Arizona's Fixation On Immigration And Guns: A Recent History

Arizona shooting: The claim that more guns means less crime is just silly
I walked into a drugstore in Phoenix the night after the Tucson shooting and saw toy guns for sale. They were a garish red plastic, with bright orange tips, and bore the notice that it’s strictly illegal to paint the guns in any way to resemble real ones. Yet here, as Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik declared after the shooting, just about anyone can buy and carry a gun almost anywhere at any time. So why bother with toys? Sheriff Dupnik is the one politician (sheriffs are elected) who...

Fearing tea party violence, four Arizona Republicans resign
Stumble This! Fearing violence from Tea Party Activists, Arizona Legislative District 20 Republican Chairman Anthony Miller and several others tendered their Resignation this week following Mass Shootings that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in critical condition. Miller, a 43-year-old former campaign worker for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), said that verbal attacks and blog posts from members of the Tea Party had him fearing for the safety of his family, according to a report in Th...

Obamas to fly to Tucson for memorial service
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama and the First Lady travel to Tucson, Ariz., this afternoon to take part in the memorial service for Victims of Saturday's Mass Shooting. The president will speak at the University of Arizona, Tucson, at an event called "Together We Thrive: Tucson and America." Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will also be there. The first couple will arrive back in Washington early Thursday. Before leaving for Tucson, Obama ...

Obamas to fly to Tucson for memorial service
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and the First Lady travel to Tucson, Ariz., this afternoon to take part in the memorial service for Victims of Saturday's Mass Shooting. The president will speak at the University of Arizona, Tucson, at an event called "Together We Thrive: Tucson and America." Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will also be there. The first couple will arrive back in Washington early Thursday. Before leaving for Tucson, Oba...

Obamas to fly to Tucson for memorial service
President Barack Obama and the First Lady travel to Tucson, Ariz., this afternoon to take part in the memorial service for Victims of Saturday's Mass Shooting. The president will speak at the University of Arizona, Tucson, at an event called "Together We Thrive: Tucson and America." Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will also be there. The first couple will arrive back in Washington early Thursday. Before leaving for Tucson, Obama meets in the Oval ...

Arizona governor asks residents to pray for victims
TUCSON, Arizona | Tue Jan 11, 2011 5:49pm EST TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - Arizona Governor Jan Brewer asked Arizonans on Tuesday to pray for the Victims of a Tucson Shooting Spree that killed six people and wounded 14. Devoting most of her annual State of the State Speech to the rampage, Brewer called it "something dark and ugly", according to a transcript of the Speech released by her office. Among those injured in the shooting on Saturday were Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who investig...

Lets Have A Rational Conversation About Guns
In the wake of the Tucson carnage, there has been considerable discussion here and elsewhere about Gun Possession and carry laws. Some have speculated that private Gun Possession would have reduced the death and injury toll in Tucson. Others have speculated that the toll would have increased with the presence of additional guns. What both sides have in common is that they are speculating. As a backdrop for this discussion, let’s begin with a thumbnail look at the current state of gun law and ...

Obama's Tucson Mission: Looking Ahead in Wake of Tragedy
President Obama and First Lady Michelle fly to Tucson today for a memorial service at the University of Arizona for the Victims of Saturday's horrific Shooting Spree. The theme for the service, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. local time, is upbeat and forward looking, "Together We Thrive: Tucson and America." Fourteen people were injured in the rampage, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), and six were killed, among them, U.S. District Court Judge John Rolls and Giffords Staffer Gabe Zimmer...

Arizona shootings won't isolate lawmakers, John Boehner tells House
The House of Representatives on Wednesday memorialized the 19 Victims of the weekend Shooting Spree in Tucson as the nation prepared for a day of mourning capped by a Speech by President Obama in Arizona. "We are called here to mourn an unspeakable act of violence," Speaker John Boehner said as the House began its debate over a resolution honoring the six slain and 13 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition after Saturday's attack outside a Supermarket in T...

Obama to be nation's consoler at memorial service
WASHINGTON—Searching for unity out of tragedy, President Barack Obama will honor the Victims of the Arizona Mass Shooting in personal terms and remind those in grief that an entire nation is with them. The president is again stepping into his role as national consoler, a test of leadership that comes with the job. His mission at Wednesday's memorial is to uplift and rally, not to examine political Incivility. Set to speak during an evening gathering in Tucson, Ariz., Obama will remember t...

Sarah Palin Invokes Anti-Semitic Term Blood Libel in Reaction to Arizona Shootings
There has been extensive discussion about whether intensified hateful Rhetoric used in partisan debate may have incited accused Arizona shooter Jared Loughner to try to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at her Congress on the Corner event Saturday, wounding 13 others and killing six.  Loughner himself has not yet explicitly expressed a motive, though Law Enforcement has uncovered evidence indicating an extreme political dislike for Giffords. Journalists such as Keith Olbermann and others ...

Va. to consider banning illegals from public universities
Virginia legislators will consider whether to bar Illegal Immigrants from enrolling in state's public colleges and universities. Del. Christopher Peace's bill would amend state law to explicitly prohibit people who are in the United States illegally from being admitted to Virginia's public two-year or four-year institutions. Several previous attempts to pass similar Legislation in Virginia haven't succeeded. Federal law prohibits such people from paying in-state Tuition at colleges and universit...

Boehner rejects new gun regulation
Image by Getty Images via @daylife The Hill: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is rejecting gun-control Legislation offered by the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in response to the weekend shootings of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 19 others in Arizona. Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) announced plans Tuesday to introduce Legislation prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress. ...How are you going to enforce a moving 1,000 feet exclusion zone again...

Flashback Arizona Sheriff Dupnik: I Refuse To Enforce Arizona 'Racist' Immigration Law
Mug Shot from Loughners court appearance Is it any wonder he blames Teabaggerzz/FOX/Palin/Beck/Limbaugh/Right Wing etc for Jared Loughner's murderous rampage?5/01/10.... "We are not Immigration officials," Dupnick vowed Thursday. "We fight crime. The state put us in this position."[...] Dupnick said he never joined the contentious debate over the Controversial bill because he didn't expect Gov. Jan Brewer or State Legislators to approve it. "This law, it's just irresponsible," he said. "It mak...

Americans Split on Stricter Gun Control Laws, Continuing a Longtime Trend
Most Americans don't believe that stricter Gun Control laws would have prevented the shootings in Arizona on Saturday and the public is split on the question of toughening the laws regulating who can own Firearms, according to a CBS News poll conducted Dec. 17-20. (Story; Poll Data) The lack of a public mandate for stricter laws reflects the same finding of a Gallup analysis released Tuesday, which shows that support for stricter Gun Laws has declined over the last two decades even though that p...

The Deadliest Gun States
The Daily Beast Reports, and includes an interesting quote from Eugene. "I am generally skeptical of Gun Laws," says Eugene Volokh, a Law Professor at UCLA. "The theory is that gun laws may prevent crimes of passion—domestic crimes, altercations over traffic incidents, or committed by someone who is otherwise law-abiding but has an anger problem… gun-control laws can potentially do something, but the kind of crime by which they can do the least is a mass shoo...

Joe Arpaio Defends Sarah Palin, Says Sheriff Dupnik Too Political (VIDEO)
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, not exactly known for his Bipartisanship, thinks that fellow Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County is getting too political in his Rhetoric in the wake of the Mass Shooting over the weekend that killed six people and gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). "Sheriffs are elected, like I am, thank God. I'm sure if he was a Police Chief he'd probably be fired tomorrow. I'm not trying to defend him, but he's the one that runs that sheriff's offi...

Gov. Jan Brewer Delivers Emotional State of the State Address
The full text is here. And at New York Times, "Governor Strives to Restore Arizona’s Reputation." TUCSON — Gov. Jan Brewer had intended to use her Speech at the Convention Center here on Tuesday to talk about the severe Budget shortfall that Arizona faces, after two years in which she had been identified with a series of contentious issues, particularly Immigration. But no. “Today is not a day for politics or policy,” Ms. Brewer said. For a fleet eight minutes, Ms. Brew...

Arizona passes law to prevent protests at victims' funerals
Picture of grief ... Roxanna Green, the mother of nine year old Shooting Victim Christina Taylor Green, attends Mass in Tucson. Photo: AP PHOENIX: Arizona politicians have approved an emergency law to head off picketing by a fundamentalist Kansas church near the Funeral service for a nine-year-old girl killed during the Mass Shooting in Tucson. Unanimous votes by the House of Representatives and Senate cleared the way for the bill to go to the Governor, Jan Brewer, for her signature. It would ta...

Westboro Baptists Prompt Arizona Legislature And Governor To Create Funeral Protection Zone With Emergency Law
Arizona Republic: Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed a bill to create a “Funeral protection zone” to keep Protesters from disrupting the funerals of those killed in the Mass Shooting near Tucson. The bill was a Bipartisan show of support for the Victims, and it passed both chambers of the Legislature on a unanimous vote earlier in the day. Senate Bill 1101 creates a “Funeral protection zone” that bans Protesters within 300 feet of a funeral service. The ban applies to on...

Why there's no more debate on gun control
FORTUNE -- The tragic shooting on Saturday of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and 19 others has renewed a national conversation about whether our Gun Laws need tightening. But the chatter for the most part has so far ignored a curious fact: in Congress, the arena where any new restrictions would be decided, the debate effectively ended years ago. Even over the last two years, when Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress, Gun Rights advocates led by the National Rifle Associati...

CBS Attacks 'Permissive Gun Laws' And Gun-Toting Tea Partiers in Wake of Shooting
On Monday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric used the Tucson shooting to go after Gun Ownership: "As we reported, Jared Loughner purchased his gun legally....Saturday's attack is now putting the state's Gun Laws under a magnifying glass." In the report that followed, correspondent Dean Reynolds declared: "Arizona has among the most permissive Gun Laws in the nation." Reynolds portrayed Arizona's commitment to Gun Rights as a danger: "The right to ke...

Rep. Brodeur files Doc, dont ask gun bill
TALLAHASSEE — Doctors and other medical providers would be barred from asking patients - or the parents of child patients - if they have guns in their home under a measure that promises a major showdown between powerful lobbying groups. The National Rifle Association’s top Florida Lobbyist and a Florida Medical Association member both say the issue is among the top priorities for the session, with the groups holding diametrically opposed positions on what doctors and thei...

Gun-law arguments heat up after Arizona shooting
TUCSON, Ariz. | Jared Lee Loughner had trouble with the law, was rejected by The Army because of a history of drug use and was considered so mentally unstable that he was banned from his college campus, where officials considered him a threat to other Students and faculty. But the 22-year-old had no trouble buying the Glock semiautomatic pistol that authorities say he used in the Tucson rampage Saturday that left six dead and 14 injured, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Mr. Loughner...

Safer Streets 2011: Conservatives now reaching for gun control?
The liberals, we expect to be anti-gun. They want to grow government so they eliminate liberty's safeguards one by one and try to replace you with officials or some policy. And when you complain and use your First Amendment rights of redress of grievance, they try and shut you up. But, Golly, Batman, what do you do when Conservatives start thinking like liberals right after they've been elected and seated? Now Peter King (R) New York is trying to make it a Crime to be armed within a thousand f...