I agree that is it better not to speculate about possible the political beliefs of whoever shot Congresswoman Gifford and several of her staff members.
But regardless of the shooter’s motives, I do wonder if any conservatives are rethinking their belief that constituent events should be open carry rallies (McArdle; Welch). I suspect, however, that if they are doing any rethinking it involves excuses about gastritis and perhaps the argument that only 0.2% of Congress has been shot in the last year.
Martin
I’m okay with them being open carry if they’re okay with having security pointing loaded assault rifles at the audience during the event. The 2nd amendment doesn’t say fuck about the conditions under which you’re allowed to bear those firearms.
cathyx
Now I see why you used to use Doug J.
lamh32
I know that we aren’t supposed to speculate on the shooter’s motives, but is it okay to speculate why we are seeing more GOP congresscritters than we’ve ever seen b4 coming on MSNBC or CNN to issue a response to this crisis? Or is it ok to speculate why the grifter Palin and her minions were tripping over themselves to “scrap or erase” all of the “extreme rhetoric” from their sites and the sites of their allies?????
Mike Kay
Why should this affect their opinions, they only shot a Democrat, and killed a Federal Judge, a little girl, a 30 year old staffer, and 3 others – it’s not as if they defaced a portrait of Reagan.
DCPlod
Are you kidding? They’ll all remain convinced that this whole tragedy would’ve been avoided if everyone involved, including the poor little 9 year old girl, had been carrying a gun.
Jinchi
No. They’re not. If anything, they’re convinced that all this could have been avoided if only everybody had been carrying.
lamh32
@cathyx
That is a mouthful isn’t it! My tag is the initial of my full name, and the shorter one is my first name and it’s 6 letters long
Bob Loblaw
I think it’s interesting to watch the way you all act in response to this tragedy. The random quirks and compulsions…
Cole shuts down, ABL turns to racial politics, and DougJ focuses on McArdle. It’s weirdly amusing.
Just Some Fuckhead
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of little children.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jinchi: @DCPlod:
I know this is snark, but people will say it and it is one of the stupidest statements that a person can utter.
West of the Cascades
Actually, if you calculate it using Mcardlematics, only 0.02% of Congress has been shot, so it’s not really that serious.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@Bob Loblaw:
If the FBI ever asks for the IP on your comments, I’m giving it to them.
Superking
That’s 2% of congress to McArdle.
Riggsveda
No, I think it’s likely that conservative legislators may back down a hair on this. It’s too close to home, when one of their own (regardless of political beliefs) gets hit. They know it could happen to any of them under the right circumstances, and they know, whether they admit it or not, that there has been an awful lot of weaponry-related smack talk in the last couple years. But I doubt it will affect their regularly-scheduled blowjobs for the NRA.
Alex S.
@Bob Loblaw:
And you prefer distanced cynicism, so what?
jcricket
@Superking: Look, she was on Xanax at the time, catching up on Xena re-runs, so she can’t be blamed for that.
scav
Christ on a Powder Keg. I’m off for free booze. Night all.
Rex
As soon as I see the word “indeed” in a McArdle post, I reflexively turn off. Her mix of folksy patrician bullshittery with pick-and-choose-as-suits-my-needs-of-the-moment free market advocacy is bizarre, noxious and random. Not that this is a surprise to the commentariat here.
I am sure she is trying very hard to figure out how to twist today’s events into an acquittal via a logical pretzel not unlike those wire mounts she witnessed being produced in a Baltimore factory in what was doubtless her first ever experience inside of a warehouse.
PS DougJarvus already added in the order of magnitude error. I checked.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, I used to think, back in the 70s, that eventually Americans would wake the fuck up about letting just about anyone and their mom buy any firearm they felt like slinging around once some nutcase opened fire on a schoolyard during recess.
Then it happend somewhere in California, and there was no wake up.
mikefromArlington
peeps not happy with palin
http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin?v=wall#!/sarahpalin?v=app_2373072738
icecreammang
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with speculating per se. There are enough facts so far to discuss the atmosphere in which something like this happened.
Arizona
Democrat
Recent election battle against a tea bagger
Shot first, shot in the head
Sure, saying there’s blood on Palin’s hands is going too far, but I don’t see anything wrong with talking about the consequences this will or won’t have on political discourse.
John - A Motley Moose
@Bob Loblaw: I think the way you are responding is far more revealing.
srv
Wonder what it would take for one of the victims to pursue a civil lawsuit against Palin.
Cacti
Posted on the other thread too…
During the press conference, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said that they believe the shooter did not act alone.
Obliterati
@Bob Loblaw: Cynicism aside, it is a bit of a hideously tragic rorschach test…
MikeJ
Republicans have been after DC’s gun laws for decades. I believe DC should outlaw metal detectors, come in and take them out of the capitol.
Mark S.
@Bob Loblaw:
Where does ABL go into racial politics? The closest I could find:
Which is one sentence out of a real long post, the vast majority of was about violent rhetoric.
Or when you read ABL do you just see ” Kill whitey Kill whitey Kill whitey.”
Mike Kay
The Sheriff of Tucson is giving a news conference, saying the rhetoric of violence must stop.
Ailuridae
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
Is there a new federal law outlawing useless blog commenters who don’t add value?
jcricket
@icecreammang: Not just recent election battle against tea-bagger, but also a previous recipient of threats. On a “hit-list” style target sheet by Sarah Palin (the anti-abortion crowd also uses this tactic). And a federal judge who was also the subject of death threats after right-wing radio amped up the crazies b/c of a ruling they didn’t like.
There is a lot of partisanship in this country, but there is no equivalence between the left and the right.
Citizen_X
@Bob Loblaw:
How the fuck did you get that out of her post? Quote, please.
ericblair
@Riggsveda:
If a conservative legislator gets shot at, it will be by a rightwing crackpot who’s mad that said legislator isn’t a big enough rightwing crackpot himself. The smarter ones might be figuring this out. The dumb ones think they’ve got the rabble under their thumbs and they’ll just do whatever their lords and masters want them to do.
Of course a good part of the right will say that if everyone was packing this never would have happened. Like if some guy tried this shit at, lets say, an Army base, like maybe the biggest Army base in the Western world like, for example, Fort Hood, this never would have happened, right?
Ailuridae
@Mark S.:
Everything ABL posts is racial poltics for Bob Loblaw. She is blackity black black after all.
PeakVT
Jim Fallows has some level-headed observations.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv:
Not going to happen. No way to prove causality, unless you can prove a chain of custody from Sarah Palin to the shooter’s weapon, along with authenticated video of Palin egging the shooter on along the lines of putting the weapon in his hands and saying “you know what to do. This Saturday’s the day!”
Besides, Sarah will just lie about any connection, or any responsiblity, anyway. It’s what she does. She’s pathological.
Anya
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: I am so googling you now, if that’s your real name.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ailuridae: She is? I hadn’t noticed.
Karen
@Mark S.:
That’s exactly what Bob L sees. And the fact that he used the word “amused” speaks volumes.
The Sheriff just said that Arizona has become a mecca for bigotry and vitriol.
At least one person recognizes that sanity has become the exception rather than the rule.
SiubhanDuinne
What?! 20% of Congress has been shot at in the past 36.5 days??
taylormattd
@Bob Loblaw: Fuck off you piece of shit.
The only question about this asshole is whether he is a racist PUMA who likes dead democrats, or a racist LGFballer who likes dead democrats.
The Dangerman
@srv:
Wonder what it would take for one of the victims to pursue a civil lawsuit against Palin.
My thought, too; in any lawsuit, one goes after the Deep Pockets and, in this case, that would be Palin. I’d wonder what the laws are regarding incitement.
Has Sharron Angle said word one today?
Southern Beale
I would like to know how Jared Loughner got his hands on a gun. I heard via the Twitter that it was through legal means but I don’t have a link to confirm it yet.
I also think that some politicians might want to rethink their “2nd Amendment remedies” rhetoric and putting elected officials in crosshairs in their campaign literature.
icecreammang
@jcricket:
Damn straight. I really think the mental illness aspect will allow the right’s message machine to not even have to deal with the consequences of their poisonous rhetoric.
geg6
@Cacti:
He is also all but coming right out and saying that “certain people” in politics and radio share the blame for this incident. Of course, none of the reporters will follow him down that road.
taylormattd
@Mark S.: he sees a poster who writes under the moniker “angry BLACKBLACKBLACKBLACKBLACK lady”
Maude
Does anyone know if ISPs have a record of sites visited by their customers?
Mary G
I really like this sheriff.
Morbo
@Anya: Spoilers: just a Pats fan.
Gopher2b
The sheriff, who likely knows more at this point then anyone, just linked “inciteful rhetoric” and “vitriol” to this murder. He also said someone else was likely involved. For those of you waiting for more facts to link this shooting with the mouth breathers, you just got it.
srv
@Villago Delenda Est: If an American citizen in Yemen can incite violence via emails and get the death penalty, there’s no loophole for dragging Palin in?
*I don’t think there’s any way she could be found guilty, but there could be some internal emails on her hit list, and it would be great to see her have to talk about that list and her language for several months.
Jon H
@Cacti: “During the press conference, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said that they believe the shooter did not act alone.”
As I posted on the other thread, it looks like they just think he got a ride there. Since he used a concealable weapon, and the event was held in a supermarket, it would be easy to get a ride there without the driver having any idea what was up.
It was probably his parent.
Chet
Oh, say can you see by the pawn shop’s dim light
What a swell .38 with its pearl handle gleaming.
In a gun catalog is a telescope sight;
I’ll send for it quick, while the sirens are screaming.
And the TV’s white glare, the shots ripping in air
Give proof through the night that our guns are still there.
Oh, don’t you ever try to take my guns away from me,
Because the right to shoot at you is what I mean by liberty.
– Mike Royko, writing in the Chicago Daily News after Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968.
ericblair
@MikeJ:
Ideological reflex. One thing that stuck in my mind during the Supreme Court DC gun case was that, for a city that’s sixty-something percent black, I never saw stock footage or graphics of a black person with a gun to introduce the mostly pro-gun coverage. I was figuring that the target audience may be a little more ambivalent about gun rights if they spent a few seconds to think through exactly who was going to get these rights.
Anya
@Morbo: I am so gullible.
Stillwater
@icecreammang: Sure, saying there’s blood on Palin’s hands is going too far
Why?
wonkie
Conservatives won’t take any responsiblity for this or any responsiblity for anything they have ever said realting to thsi. DO ont expect a retraction for McMegan.
If they were capable of taking responsiblity they wouldn’t be conservatives.
Elizabelle
@geg6:
Was listening to Tucson local TV newsfeed this afternoon, and one of the anchors referred to Gifford and “Obamacare, whatever you think of it” and another mused, briefly, wondering what Giffords might have SAID before she was shot.
Whatever could she have said to incite that?
No follow up, so maybe her brain caught up with her mouth.
So, yeah, some of the reporters may not follow the sheriff down that road, or even find it.
But some of them might just surprise us ….
MikeJ
@ericblair: It’s all well and good to say everybody ought to have a gun when you’re surrounded by metal detectors and armed guards.
If a person believes that one should be allowed to carry guns in bars and nursery schools, why shouldn’t I be allowed to carry one when I go visit my congressperson?
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@Bob Loblaw:
Also too, as others have mentioned…where’s the racial politics in ABL’s post? Are all her posts about racial politics because she has the word “black” in her screen name?
mikefromArlington
Sad irony that McCain unleashed on the national stage an individual who stokes peeps with rhetoric that came back to haunt him now in his own state.
Obliterati
Well, I was thinking this guy was more John Hinkley than Timothy McVeigh, but Sheriff Dupnik seems to have different ideas…or maybe I’m reading too much into his words.
Bob Loblaw
@Mark S.:
Eh, I thought that thread got into a goofy “Only White People get the benefit of the doubt regarding mental illness” tangent, which while ostensibly true, isn’t particularly relevant.
I don’t think anybody is looking to excuse or absolve the murderer’s actions on any level that I’ve seen.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@icecreammang:
I don’t think it is going too far, not at all.
To clarify, this post is in no way suggesting that blood is on the Reasonoids’s hands. I would just like them to admit that having people brandish guns near Congressmen isn’t a good idea.
jcricket
@icecreammang:
The depressing thing is this is not new. Every time a Democrat gets elected President, the wingers go nuts and the right-wing-hate-machine explodes.
Go read about what Kennedy faced (and how bad things were in Dallas). Or Carter. We all remember what happened during Clinton (militias; OKC bombing). And now here we are again.
Different names for the right-wing-hate groups, but same concept. Democrats have taken “their” country from the rightful owners, and they need to take it back by force. And it starts from the top, with the rhetoric of the GOP leaders. Filters down to the right-wing media (like the talk-radio hosts who foment the hate in AZ, leading to previous death threats against the judge who was killed). And then the lone nutjobs, who are already unstable, take up the cause and here we are again.
As the SPLC, ADL (for their faults) and Dave Neiwert have painstakingly pointed out – this is by design. After the FBI was able to infiltrate and destroy the klan, the wingers decided it was better to hide behind the first amendment and have the leadership just go around fomenting hate (rather than trying to elaborately conspire together to commit acts of domestic terror).
Blows my fucking mind that people (the GOP) who are always railing against cuss-words and violent video games for the supposed impact on kids don’t take a look at their own impact on the world.
Omnes Omnibus
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: Well, duh.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv:
That’s totally different, and you know it.
He’s a Muslim. Even if he’s an American citizen, it’s perfectly legal and proper to order an extra-judicial execution of him on the most thin of pretexts because, after all, he’s a Muslim.
Do you see how this works?
Davis X. Machina
I recommend special “Second Amendment Zones”, far from the event, and surrounded by police and chain link fences.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: So ABL is responsible for the direction in which the thread goes? Further, did you see the direction the media went after the FT Hood shootings? Terrorism. After this one, mental illness. Just saying.
arguingwithsignposts
how come AZ can’t have more sheriffs like this one and fewer like that asshat arpaio?
ETA: surgeon says “this is a very devastating wound.” even if she survives, that doesn’t sound good.
Judas Escargot
@Mike Kay:
Watching the same press conference, getting the same impression (and IMO he’s doing it well).
Odd questions from the press gaggle early on, about assorted specifics of the weapon, etc. WTF?
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@Obliterati:
That is my impression too. We’ll see.
Richard 23
Interesting topic DougJ. I’ll give it more pondering.
I’ve been mostly away from following United States politics since the Magical Unity Pony gave us all so much hope.
Have we been in Afghanistan longer than the Russians were back in the day yet?
Are we still rebuilding in Iraq? Why are we still there? Is collateral murder part of our glorious ongoing mission?
Does the public have to get pitchforks out before Obama starts winding that crap down?
And wtf is this health care abortion that I’m being thrown along with vomit and viscera?
OK, so I’m required to buy private insurance so that will do everything it can to deny service and I’m supposed to do this without any collective bargaining power that all of us as a group might possibly have…. Private insurance? Right I couldn’t afford it before. I don’t have $800+ in disposable income anyway — what the hell is a fucking tax credit going to do?
Obama just needed to not make things worse? Obama Biden, shit — now I remember what alcohol was for.
Can we bring Bush back. At least he didn’t blow smoke up my ass. I knew he was a loony. Democratic party? …
Pee Party Reload!
-click-
Anya
DougJarvus Green-Ellis: Also too, Bob Loblaw is still looking for Michelle’s “whitey tape”.
Villago Delenda Est
@arguingwithsignposts:
Tuscon is, from what I can tell, located in a government unit that is less of a county and more of a soviet.
jcricket
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: It’s the “lady” part. Black might just be a color. But by direspecting the partriarchy so blatantly, it’s obvious she’s a partisan hack.
the fenian
My congratulations on your name change, Doug.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: I use to believe in that school of thought, but the more I considered it, the more on thought kept popping into my head: decent people don’t take their guns to town.
I do get some of the idea behind the sentiment, and I think there has been some studies that have shown reduced crime in areas that have concealed carry laws. The speculation I’ve heard, and I don’t know how true it is, is that crime drops because “criminals don’t know who is armed and who isn’t.” But again, it comes down to the fact that decent people don’t take their guns to town.
Karen
I always wondered if it would take a death to make Congress see that rhetoric might be free speech but it also has cause and effect and consequences. At the time I was thinking it would be President Obama who’d be shot.
Well a death happened. Several happened. Will this finally be the event that makes the country snap back to sanity?
Bill Murray
I think the primary legislative outcome of this will be a tightening of the security state, which is about the only thing a large part of both parties legislator’s can agree
joel
I’m sure we’ll here more than a few wingers tell us how much safer we’d all be if everyone had a concealed weapon at these sorts of events.
But, it bears pointing out, the damage was mitigated somewhat by a couple of older gentleman who wrestled the shooter to the ground with their bare hands.
They didn’t need weapons, just a quick reaction to what was happening and some good old fashioned muscle.
amk
@Bob Loblaw: Oh, please, share us your wisdom on this. Pretty please.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Obliterati: I keep seeing hints about co-conspirators, but haven’t seen anything definite. A conspiracy, to my mind, would push the needle toward McVeigh
Stillwater
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: I would just like them to admit that having people brandish guns near Congressmen isn’t a good idea.
See, good or bad, this is a God given right enshrined in our Constitution. So it exists above judgment. It just is. All other social conventions must adapt to this fundamental truth.
jcricket
@joel: If there were a bunch more citizens armed, I fully expect the body count would have been way hire, with bullets flying every which way in a panic.
srv
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh, yeah, clear now. Don’t know what I was thinking.
If I were Soros, I’d go to Track Palin and pay him $10M to do a reality show where he converts to Islam.
NorthernMNer
I’m going to crowd-source this one: with an injury like this to the brain, what are Rep. Giffords’ chances of recovery? Could she be paralyzed because of this? Any hope she makes a full (or close to full) recovery?
Davis X. Machina
@DougJarvis Green-Ellis: One wouldn’t want to jeopardize the Constitutionally-sanctioned chilling effect that results…
MTiffany
Of course not. Since they’re the Real Americans, they’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s anyone that disagrees with them that’s in danger of being murdered, so… not really their problem…
Mark S.
@Bob Loblaw:
She’s responsible for the direction the thread goes? I’ve seen some threads here that have gone off in much more fucked up tangents, and I hardly blame the FPer for that.
I also don’t see why it’s irrelevant. Nobody gave two shits whether Atta might have been suffering from a mental illness. It’s an interesting enough discussion.
KG
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
I use to think that second sentence was something that could actually go without saying. Intimidation is not a tool to promote liberty, at least not to this libertarian.
arguingwithsignposts
@NorthernMNer:
just listening to the presser, and the surgeon sounded optimistic that she’d live, but had some guarded words re: full recovery. didn’t sound exactly optimistic.
West of the Cascades
@arguingwithsignposts: Dupnik is also the sheriff who refused to comply with Arizona’s new Driving While Brown law in early 2010.
JGabriel
@Southern Beale:
Me too. I’ve read reports, don’t know how accurate, that a second person was arrested in conjunction with the shooting and that they were looking for a third.
I assume one of them is the person who sold Loughner the gun, but, again, don’t know for sure.
.
ed
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Apparently they came armed (this time).
Fuckers.
amk
BTW, the pima county sheriff Dupnick is telling it like it is, “his state has become a mecca for prejudice and bigotry”.
You go sheriff.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv:
Seriously, though, I can’t see a way to connect Palin to this guy in a way that would stand up in court. Mind you, I’m not a law talking person, but I don’t know how you’d make a causal connection.
And also seriously, all the President has to do, apparently, is “certify” that someone is a “terrorist” and the gloves are off.
Keep in mind that the word that Josef Goebbels used to characterize British and American airmen who were shot down over Germany was “terrorists.”
Perhaps one of our actual caveman lawyers can chime in on this issue.
Jager
@the fenian:
I’m thinking of changing mine to Jager V. Wilfork
Anya
@Omnes Omnibus: I wonder if this clearly troubled young man was exploited by some twisted group.
In another note, I liked how Sheriff Dupnik spoke against violent rhetoric and bigotry. Coming from a law enforcement officer, it should make an impact.
icecreammang
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: @Stillwater:
I see “blood on her hands” as meaning direct responsibility.
The poisonous atmosphere which I do believe is directly responsible for the shooter’s state of mind (combined with the crazy, of course) has many, many more elements than just SarahPac’s target graphic and the “reload” language.
Blaming the shining stars who spew the loudest, crudest rhetoric doesn’t get to the heart of it; they are symptoms of something darker and deeper and stickier.
Then again, if you want to say “blood on her hands” means indirect responsibility, I can’t argue to hard against that.
But semantics aside, fuck that bitch.
stickler
@Karen: Karen asks:
I think we’d all be well advised to worry about that even after today. He’s black, he’s a Democrat, and he’s President during a particularly crazy time, economically, politically, and demographically. There’s lots more crazy people with guns out there, and not just in Arizona.
I was amazed after Oklahoma City, first by how defensive right-wing rageradio got, and second by how quickly they returned to spewing hate. Hell, even GOP politicians went on shooting watermelons and talking about Clinton as an unindicted traitor. (and then they impeached him!) If that event didn’t wake up the media and the electorate, today’s tragedy sure as hell won’t. Depressing as all hell, but there you have it.
NorthernMNer
@arguingwithsignposts: Damn. I’m not the most religious person in the world, but I will be praying for her.
Hang in there Gabrielle.
demkat620
I can’t stop crying. Jeebus, this is so sad. And maddening.
I am praying for all of us tonight.
stickler
@Villago Delenda Est: Villago — read up on Goebbels and the Nazis. One word those bastards used ALL THE TIME was “terror.” Terror, terror, terror. Read Goebbels’ speech at the Sportpalast in February 1943 (right after Stalingrad) — he uses the word over and over again. “Jewish terror squads” following behind the Red Army was a particularly nasty touch, given the actions of the Einsatzgruppen taking place as he was speaking.
Terror — fear — hits right at our lizard brain, and people who stoke it are either evil or stupid.
Jon H
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “I keep seeing hints about co-conspirators, but haven’t seen anything definite. A conspiracy, to my mind, would push the needle toward McVeigh”
Apparently there’s a “person of interest” they want to talk to, a man in his 50’s.
IMHO, it’s probably the father of the shooter, who gave his kid a ride to the store.
Bob Loblaw
@Mark S.:
You seem to operate under the right-wing delusion that “racial politics” are a bad or ugly thing. That wasn’t how I meant it, anymore than DougJ should feel bad for mocking mainstream oblivious libertarianism. I was just commenting on how people immediately frame their thoughts based on their broader interests.
The racial elements of political discourse should be discussed openly. And as I wade through the immediate response to this, I think ABL and sherrifffruitfly are being vindicated on some level. There is an unsightly undercurrent of “poor, troubled white boy, where did things go wrong?” developing. And that’s bullshit.
But whatever. If it makes people feel better to call me a racist and an asshole, go for it, but I’m pretty sure I’m just the latter…
Maude
@arguingwithsignposts:
Surgeons never say that the outcome or prognosis is rosie. They don’t know how she’s going to be in a few days and if he said she’d be okay and she wasn’t he’d be in hot water.
@Villago Delenda Est:
Palin is being tried in the court of public opinion as I write this.
That matters a lot. She has been doing attention getting since she arrived on the national scene.
This time, it isn’t working out the way she hoped.
We are nowhere near the legal aspects of this yet.
What is interesting is the connections people are making about violent speech and violence.
When Palin was in Florida during the primaries upsetting crowds, she wasn’t seen as advocating violence by the media.
I want to see what the media does with Palin and also what the Republicans do.
arguingwithsignposts
@Bob Loblaw:
ok, bob lobsterclaw, you’re an asshole. happy? 1 out of 2 isn’t bad, bro.
Southern Beale
@JGabriel:
Just saw a Libertarian blog where the blogger said Loughner’s ability to get his hands on a gun is “another fail for Big Government.”
Words fail me.
oondioline
Megan McCardle is a huge fucking asshole:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/08/are-guns-at-protests-really-dangerous/23859/
arguingwithsignposts
@Maude:
i fully understand that. maybe it’s just me, but he didn’t sound optimistic at all, sort of a jim brady kind of not optimistic. the words “long road” were used. I’m hoping for better, and just reporting what I heard at the presser.
Nutella
@Davis X. Machina:
Absolutely! It wouldn’t be right to discriminate against some amendments in favor of others.
Cain
I really pray that the congresswoman is able to make a recovery of some sort. Karmic love to the family and friends.
cain
gopher2b
@Jon H:
No way its a parent. You drop your kid off a grocery store, 20+ shots are fired, all hell breaks lose, your kid doesn’t return, and you drive away? No fucking way.
Jon H
@NorthernMNer: “I’m going to crowd-source this one: with an injury like this to the brain, what are Rep. Giffords’ chances of recovery?”
Hard to say. Read about Phineas Gage, who had a thick iron tamping rod shot through his frontal lobe, and lived a fair while afterward. 12 years. In the 19th century.
This was apparently a shot through the temples, though I don’t know the exact path. It suggests a frontal brain injury. Paralysis would be more of a rear brain issue, or maybe the motor areas roughly in the area where the headband from a pair of headphones would sit.
Jon H
@gopher2b: He probably drove away before shots were fired.
Mark S.
@Bob Loblaw:
Oh, you meant that comment @8 as a compliment? You’re full of shit.
MTiffany
@Karen:
Never fear, there’s still time! And I’m sure that after a week or two — or sooner if some other event distracts the MSM — and a few tears of crocodilian contrition for “angry words which I may have said which some lost soul took to mean something other than how they were truly meant” from the guilty parties (Bachmann, Beck, Palin, et al), the inflammatory rhetoric and just-this-side-of-the-legal-line exhortations to violence will start all over again. And Weeper Boehner will continue to turn a blind eye to the birthers in the Congress. And yes Virginia, someone who thinks Obama is a foreigner who is usurping the office of the President from the legitimate heir to Bush’s throne, John McCain, will take it upon themselves and take their shot.
And if that does in fact happen, I hope Obama 1) survives and 2) has the balls to classify Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin and the rest of their co-conspirators as the unlawful enemy combatants that they are, rounds them up and sends them all to lovely Club Fed at Guantanomo Bay for a round of waterboarding, electroshock, and everything-else-short-of-organ-failure-so-it’s-not-really-torture allowed by law for a long long long fucking time.
Bob Loblaw
@Mark S.:
No, I meant it on completely neutral terms. It was what I picked up on and was strangely fascinated by how cleanly it broke down (I mean, McArdle? Now of all times?) and so I commented on it. Coping mechanisms are interesting.
If I wanted to be really nasty about it, I assure you, I would have.
Stillwater
@oondioline: McArdle proves once again that she doesn’t know what the words ‘statistical probability’ means, and that she doesn’t understand pragmatic questions, like ‘what purpose is served by allowing people to carry concealed weapons to political events?’
Her reasoning? It’s what I believe in, bitches!
gopher2b
@Jon H:
I really doubt it. It doesn’t make sense. How was the kid supposed to get home? The real question is why to the agents think another person was involved? If they have video, fine. If its an eyewitness, who knows how the kid got there. This investigation epitomizes chaos.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@Bob Loblaw:
But how was her post about racial politics, good or bad?
Southern Beale
I’m upstairs talking to myself but among the things I learned today is that Jan Brewer just signed a law on Friday allowing people to conceal carry without a permit, and Giffords’ right wing opponent had a “shoot an M-16” event during the campaign.
Also, Raytheon is Tucson’s second largest employer.
So I’m sorta of the “live by the gun, die by the gun” mindset here. This was predictable, based on our violence as a society.
amk
Bob Loblaw:
. If it makes people feel better to call me a racist and an asshole, go for it, but I’m pretty sure I’m just the latter…
kerFuFFler
@mikefromArlington:
I checked your link, but all the comments I saw were supportive of Palin, saying how it wasn’t her fault if some crazy left winger went berserk with a gun, that people need to take responsibility for their own actions, and that it could have been prevented if someone else had been packing.
She must be scrubbing the comments….
The comments here have been dead on predicting the rhetoric the tea partiers would resort to.
Bill Murray
@Southern Beale: concealed carry with no permit was signed in April and became law, I think, in July
Stillwater
@DJGE: But how was her post about racial politics, good or bad?
Still pushing on this? You’re – let me guess – +3?
John Cole
This smart black dude I know once said “I like to know what I am talking about…”
Bob Loblaw
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis:
I already answered this. Her first posts within the thread concerned the media’s impulse to play up the “imbalanced” angle above all others, when it wouldn’t be extended to a minority person.
This is pretty cogent and right on, I think. It also doesn’t change the fact that this was the first place she went on the thread, and I’m about as surprised as I’d be if Dennis starts in on the neo-Confederate legacy of the attack*. You all have your core interests that are near and dear to you above all others. Events like today tend to crystallize them pretty quickly, I’ve noticed.
@amk:
You forgot to add misogynist, dear.
*I think it’s wrong to imply any specific “black” narrative to the murders, given Arizona’s recent racial history and anti-immigrant sentiments. But then it’s easy to just lump all nativism and racism into a single all-encompassing reading of institutional and geographic history.
@John Cole:
That’s fine. Perfectly admirable. You do have to admit you have a certain dramatic quality to your pronouncements, don’t you? Begging the internet horde not to speculate is probably one of the least productive activities in any walk of life ever.
E.D. Kain
Honestly, I don’t see how open carry would have made any difference. Loughner would have just walked in with it concealed – as he did – without bothering to ask for permission and done the exact same thing. I fail to see how the two are connected, and I say this as someone who pretty much loathes guns and wishes the world didn’t have any to begin with.
Maude
@efgoldman:
Sure times have changed. That big buck…of Reagan’s. Have a look at the president.
@E.D. Kain:
I don’t think any gun law mattered here. He was apparently determined to commit the deed and he would have gotten ahold of a gun.
henqiguai
@E.D. Kain (#129): Hey ! Kain ! You’re still around; cool.
MTiffany
@Maude:
I’m more interested to see how Morning Joe and their rotating cast of pissboy bootlickers manages to make this Nancy Pelosi’s fault.
Maude
@efgoldman:
Oh, sorry and you are so right. I am trying to be a bit positive tonight. I waver between that and weeping. Part of the gun bit, I believe is the repetition of They are going to take (fill in the blank) away from You, the gun buyers hear all the time and feel is true.
@MTiffany:
Let me know will you? Don’t have and don’t want tv. Something to keep in mind is that the cable tv audience isn’t huge. It’s enough to irritate.
Let’s see what the general feeling on this is in a week. It could be a turning point where all of a sudden all those violent phrases don’t seem so clever anymore.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@E.D. Kain:
But you do see how idiotic the whole “nothing wrong with bringing guns to town halls” stuff is, though, right?
(edited for clarity)
Cacti
@arguingwithsignposts:
Clarence Dupnik has lived in AZ since he was a small boy and has been an AZ law enforcement officer for over 50 years, he actually cares about Arizona and Arizonans.
Goons like Arpaio and Babeu are out of state interlopers who came here to put on a Wyatt Earp act and advance their political careers.
PurpleGirl
James Fallows has a good post up about the political nature of assassinations.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/the-cloudy-logic-of-political-shootings/69147/
Karen
I know that other political figures have been assasinated or the victim of attempted assassinations. But with the internet, for good or bad, there’s more discussion. And for the first time, the reporters are actually taking the Sheriff’s statement and running with it, admitting that the vitriol being spat can lead to actions.
I don’t know who else is here from the DC metro but when CNN said that there was another man of interest (in his 50s) the first thing I thought of was the DC Sniper of 2002 that had the shooter and the guy that seemed like his mentor. This, plus the packages in front of the political offices for the past few days, brings memories of 9 and 10 years ago.
I have to be optimistic that today’s horrorific tragedy may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back because if nothing changes, then the despair in my heart will crush it.
Angry Black Lady
@Bob Loblaw: you’re a jackass.
Angry Black Lady
angry BLACKBLACKBLACKITYBLACKITYBLACK lady
fix’d.
Angry Black Lady
@Bob Loblaw: and that has to do with my post how, exactly? do you ever think before you hit “submit”?
crikey.
Angry Black Lady
@Bob Loblaw: christ, i don’t need vindication. i didn’t even broach that particular subject in my post. but i guess because i’m black, everything i write necessarily has a racial politics tinge, is that it?
Mark S.
@Angry Black Lady:
But he meant it on completely neutral terms! He just found it fascinating and interesting!
And it’s Mr. Loblow, if you’re nasty!
Omnes Omnibus
@Angry Black Lady: Again I’ll say, you’re black? Who knew?
gwangung
Bob Loblaw answering with all the grace of a Tea Partyist….
amk
@Bob Loblaw:
It’s your funeral, dearie. Have at it.
Bob Loblaw
@Angry Black Lady:
I assume you take the same amount of consideration into everything you write, main post or not.
It wasn’t like it was buried dozens and dozens of posts in. It was in the first thirty replies to the thread. It was a quick pivot from partisan and ideological identity towards a racial one.
White terrorists and mass murderers are giving preferential treatment by the media regarding their culpability and mental state. All I was saying was that it didn’t surprise me that such a topic would trickle up in one of your threads, and that you would directly comment on it, given the general topics your posts usually exhibit. And it didn’t surprise me that sherrifffruitfly was the one to bring it up.
Karen
Saturday Night Live is on right now and it seems weird to have comedy at a time like this.
I know life goes on, it’s just surreal to me.
Cain
@Angry Black Lady:
You ain’t black, you are fucking beautiful. :-)
cain
themann1086
@Mark S.: Of course he’s neutral. He’s a White Male, he can be objective about racism and sexism in ways that those dark and female people can’t.
Angry Black Lady
@Bob Loblaw:
what i said by way of “direct comment” was in response to a question, and what i said was this: “twitter is blowing up with the “mentally ill” claim.”
render unto me a break. your point is weak and unsupported and speaks more about you than it does about me.
Barb (formerly Gex)
Don’t you know, everything is racial because everyone has a race. It’s just that *some* people only bother to point it out when black people are talking. No reason.
E.D. Kain
@DougJarvus Green-Ellis: From a security standpoint it’s a bloody nightmare. Totally. I’m just saying that this sort of rally isn’t going to be screened that closely anyways, and people who are openly carrying are probably the least likely to do something like this.
Yutsano
@E.D. Kain: There’s no real evidence there was any screening at this rally at all. (I’m not even certain you could call it a rally, it was more like a meet-and-greet event.) Interestingly enough if the shooter had been openly carrying folks would have been more than likely to inquire about why he was packing heat or keep a closer eye on him. From what I understand of the sequence of events he pulled the gun out very quickly from its concealed position. No one really had any time to react. It’s why I don’t think concealed weapons deter much of anything, but an obvious weapon makes someone think twice.
Bob Loblaw
@themann1086:
Not that it matters in this dead thread, but we’ve been over this before. I’m not white.
I’m one of those dangerous Arab Mooslim terrists that are sowing the seeds of America’s destruction. Of course, I don’t give a shit about being persecuted much either because what difference does it make really, so I can see how this would confuse you.
Pat
I do believe it was Sharron Engle who was running for a Senate seat in Nevada who encouraged her supporters to use their “Second Amendment” rights if they have to to get their politicians to “pay attention” to them. I do believe that Sharron Engle ran as a Republican Tea Party FOX news endorsed candidate, not as some dirty, fucking, left wing liberal Democrat endorsed by MSNBC.
I refuse to “wonder” where all the hate is coming from. I know exactly where it comes from (Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch and the FOX News family), so all the “rational” people out there can debate this until they are blue in the face, but you will not convince me that both sides should share the blame for the state of our political discourse.
The conservative, right wing Tea Party nuts are the only group that needs to “tone it down a notch or two or three or four or five.”
Cheap Jim
@E.D. Kain: No, people who are unarmed are the least likely to do something like this.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@E.D. Kain:
You’re right that the open carriers are not the problem, no doubt. But they should be screening people.