Gabrielle Giffords shooting: US gun law likely to be unaffected

Giffords shooting leads nation to introspection and political finger wagging
In the wake of the shooting in Arizona this weekend that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and that killed and injured more than 20 people, many pundits and politicians are pointing fingers. Others are hoping the incident will serve to ratchet down rancor. Yet emerging details make it clear the shooter wasn’t primarily motivated by politics, right or left. Jared Lee Loughner seems mainly to have been struggling with Mental Illness and was angry at being thrown out of Pima Communi...

Why the Giffords shooting isn't likely to change nation's gun laws
In the aftermath of the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others over the weekend in Tuscon, Arizona, there is speculation that the tragedy might provide a spark to long-dormant attempts to tighten the nation's Gun Laws. Let's break down the numbers using poll data from Gallup, which has asked this basic gun-control question for the past two years: "In general, do you feel that the laws covering the sale of Firearms should be made more strict, less strict, or kept as they are n...

Giffords shooting hits close to home for congresswoman
Washington (CNN) - For Rep. Jackie Speier, the vicious attack on her colleague Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson, Arizona, brought back a chilling memory of when she faced an attempt on her life. In November 1978, Speier and her boss, Democratic Rep. Leo Ryan, went to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate Rev. Jim Jones' People's Temple, which had members from Ryan's California district....

News links: Feds file charges against Giffords gunman for Saturdays shooting rampage
Federal authorities have charged Jared Loughner with two counts of Murder and three counts of Attempted Murder for Saturday’s shooting rampage, which left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in critical but stable condition and six others dead. Arizona Republic>>> Almost immediately after news of the shooting broke, commentators began playing the blame game, with many pointing the finger at overheated political Rhetoric. LA Times>>> The alleged gunman used a semi-automat...

Dem. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy Plans New Gun Control Bill in Wake of Giffords Shooting
The alleged gunman who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday and 19 other people, killing six, used a Glock 19 9mm semi-automatic pistol. (Credit: AP) Democratic Rep. Carolyn Mccarthy of New York plans to introduce Legislation in the coming days that would limit access to the type of weaponry used to gun down Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and 19 other people. Giffords remains in critical condition after 22-year-old alleged gunman Jared Loughner open fired at a town hall-style meetin...

Raul Labrador responds to Giffords shooting on 'Meet The Press'
Raul Labrador, the newly-elected GOP Congressman from Idaho's 1st Congressional District, appeared on CBS's Meet the Press program Sunday to discuss the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. "She was doing what all of us should be doing, which was talking to our constituents, and trying to get educated on the issues," Labrador said. Within minutes of the tragedy, liberal media pundits were blaming Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck for the shootings.  "We have to be c...

Disgusting Media Determined to Pin Shooting on Palin Despite the Fact That Liberal Killer Was Targeting Giffords Since 2007
The state-run leftist media is determined to take Sarah Palin down after the tragedy in Tucson this past weekend. The democrat-media complex wants to pin the shootings on Palin and the Tea Party despite that fact that the young leftist killer had been targeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since 2007. They won’t be happy until she’s dead and gone. Within an hour of Saturday’s tragic shooting in Arizona, the Twittersphere had quickly seized on a map put out by Sarah Palin’s po...

Polls suggest gun control unlikely to be a campaign issue
With some Democratic lawmakers calling for stricter gun-control measures in the wake of Saturday's shooting in Arizona, polling suggests it's unlikely to morph into a campaign issue for 2012.  Across the board, polling from the past several years shows that support for stricter gun-control laws has declined, even after Mass Shootings like the one that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech in the spring of 2007, which killed 32 people. Saturday's shooting killed at least six people and criti...

Daniel Hernandez, University Of Arizona Student Who Helped Gabrielle Giffords, Says He's Not A Hero
The University of Arizona Student who came to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's aid after she was shot in the head Saturday says he's not a hero. "I don't think I'm a hero," Daniel Hernandez told the Daily Wildcat. "I think doing something one off is not something heroic." Hernandez had been working as an intern for Giffords the Monday before the shooting. According to the Wildcat, Hernandez ran in the direction of the gunshots and was the first person to attend to Giffords. "I saw that she had been s...

ABC's Bob Woodruff on Gabrielle Giffords and recovey from traumatic brain injury
In 2006, ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff was on the ground covering the war in Iraq when a Roadside Bomb detonated near the vehicle in which he was traveling. The shockwave drove rock and shrapnel into his helmet, literally rattling his brain inside his skull. Woodruff awoke more than a month later, only to begin a long road to recovery. His journey is one that is shared by an estimated 80,000 to 90,000 Americans each year who suffer traumatic brain injury, or TBI.It was a long road to recover...

Buchanan, Castor, Rooney on Giffords shooting
U.S. Reps. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, and Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, have a particularly kinship with Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. All three were part of the 2006 freshman class coming into Congress - the year Democrats took control of the House. “I am terribly saddened by this tragic event,” said Castor, whose 11th District includes parts of Palmetto and Bradenton. “Gabby and I were elected together in 2006, became friends, and served together on the Armed S...

The Arizona Shooting and the Blame Game
Posted by Mike Finch on Jan 10th, 2011 and filed under Daily Mailer, FrontPage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. What a relief!  President Obama can pull FBI Director Mueller back from Arizona and call off the investigation into the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords.  The smoking gun has been found. It is obvious after listening to the Sunday morning news shows that the shoot...

Drew Westen: Gun Violence and the Lessons of Tucson: Will the Chambers Once Again Be Loaded Against the American People?
Like many people who have come forward to speak or write about the Tucson massacre, I know and adore Gabby Giffords. It is virtually impossible not to adore her. She has a presence and graciousness that light up a room. That she survived a shot from a semi-automatic at close range is remarkable. Yet the trauma she has endured -- psychologically and neurologically -- is not one that ever leaves a person untouched. The only question at this point is how much of that radiant light anyone who kno...

GOP lawmakers: Shooting not a result of lax gun laws
Congressional Republicans said Sunday that the weekend shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona Democrat, was not the result of lax U.S. Gun Laws and that the incident should not result in tougher regulations. We have to be careful, Rep. Raul Lab......

In the wake of Tucson, here come calls for more gun laws
A reader (Paul) commenting in a previous article observed, "What is terribly sad is Carolyn Mccarthy's immediate response to this whole affair. McCarthy ran for Congress after her husband was gunned down and her son seriously injured in a shooting in 1993 on a Long Island commuter train. Loughner legally purchased his weapon --a Glock 19 with an extended magazine-- from a local sporting goods store in Tucson. The same kind of extended magazine was illegal under the assault weapons ban that expir...

Gun-friendly laws made Arizona shootings possible, Brady Center president tells Raw
Stumble This! The president of the Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence told Raw Story that excessively permissive Gun Laws are a culprit in the tragic shootings of 20 people in Tucson, Ariz. Saturday. Among those shot by 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner were Federal Judge John Roll, who was killed, and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was critically wounded. The gun Loughner used was lawfully purchased, The Associated Press reported. "Apparently everyone who knew him lately describes him as v...

Weapon in rampage was banned under Clinton-era law
The high-capacity magazine of the semiautomatic pistol used in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and more than a dozen other people on Saturday would have been illegal to manufacture and difficult to purchase under the Clinton-era assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. According to police and media reports, the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, legally purchased a semiautomatic Glock 19 with a high-capacity magazine in November at a gun store in Tucson. Under the assault weapons ba...

Could Anything Have Stopped Loughner?
The shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six and wounding of 13 others in Tucson is one of those American tragedies that threatens to be interpreted according to what one wants to believe. The shootings will be argued over and debated as more information comes forward, but what seems unavoidable is that the shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was a nutbar through and through, and there was no way he could have been deterred. Arizona’s curious (to Canadians) Gun Laws that ...

Tucson aftermath: Here come the gun laws
Well, that didn't take long.  Within a day of a deranged lunatic's murderous Shooting Spree in Tucson, we are being told that for our "safety" in a world polluted with such thugs, we need more restrictions placed on our ability to defend ourselves from them.  So far, the "there oughta be a law" (or, preferably, a bunch of laws) crowd seems to have identified three fronts along which to advance new encroachments on liberty: hardware ban-type laws, expansion of "prohibited purchaser" lis...

Daley: Respond to Ariz. shootings with tougher gun laws
Mayor Richard Daley expressed sadness and outrage in the wake of the Arizona shooting rampage, and said the incident is yet more evidence that stronger Gun Control is needed. "I want to extend my condolences and prayers to those who have lost their loved ones and to those that are suffering today," he said at McCormick Place this morning, where the return of a trade show was announced. "This is a national tragedy "But unfortunately, events like this happen far too often in America. We have to ...

How can the mentally-unstable own guns?
When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Handgun ban in the nation’s capital in 2008, Representative Gabrielle Giffords applauded the ruling, calling Gun Ownership “an Arizona tradition.” That she had co-signed a congressional amicus brief against the ban came as no surprise: she has always been pro-gun, and she represents a state with a history of proud Gun Ownership and lax Gun Laws. So there is at least a touch of irony to the fact that her name is being invoked, followin...

Arizona Gun Laws Among Most Lenient In U.S.
On November 30, Jared Lee Loughner went to a Sportman's Warehouse in Tuscon, Ariz., and purchased a Glock 19 semiautomatic weapon, after passing an instant Background Check. He allegedly used that weapon in the January 8 shooting rampage that killed at least six people and wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 13 others in Tuscon. Arizona's Gun Laws, among the most lenient in the country, allowed Loughner to conceal and carry his firearm without a permit, explains Washington Post reporter J...

Debating Tighter Gun Regulations in Wake of Shooting (The Atlantic Wire)
WASHINGTON, DC – Whether or not the Arizona Giffords shooting this weekend was politically motivated is the topic of heated discussion. But certain people are more concerned with how someone with an apparent Mental Illness was legally able to obtain not only a gun, but a high-capacity magazine of ammunition that "would have been illegal under the assault weapons ban, which Congress allowed to expire in 2004," according to CBS News. Today, Democratic New York Representative Carolyn McCar...

The End of the Meet-and-Greet?
The Washington Post, for example, was quick to point out that Arizona’s Gun Laws are among the “most lax in the nation,” leaving the reader to infer that Arizonans, those notorious abusers of Illegal Aliens, are wanton in their disregard for Public Safety.  The Post story linked to an earlier one, from August 18, 2010, that ran under the headline “Gun-toting Soccer moms a scary thought in D.C. area, but not out west.”  One scarcely need read that story to ...

Afternoon Open Thread
US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama observe a “moment of silence” on the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 10, 2011 to honor the Victims of a shooting at an Arizona political event that left people six dead. Meanwhile, doctors were cautiously optimistic about the recovery of the shooter’s principal target, US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head by the would-be assassin. Good Afternoon. As you go through the re...