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Saturday, January 15

Tucson, Arizona

On January 8, 2011, a man by the name of Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot in an attempt to kill congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Instead he killed six, and injured about fourteen more, Giffords being one of those not killed. A real tragedy for sure, but now everyone's playing the blame game. So who's right and who's wrong? Let's take a look.

One of the things about this that really bugs me is the way the press covers it. It makes the six people killed sound like an after-thought, with the exception of  United States District Court for the District of Arizona Chief Judge John Roll (Try saying that ten times fast) who was also killed. News reports basically give this sort of feeling: "On January 8 a gunman shot and seriously injured congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed Judge John Roll. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, is in the hospital in critical condition but is expected to survive. Oh yeah, and five others were killed." Gee...thanks. I want to know more about the other five! I know one was the eight year old girl, she got some coverage but those other four should receive just as much mention. They're human too aren't they? I haven't even heard their names. To top it off, Loughner is going to be charged with a number of offenses, and one of the most serious of these offenses is "Attempted Assassination of a Member of Congress". Why is this even an offense name? Shouldn't it just be "Attempted Murder"? I don't ever hear charges of "Attempted Assassination of a Construction Worker" or "Attempted Assassination of a Walmart Greeter". I hope that if, God forbid, I was ever in a mass massacare that I didn't die along with somebody famous because nobody would never know I existed. Shoot a normal person and you might face the death penalty, shoot a member of Congress and you get charged with an offense of a special sort and your name is smeared forever.

A 63-year old man by the name of Eric Fuller who survived the shooting is quoted as saying,

"It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled."

How mature. Let's all blame the tea-party members. First of all, Loughner was a registered Independant. Second of all, he has had hatred for politics in general since before the Tea Party and stopped paying attention to going-ons completely two years ago. He didn't listen to the radio and didn't watch the news.

On the opposite end of that entire spectrum we have Rush Limbaugh saying that:

"What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that...the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America...this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder - but something lesser."
This took me a long time to make sense of. But what Limbaugh is basically saying is that the Democrats are going to make it into a larger conspiracy...which some are already. Blaming the Tea Party is an example of this. However, this is unfair to think that they're going to obstruct justice and in no way at all will anybody be trying to lessen the conviction. I will be utterly shocked if Loughner doesn't get executed, if not killed by an inmate.

Sarah Palin gave a few words about the shooting. You can read them or listen to her say them here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/sarah-palin-arizona-shooting-statement_n_807833.html. She does make a good point with her counter to people saying "Political Debates have gotten more heated in recent years, causing increased violence". She says,
"But when was it less heated? Back in those "calm days" when political figures literally settled their  differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren't designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government.”

            After her small speech, can you guess what people did? Did everyone become friends? Did people understand each other? Did they compliment her speech? Of course not. Instead everybody went up in flames over her use of the term “Blood Libel”, which people say is a derogatory term to Jewish people as it brings back memories of a harsher time. Some people really take this stuff too intensely. I’ll admit it wasn’t the best word choice, as it means a religious group murdering children for their blood. But, though it is admitted usually used with Jewish people, it is not specifically targeted at them. Can’t we just listen to people for once and let words be words?

***Some Images Were Removed From This Page To Avoid Potential Lawsuits and/or Shutdowns. My apologies***

            So here’s what I think, nobody is to blame for this except for Loughner. This was not a Tea Party attempt at gaining power, this was not a Democratic scandal. This wasn’t even an Anarchy movement. This was one guy who believed the Government was lying to him and in his own mentally disturbed mind he brought “Justice”.

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3 comments:

  1. Very, VERY well said. I was appalled at the minimal coverage and the enhanced offense. However to be honest I'm kinda glad that anarchy didn't catch blame. It doesn't matter if it was or not. The name still gets smeared. Just look at the Tea Party. But the overall blame game is getting old.

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  2. I'm still not convinced he was even an Anarchist as much as just a guy who didn't like the way the government was going. And like you said, even if he was that doesn't mean all Anarchists are evil; it just means one guy decided to pick up a gun and shoot somebody all political views aside.

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  3. I don't think he was an anarchist either. When it comes down to it he was a sick puppy.

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