a lefty--perhaps he was inspired by the Daily Kos placing her on its "target list."

Must be careful with the political rhetoric--never know when some whack-jobleftist will take it seriously and try to kill someone.

What reports are those? He's been labelled as such for listing Marx's Communist Manifesto as a favourite read (but he also listed Mein Kampf, Animal Farm, Brave New World and several others). Is that where it's from? If so, then it's far from being very solid.

Or his declaration of not Trusting in God (which was in relation to his opposition to the US currency, which has "In God We Trust" written on it)? Because only left wingers can be atheists, right?

What about his links to American Renaissance, then, Mach? Are they 'left wing'?

Oh, and you'll have to explain what makes Enright a 'leftist'. He seems to share your fear of Islam.

This is the result of "conscience dreaming". Of course I think he meant 'conscious', but since the rest of us are all illiterate, who knows... we need to do something about that.

On a more serious note, I am quite familiar with the Tea Party folks of Tucson (there really aren't that many--Tucson is a center-left city). Not one person knew him. I keep hearing of "ties" to the TP movement, but where is the evidence? The fact is, the kid was deranged. He couldn't coherently identify with any group--which is probably part of why he felt so isolated and desperate for attention.

The saddest thing about this whole story as that a purely innocent 9 year old little girl was killed. And all you lefties and righties trying to pin this on the other are being shameful

It was ties to American Renaissance that were being highlighted. They are a bit further out than the TP...

Coincidence with opponents of Giffords using crosshairs and tying shooting an M16 with getting her out of office is at the very least regrettable, and even before yesterday was incredibly irresponsible.

It was an ineveitable event. Not this specific event, but another mass shooting. And its inevitable that will be another within weeks.
It is the inevitable consequence of lax gun laws and the undieing belief that the 2nd amendment was intended to include ensuring anyone could own and carry a 30 round semiautomatic glock.
There are lots of insane people. They can be fueled by political rhetoric, or religious extremisim, or racist extremists, or their own imagination. It doesn't really matter what gets the blame this time. Next time it will just be another of the reasons. In most places its hard for these kinds of people to arm themselves to the teeth.
I doubt that is going to change. There is an acceptance amongst Americans of this slaughter as the cost for the continued importance of the 2nd amendment.
In the short term perhaps political rhetoric will be cooled. And thats a good thing.

I've heard assertions that he's got some connection to the American Renaissance kooks, but they're all second hand--can anyone provide a link to anything direct?

On the other hand, at least one of the shooter's former associates describes him as a liberal.

Seems to me, though, that what's far more important than whether he was a lefty or a righty is the fact that he's a kook.

Kooks will be kooks, and kooks (especially kooks within 100 miles of our completely (thanks to the lefties) porous border with the failed state that is Mexico) will not be prevented by the tightest gun laws from arming themselves (after all, it appears that America's tight drug laws didn't prevent the shooter from being a pothead). One regrets that none of the sane, law-abiding folks in the crowd was armed, else they might have stopped this guy before he shot so many, but that's the cost of the erosion we've already suffered of our 2nd amendment rights.

Guns tend to flow south into Mexico not north from it.

I'm certainly no fan of the Palin "dont retreat, reload" or "2nd amendment remedies" kind of rhethoric, but i think this was just a single mentally ill person and not some riled up conservative. Judging from his Youtube and other internet stuff at least. Though violent imagery in the political discussion probably didn't help the situation either.