The man was arrested on the scene and now the All Seeing Eye of the Internet has begun its search. But despite the absence of any kind of facts or credible information the mouth of the internet has opened wide and started screaming. The mouth of the Internet is a shrill unthinking scream. Blog posts and twitter comments fly fast and hard, fingers are pointed and blame quickly placed. Gifford's district was one that Sarah Palin "targeted" with words and cross hair images during the last election. People have somehow taken this term to mean that Palin was inciting people to violence with irresponsible rhetoric. This, in my opinion is pretty goddamn stupid. I hate Palin but I cannot pin this act on her.
The Left called him a Rightwing Nutjob and The Right calls him a Leftwing communist/athiest. He posted an obtuse youtube video which makes no sense. Why? Because this man is crazy.
Let me clarify this. He isn't in the Democratic Party, or the Republican Part or the Tea Party. He is a card carrying member of the CRAZY PARTY. A SANE person doesn't walk up and shoot someone in the head at almost point blank range then fire off 15 more rounds randomly. When tackled and restrained he did not scream out his political ideology. He wasn't wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. I'm sure he had some political leanings. They don't really matter. Because he is crazy.
Of course, politics does play a part in this tragedy. Apparently a few months ago Arizona passed a law that said you didn't need a background check or have to take a class to carry a concealed weapon. I respect my gun owning friends and their constitutional rights but I cannot see how something like a background check for mental illness or a criminal record and a safety class is in some way seriously impinging on your rights. I know that criminals can get guns easy enough, those precautions aren't for them.
This is a tragedy all the way around. I'm gonna go look at some pictures of bunnies and hope it helps.
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5 comments:
yeah, a gun check would have been good on this guy. I believe the gun check is a good thing over all and this supports it. I very much agree he was with a the Crazy Party. Trying to attach him to Palan or any other person is silly because he was simply nuts.
Let me know if you find those bunnies, I could use them too.
opps, I spelled Palin wrong. My bad.
Maybe if there would've been a sane person with a gunn at the supermarket, this idiot wouldn't have been able to get off so many rounds. how terribly sad.
Or more people could have been caught in the crossfire.
From report, it looks like he purchased the gun legally. It also appears that he had some kind of criminal record and apparent mental illness. This is the kind of thing that a basic background search might catch.
The problem is, what amount of criminal background, or mental problems are enough to take your gun rights, and for how long? We all agree that all "regular" folks deserve their rights, and that insane violent criminals should be restricted. Now keeping in mind that false positives can occur, where to we draw the line? Further, what profiling indicators would effectively net first time offenders before they strike, and do we act on those? Most importantly, when rights are abridged, who takes responsibility? What happens when someone who was once depressed after a breakup, or committed a crime when poor, is denied that degree of self defense when their home is invaded? Do we simply trade this tragedy for that tragedy? There are no easy answers.
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