Shooting in Tucson
 

Some asshole who should have his human-race membership revoked shot up a woman congressman, killed a 9-yr-old and a judge, probably a few more. Congressperson shot in the head, at her event - presumably the primary target. I realize they want to get his official reason, but why is he still using up our oxygen?

She was a Democrat(allegedly a middle-of-the-roader).

By noon Sunday, I predict the media will blame Sarah Palin.

22yr old. They used his full name just like they always do. Mark David chapman, john Wilkes booth, lee Harvey Oswald. Then it streams for ever about how a congress woman was shot. What about the other 17 people who were involved? Fuckin CNN pisses me off with their lack of detail. The rest of the blinded country doesn't notice.

To be fair thirdgen, he himself used his full name in his youtube videos. And some are already blaming Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

What a fucker. As far as blaming Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, that's a bunch of crap. I'm so sick and tired of everybody's shit right now it's sickeneing. I was driving to work last Sunday and I drove past this place where they have trap shoots. There were picketers out front holding signs that read "Pennsylvania Shame.com". If you go there, you will learn that there are actually people in this country that seem to forget that while the country is going down the toilet, they feel that it is more important to bitch about birds that are raised to be shot as a sport. Then the jerkoffs post a propoganda video which is total bullshit, to make it appear that it's a savage ordeal, but the video isn't even close to reality. Is this cruel? Yeah, but still. Find something else to bitch about. Fuck those birds, there's politicians getting shot at.

Well the good Lord put us on top of the food chain so we do what we want with birds. I agree 100% though, stupid ass people in this country are more worried with piddly assed things other than the pressing matters. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of private funds are wasted on this shit. Then the government thinks it is important too. Think of the global warming shit. Did you know that farmers have to pay a tax because the methane that cows emit supposedly is contributing to our "climate change." Ok that is it on my rant. This shooting was bullshit by a terrorist.

I never heard about farmers paying a tax for methane emissions. If that's not BS it's fuct.

It's because we have something more important than mob rule, called due process. It is preserved under our constitution.

I couldn't get my preferred local morning news station to come up this morning, so I flipped through and found Good Mourning America(sic) where George Stephanopolous was going on and on about this Senator. I was expecting them to move on to other news of the day, but they didn't; I knew she must have been a Democrat. They wouldn't have devoted more than one minute to a Republican Senator, but with her they droned on and on. I finally went to The Weather Channel to find out about the impending ice storm I was curious about.

Was it tragic? Yes. Nationally tragic? Not really. Locally tragic? Yes.
If they spend too much time on it will it inspire moronic copycats? It might. It glorifies the actions of the killer the more time they devote to the gravity of his actions.

Not a fan of either but watch too for calls for more gun control.

Too bad no one in the crowd open carried...

For real, an honest citizen could have just shot the terrorist. I bet that guy didn't legally own a gun, and I bet even more that he didn't have a carry permit. As far as the whole methane thing, I don't think it ever went into effect, but you can see what douchers that love to protest about shit that doesn't matter gets.

This is a perfect example of why there should be less gun control.

Too bad Giffords was a proponent of open carry and lax gun restrictions.

CNN reported that Sarah Palin's website motivated this crime.

So I guess it's Sarah Palin's fault then, right? Fuck CNN.

Fuck news, there's football on TV...

Funny that you mention this, they actually made an announcement about this at the Seahawks game yesterday.

As it turns out:

A LEGALLY ARMED CITIZEN HELPED HOLD DOWN THE SHOOTER

As it turns out there was a legally armed citizen who helped subdue Jared
Lee Loughner. Upon hearing the shots, Joe Zamudio, who was legally carrying
concealed, RAN TOWARDS the shots (as I expect a lot of you would have done,
too), not away from the shots, hoping to stop the shooter and save lives.
As an armed citizen he was in a position to do just that. However, upon
arriving, he saw that Loughner had just been disarmed and two men were
struggling to subdue him. Zamudio, realizing there was no need for him to
draw his gun at that point, wisely left it concealed and proceeded to assist
in subduing and holding the shooter.

As I have said before, it is frequently the citizen who is the "first
responder" to crimes and emergencies out of necessity. They may have to
stop the actions of a violent criminal, render aid to a hurt person, etc.
while waiting for the police, ambulances, and firetrucks to arrive.

The Fox News timeline shows police/paramedics arriving eight minutes after
the first 9-1-1 call was placed. During that time the citizen first
responders were saving lives.

Here is the CNN interview where Zamudio talks about being armed, running
towards the shots, and helping hold Loughner:

From CNN: http://tinyurl.com/2vltqpp

I find this funny and expected. As Marilyn Manson put it "Burn the witches!":

At least one legislator is rushing to put forward an anti-gun bill because
of this tragedy. Other legislators are talking about putting in similar
bills.

Shamelessly as usual, the Brady Campaign has already called for donations to
their group based on the shooting.

As soon as today anti-gun New York Congresswoman Caroline McCarthy wants to
put in a bill limiting the magazine capacity of firearms:

From Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47338.html



meanwhile:


A HEARTBROKEN FATHER SPEAKS AGAINST MORE RESTRICTIONS

On the other side, the grieving father of the murdered 9-year-old girl tells
Fox News that his daughter would not want more restrictions placed on
Americans based on her death (this is a tough, tough interview to listen
to):

If I recall correctly, she also voted against Pelosi's leadership re-election and joined Boehner, et al in reading the Constitution on the Congressional floor.

re: Gun control: This really can be a nuanced debate, but I am constantly amazed at the otherwise intelligent people who seem to think that either:

(A) Making something illegal makes it impossible to get a hold of
or
(B) Someone who disregards laws against mass murder is going to obey laws regarding firearms restriction


I was also disappointed, but not surprised, at how quickly both sides of the partisan divide rushed to make this something other than a deranged madman lashing out before having any information on which to base their judgments.

Because outlawing pistol grips, flash suppressors and bayonet lugs stop violent crime.

Just watched that video, I can't even imagine the pain that father is feeling. Aside from the sympathy...does anyone find any kind of coincidence that the girl who was shot was born on 9/11/01? There probably is none as she obviously wasn't the intended target, but it's just odd. I bet government conspiracy buffs are going crazy with that one.

She was shot 6 times. She wasnt the intended target, but he intended on killing her once he was there.

I hope he gets strangled in prison and his dead body gets passed around as a lifeless fuck doll.
If America showed criminal executions on national television, think it would drive the crime rate down? I don't. I truly believe that this country is so twisted, people would actually commit ruthless crime to become a name to remember.
What a sick and twisted world we live in.
Thanks for the prediction Oliver Stone.

Well, most criminals in jail cant afford cable. let alone read.

This ^^ +1

I am a proponent of concealed carry and not necessarily an opponent of open carry (I haven't done enough education to commit to a stance one way or the other on that subject).

However, this guy appears to have been mentally deranged enough that I highly doubt that would have deterred him in any way. If anything, it might have made those open carrying targets (as opposed to potentially random casualties).

For the record, someone there was conceal carrying, he ran towards the shooting and saw the guy had already been taken down. So he did not drawl his firearm.

yeah i posted the story.

You know you're spending too much time in South Carolina when...

:D

Turns out the Congresswoman was also an avid motorcyclist...

she still is.

It just sucks that something like this has to happen to get us on the map. Stupid reporters all think this is there big break. What pisses me off is that someone can live next door to the family, never say a word to them, and all of a sudden can be on national news as an expert on them. But I agree, the only station who was covering more then just Giffords was The Frank Show on KLPX. All the rest of the stations were already pointing fingers at political parties. They don't get it doesn't fucking matter. The dude had a letter and some other incriminating evidence in a safe at his house. Unless you want to look at it from another point of view and say someone planted it.......but thats a whole new leaf to turn over.

My statement was modified with an adjective. I imagine she's not as avid a rider as she was a week ago.

This interview with him suggests that he very nearly shot one of the people who had subdued the attacker and secured his weapon:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41018893/ns/slatecom/

Good on him for not drawing.

Arizona no longer has a requirement for permit for concealed carry. They require no permit to purchase a gun. They also dont require you to license your firearm.

And since the assault weapons ban expired, his extended clip was also not illegal.

But lets be honest here, it was really the part where he walked up and shot people that was the problem, not that a government entity had no knowledge of his gun capable of firing off 15 or 20 shots without a reload.

I'm all for letting people (sane, not criminals, etc) own whatever guns they want. The problem is that laws against murder are very reactive and sort of require dead people.

As far as the assault weapons classification for clips over, what, 10 rounds... the dude might have been tackled a few victims earlier. Speculation.

Joe Huffman had a great blog post about this very subject.

Basically what he tries to show is that the time between shots when having to reload (for an autoloader) is basically negligable for someone with a bit of training. For a person involved in this kind of situation to be able to identify an attempt by the shooter to reload, figure about .9 seconds. That leaves them with just over a second to close distance, all the while knowing that any moment a loaded gun will be pointed at them.

Why is it acceptable to have 10 victims, but the second you shoot the 11th it becomes an issue? I am being sarcastic of course...

Huh. Was wondering why all those flags were half-masted when we got back into port.

One of the disadvantages to not living in an Orwellian police-state. Every now and then, somebody is going to do something violent and stupid. Not much you can do about it.

In an Orwellian police state, the state does all the murdering, and it's really good at it too, outnumbering the murdering by citizens in non police states! Not to mention the perpetual war against Eurasia and/or Eastasia ... oh wait......

Well, yeah.

Obviously, behavior of this sort is all but unfathomable in certain places. China, Cambodia, places like that come to mind. The tradeoff, of course, is that societies such as these tend to encourage mass conformism, the absence of individual thought or expression, and a general fear that if you say or do something unpopular you will simply disappear.

It sucks. But it happens, it always has happened, and in anything resembling a "free" society (free as in speech, not as in beer) it will continue to happen.

Chiburbian makes a really great point that I think is lost on many "centrist" advocates of gun control, such as those who would encourage bans on certain classes of firearms, such as those having detachable magazines or magazines of greater than a certain capacity.

Would it have been better if this fellow had only been able to take down 6 or 8 folks before stopping to reload, or if he'd had to carry a second (or third, or fourth) weapon? You could outlaw semi-automatic firearms altogether, and the crazy ones will simply switch to revolvers. Two Colt Anacondas hold more ammo than one (formerly) illegal "Assault Rifle" and are much more easily concealable and maneuverable in close-quarters action.

As I recall, last year, there was a series of lunatics in China that went in to schools and stabbed teachers and children to death with blades (knives or machete-type farm tools). In other countries, it's some guy with a dynamite vest hijacking a bus (I'm not talking political or religious terrorism).

I would argue this kind of stuff does happen in nearly all societies, it's just not the sort of thing that shows up on US news when it happens overseas.

Good point. I was thinking specifically of gun violence (comparing nations in which firearms are socially acceptable and easily accessible to the masses vs. those where firearms are more of a taboo) but you're quite right of course in that if somebody wants to kill a bunch of people badly enough, they will find some suitable instrument with which to do it.

Of course, there's a world of difference between the one loony out of a million who walks into a building and starts killing everything that moves vs. the somewhat more pedestrian individual who shoots one or two specific people (usually not with an assault rifle) as retribution for some specific offense.

I'm honestly a bit surprised that nobody has jumped in with the example of Canada. In most regards (at least, amongst those individuals who I know personally) Canadians and Canadian society seem to be very closely attuned, morally and politically, to the US.

I can't seem to recall any mass killing sprees of late taking place in America's Hat, however one paper which I located on the subject noted that "In 2002 there were 149 gun murders in Canada, in the United States, there were 10,800." (source)

Of course, the population of the US is approximately nine times that of Canada (307,000,000 vs. 33,700,000) so if we were to multiply up the population of Canada to match that of the US, the number of gun-related homicides would rise to 1,357, which is still only 12.5%. Is this attributable only to Canada's rather stricter laws concerning gun ownership, or is it due to some other combination of social and environmental factors? Does Canada not have the same wanna-be gangsters as we do in some cities in the US who go around popping one another freely as retribution for drug-related affronts, sleeping with one another's shorties, dissing each other, etc?

Joe, murder is murder, and to restrict the data set to "gun murders" you are leaving out a whole lot of data.

But yes, there is a WHOLE LOT of gang violence in the US, mostly concentrated in large metropolitan areas. Matter of fact, most shootings are by people who aren't allowed to have a firearm by law, in areas (cities) where they are not allowed...

If you remove the banger on banger deaths from the total I bet the difference per capita of overall murders would be much smaller.

See: "New York Reload"

That sounds about right, eh?

If you outlaw black people, will that fix the majority of crimes in America?


That's your logic Joe.


Why don't we outlaw Urban Environments? Those places breed murder.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...de_Rate_04.jpg

This graph shows the homicide rate for America's three worst and five best ranking jurisdictions in 2004. I live in the safest county in the country because there are very few urban areas. Fairfax Co. even butts up against DC... and yet DC was the 3rd worst.

http://dhcdrportal.fairfaxcounty.gov...unties-440.jpg

Conclusion: Outlaw Black People and large Metropolitan Cities.