Democratic Congresswoman Among 12 Shot in Arizona

As I said some 10, 15 pages ago, the sheriff clearly has greater working knowledge of the county's problems, he's entitled to say whatever is on his damn mind.

 

You were right then and you're right now.

 

Someone a couple of pages back talked about a discussion of mental health, which I think is fair, but it's hard to say when we should take the step from saying, "Man, that guy is creepy and scary," to "we need to lock him up for the safety of others." It's easy for people to say things about Laughner in e-mails and such, but would those people have been willing to say those things if they knew it could lead to a man being put away in a mental institution for the rest of his life. A good chunk of people considered insane could probably be institutionalized, but without a history of prior violence, how do we determine when we can hold someone against their will? The bottom line is, while I think it's easy to see there were signs that something could happen here, and some signs were likely overlooked, it's a much more difficult step to say he should've been locked away.

Now, it might have helped if he had been at least temporarily institutionalized. It could have led to a diagnosis that may have made it impossible, or at least much more difficult, for him to buy a gun. I think we can all agree that someone as mentally unbalanced as he was shouldn't be able to walk into a store and buy a weapon.

 

If any rhetoric may have incited this guy, it seems like it's the sovereign citizen stuff. That Mother Jones piece Inky linked to goes into detail about what his rants mean, and another one linked earlier details about how he started getting seriously enraged with Giffords after a 2007 event where he asked her, "What is government if words have no meaning?"

That question echoes some of the core beliefs of the sovereign citizen movement, which has a history of violence toward police, which devotees claim have no jurisdiction over them. Laughner was surely a psycho, but the sovereign citizen movement gave him something to believe in, and something that may have lit the fuse that led to the shootings.

 

I'll wait now for the meme to shift to blaming Noam Chomsky for incitement.

I won't be holding my breath.

One more time--the opinions being expressed are political, by and large. The horrendous event was not, although it was promptly politicized.

 

What I've been saying. It won't because it does more to galvanize political issue groups set against them, at least in the eyes of the particular media that keeps a focus on them, thus making them relevant.

 

I'll also guarantee you the Sheriff knows that Loughner didn't shoot Giffords because of anything Limbaugh or Beck or Palin or any Republican said.

 

Just an observation, but aren't all the people who are saying that this weekend's events have ruined Sarah Palin's viability exactly the same people who were saying before this past weekend that Sarah Palin wasn't viable? So, in reality, what exactly was ruined again?

 

Mourning in America:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=487510653434

 

You start reading the sovereign citizen stuff and it's almost scary how off the deep end they are.

 

I know that when I think of Sarah Palin, the first thing that springs to mind is her tolerance of differing opinions.