Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) Shot

[Bando]

Shooter seems to be a crazy person: www.outsidethebeltway.com/some-details-about-the-shooter/

[Nevada Hoya]

This is an awful incident. Prays for Rep. Giffords and the other victims and their families.

[SSHoya]

The nine-yearl old girl killed was the granddaughter of former MLB player and manager Dallas Green according to ESPN.

[HoyaNyr320]

Jan 8, 2011 16:59:54 GMT -5 Bando said:

Shooter seems to be a crazy person: www.outsidethebeltway.com/some-details-about-the-shooter/

This man is a terrorist plain and simple and his acts should be deemed terrorist acts. Also it is disturbing to hear that an automatic weapon was used. I still see no reason why these weapons should be available to the general public. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

[TBird41]

Jan 9, 2011 12:14:48 GMT -5 afirth said:

Jan 9, 2011 12:06:15 GMT -5 HoyaNyr320 said:

Also it is disturbing to hear that an automatic weapon was used. I still see no reason why these weapons should be available to the general public.

I thought news reports said it was a 9mm glock, which is a pretty typical semi-automatic pistol. I'm no NRA card-holding member, but I don't think semi-automatic pistol ownership is really the issue here.

It was a semi-automatic pistol and it was purchased legally.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/09/AR2011010901912.html

[strummer8526]

Jan 9, 2011 12:06:15 GMT -5 HoyaNyr320 said:

Jan 8, 2011 16:59:54 GMT -5 Bando said:

Shooter seems to be a crazy person: www.outsidethebeltway.com/some-details-about-the-shooter/

This man is a terrorist plain and simple and his acts should be deemed terrorist acts. Also it is disturbing to hear that an automatic weapon was used. I still see no reason why these weapons should be available to the general public. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

Is anything known about his motives? It seems pretty extreme to classify a crazy person who shoots up a street corner with no rational motive a "terrorist."

Based on this campaign event that he held, tinyurl.com/25kz25b, it seems like her most recent opponent would qualify as a terrorist, too.

[jerseyhoya34]

Homeland Security has apparently found a linkage to an anti-immigrant group - one that espouses anti-Semitic ideas. Rep. Giffords is Jewish. Maybe something is there as far as motive (albeit wholly unacceptable).

My general belief is that this is an act of terrorism, and I would like to see the Bush Doctrine applied. While he may have acted alone or in a small group, the swamps for this kind of behavior have been overflowing for the better part of 1 1/2 years in this country. A good rule of thumb is that your hands are probably not clean if you have to put out a statement justifying your political rhetoric in light of an attack like this. Your hands are also probably not clean if you have to take down a website, scrub it, and then put it back up. While that all may be "classy," the time for such class was before the statements/ads were made in the first place.

This is not to say I agree with a direct condemnation of certain political leaders in this country. But, it should be remembered that they were the first to condemn an entire government based on the unrelated acts of guys from caves in a country thousands of miles away.

My $.02.

[TBird41]

Jan 9, 2011 13:18:44 GMT -5 @jerseyhoya34 said:

Homeland Security has apparently found a linkage to an anti-immigrant group - one that espouses anti-Semitic ideas. Rep. Giffords is Jewish. Maybe something is there as far as motive (albeit wholly unacceptable).

My general belief is that this is an act of terrorism, and I would like to see the Bush Doctrine applied. While he may have acted alone or in a small group, the swamps for this kind of behavior have been overflowing for the better part of 1 1/2 years in this country. A good rule of thumb is that your hands are probably not clean if you have to put out a statement justifying your political rhetoric in light of an attack like this.

What do you mean by the Bush Doctrine? When I hear that, I think of it in a foreign policy context--i.e. invading dangerous countries preemptively (and let's not clutter this discussion w/ discussion of that).

Also, there's something about that AZ district--her predecessor, Rep. Kolbe, who is a Republican, had started bringing in security for his public meetings at the end of his term.

www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0111/Kolbe_added_security_late_in_career_.html

[jerseyhoya34]

My general thought was - if you harbor someone like this, you feed this kind of ideology, etc., then you are a terrorist as guilty as the perpetrator. I think we're applying it to nations, nonstate actors, and lone individuals (i.e. the radical imam types).

A question worth contemplating - if he was a Muslim, would he really be called a shooter?

Edit: While this discussion can continue, one individual at the scene deserves national recognition. He is the intern who put himself in danger to save lives. More on the compelling story here: www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_01/027452.php

[jerseyhoya34]

Jan 9, 2011 12:35:59 GMT -5 strummer8526 said:

Jan 9, 2011 12:06:15 GMT -5 HoyaNyr320 said:

This man is a terrorist plain and simple and his acts should be deemed terrorist acts. Also it is disturbing to hear that an automatic weapon was used. I still see no reason why these weapons should be available to the general public. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.

Is anything known about his motives? It seems pretty extreme to classify a crazy person who shoots up a street corner with no rational motive a "terrorist."

Based on this campaign event that he held, tinyurl.com/25kz25b, it seems like her most recent opponent would qualify as a terrorist, too.

Strummer - I am not overly familiar with this campaign event, but there were a series of events and comments over the last campaign that raised concerns. One comment - that a campaign wanted to make the opponent afraid to leave his/her house - is a statement that a terrorist would make. The problem IMO is the mentality - one man's satirist is another man's freedom fighter.

My $.02.

Edit: More on the statement:
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/boehners-response.html

It happens that we elected the author of the statement Speaker of the House.

[TBird41]

Jan 9, 2011 13:28:32 GMT -5 @jerseyhoya34 said:

My general thought was - if you harbor someone like this, you feed this kind of ideology, etc., then you are a terrorist as guilty as the perpetrator. I think we're applying it to nations, nonstate actors, and lone individuals (i.e. the radical imam types).

A question worth contemplating - if he was a Muslim, would he really be called a shooter?

RE: the Bush Doctrine--I hadn't heard it applied outside foreign policy, but it makes sense to do so.

And regarding your question, I think that was answered after the Ft. Hood shooting--despite his motivations/ideology being less about being a schizophrenic and more about buying into the poisonous ideology of Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists, he was generally referred to as a "shooter" by the administration & press and wasn't prosecuted as a terrorist. Obviously people on both sides of the aisle thought as you do, which is that he should have been treated as a terrorist.

[TC]

Jan 9, 2011 12:35:59 GMT -5 strummer8526 said:

Is anything known about his motives? It seems pretty extreme to classify a crazy person who shoots up a street corner with no rational motive a "terrorist."

It seems pretty much a no-brainer to call him a terrorist. Terrorism is meant to incite fear on the public - who's going to want to go to a meet and greet in a swing district in the near term? The guy mowed down people who were just there be part of the process and a 9 year old girl.

This article by Fallows was pretty good - the motives for assassinations almost never match up cleanly with whatever the central political struggle of the day is, but political tone matters.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/the-cloudy-logic-of-political-shootings/69147/

[SSHoya]

FBI Director Mueller in a press conference today said that domestic terrorism charges are possible against Loughner as the investigation develops. If the USAO in AZ charges him under domestic terrorism laws, I guess he's an alleged terrorist.

[CAHoya07]

Jan 9, 2011 14:18:46 GMT -5 TC said:

Jan 9, 2011 12:35:59 GMT -5 strummer8526 said:

Is anything known about his motives? It seems pretty extreme to classify a crazy person who shoots up a street corner with no rational motive a "terrorist."

It seems pretty much a no-brainer to call him a terrorist. Terrorism is meant to incite fear on the public - who's going to want to go to a meet and greet in a swing district in the near term? The guy mowed down people who were just there be part of the process and a 9 year old girl.

This article by Fallows was pretty good - the motives for assassinations almost never match up cleanly with whatever the central political struggle of the day is, but political tone matters.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/the-cloudy-logic-of-political-shootings/69147/

I have not read much about the incident, but there needs to be a clear political motive for it to be truly considered a terrorist act. Thank you, Professor Daddio.

Thoughts and prayers out to the deceased and all those affected, particularly Rep. Giffords. Our society produces some crazy people sometimes. I honestly don't know what can be done to put a stop to tragedies like this.

[TBird41]

Based on what I've read/heard, I really think the shooter is much more similar to John Hinckley (who attempted to assassinate Reagan) than someone like Timothy McVeigh or the Ft. Hood Shooter in that he probably has a diagnosable mental illness such as schizophrenia that just wasn't caught in time rather than being motivated by extreme political/religious theories/groups.

Regardless, they should throw the book at him.

[The Stig]

I agree with TBird - Hinckley is probably more relevant than the Ft. Hood shooter here. An even better comparison might be Mark David Chapman (the guy who shot John Lennon). Hinckley just went after Reagan because he was famous. Chapman had some issues with Lennon, just the way this shooter apparently had some issues with Giffords, although they weren't mainstream issues.

Did the violent rhetoric from Palin et al cause this? I highly doubt it. Is that sort of rhetoric still dangerously irresponsible? Yes. The same is true for examples of violent rhetoric on the left. It should have no place in American democracy.

More than anything else, this guy sounds like one of those crazy people you find all over the internet in Youtube comments and such. They think they're some genius philosophers and thinkers and get angry at society when nobody listens to their deranged rantings. They get some bizarre ideas in their heads that may have been rational thoughts when they came out of somebody else's mouth, but become incomprehensible, senseless garbage in this sort of person's head. They become attacked to these now-deranged ideas and preach them as the unquestionable gospel, and attack the rest of society for not believing what they believe.

So far most of these people stick to the internet, because they can't actually comprehend how to actually implement these ideas. It looks like this one got out into the real world, and this was the tragic result.

[jerseyhoya34]

While Loughner appears to be a sick puppy, I think it may be a mistake to consider him apolitical. He has not posted too many comments online, but he has an unhealthy distrust of government, supports the gold standard, is anti-immigrant beyond the anti-Semitic angle, wants to reinvigorate the 10th Amendment, etc. He also considers anyone who would call him a terrorist...a terrorist.

There's a reason why attention seems to be focused elsewhere. What has been released shows someone who checks all the boxes even though his ideas reflect even less coherence than they otherwise do in mainstream circles.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the motivation - only that it is on the table. The idea (from Boehner and Obama) that they are "shocked" is misplaced I think. Given the rhetoric in this country, I am only shocked that this did not happen sooner.

[TBird41]

Jan 9, 2011 15:56:43 GMT -5 @jerseyhoya34 said:

While Loughner appears to be a sick puppy, I think it may be a mistake to consider him apolitical. He has not posted too many comments online, but he has an unhealthy distrust of government, supports the gold standard, is anti-immigrant beyond the anti-Semitic angle, wants to reinvigorate the 10th Amendment, etc. He also considers anyone who would call him a terrorist...a terrorist.

There's a reason why attention seems to be focused elsewhere. What has been released shows someone who checks all the boxes even though his ideas reflect even less coherence than they otherwise do in mainstream circles.

I'm not saying this is necessarily the motivation - only that it is on the table.

When you're worried about mind control stemming from control of grammar, well, that's usually a sign you have a real mental disorder.

www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0111/Alleged_shooter_left_social_media_hints.html

Also, seems like he was all over the map politically. Mein Kampf as a favorite book says anti-semite, while also listing the Communist Manifesto says "left-wing". So does liking a video of someone burning the American flag.

It seems like people who knew him thought of him as left wing / liberal as well: www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/01/08/the-twitter-life-of-caitie-parker.aspx

Basically, I think he was a schizophrenic and that any attempt to blame one side or the other for his acts is imposing a political motivation / framework on someone who was mentally ill. Odds are that without treatment he would have become violent no matter what the political climate of the country looked like--the only question was who ended up as his victim / target.

[TBird41]

I'll also say, however, that anyone that doesn't get the message about toning down the political rhetoric going forward deserves all of the flack/condemnation they get (and it should come from both sides of the aisle)

[jerseyhoya34]

I can't disagree with a lot of that, but I guess my basic problem is that these shooters could always be chalked up as ill and would always act at some point irrespective to any other factor. Sirhan Sirhan comes to mind there.

What I do think is that all of these guys are products of society to some degree, even though they are also ill. McVeigh got his thoughts from somewhere, ditto on the Olympics bomber, ditto on Al Qaeda, etc. I'll be interested to hear about his family background and schooling. My guess is that these mentally ill people may also be more predisposed toward buying into a particularly violent path and, for that reason alone, more care needs to be given to rhetoric.

It is not helpful to include rhetoric about violence against political leaders in your literature, speeches, and the like. My only suggestion is that some of that needs to be cleaned up, particularly from Palin, and the swamps drained. Palin earned the attention she's getting today. When your defense is that it was a gun sight on the map and not a target, better to save the ink and go back to the cave.

I read a blog earlier today about rhetoric that attacks the legitimacy of certain political leaders and hope to track it down to link. Essentially, it boils down to how some politicians now claim that Obama is actually illegitimate and cannot act as President. That's even apart from the sick puppies who can't decide whether Obama is an American. I would suggest that needs work too right now.

I'm not sure what can be gleaned from the book list - only that he enjoyed some theoretical/philosophical stuff - some of which is highly objectionable. His reading is across the map in terms of ideology.