'Get Down! Get Down!' As Gunfire Erupts in Arizona

Get down! Get down! as gunfire erupts in Arizona
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — She arrived right on time — smiling, as Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords so often did, as she made her way through the small crowd that had assembled for her first “Congress on Your Corner” gathering of the new year. The meetings had become one of her hallmarks as a congresswoman, a way to get face-to-face with the people she served and hear them out, from those who cheered her close re-election to those who opposed her positions on Health Care ...

A Responsible Democracy in America (Guest Voice)
A Responsible Democracy in America by Martha Randolph Carr U.S. District Judge John M. Roll, 63 was one of six people who have died as a result of the shooting Saturday at a Tucson, AZ Safeway Grocery Store. Fourteen others were wounded with eight still hospitalized and one is reported to be in critical condition. Roll had stopped by to shake Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ hand at her down home meet and greet for constituents. Roll lived nearby and was said to have read about the scheduled appeara...

Town and Country aldermen vote to censure one of their own
LAURIE SKRIVAN Deer appear in a field along Serendipity Lane at dusk early evening in Town and Country. Laurie Skrivan TOWN AND COUNTRY • For Alderman David Karney, the penalty for an anonymous e-mail telling a fellow alderman he 'should be shot" was public humiliation. Karney even voted to censure himself. "I should have known better," he said. Karney admits an e-mail with the threatening language came from his home computer. But he denies sending it himself. Karney says he met with abou...

Jared Lee Loughner - defense by mug shot?
Is he trying for an insanity defense with this Mug Shot? Judy Clarke has been appointed Jared Lee Loughner's federal public defender. She previously defended the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. (CNN): Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect accused of opening fire outside an Arizona Supermarket over the weekend, appeared calm and in control during his first court appearance Monday, but gave no indication as to how he would plead to the charges. The 22-year-old faces five federal counts connected to the Sa...

Judges Purpose in Seeing Giffords Could Be Legally Significant
Was U.S. District Court Judge John M. Roll just being sociable when he dropped by an appearance by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in Tucson on Saturday, or was he planning to discuss official business? Does it even matter, given the horror of that morning? Yes, it could matter, legally speaking. At first glance, Roll’s state of mind might appear irrelevant, given the tragedy that unfolded on Saturday morning, when Roll was shot dead and Giffords gravely wounded in a rampage that killed ...

Finger-pointers miss the mark: Ariz. shooter is to blame
Deranged gunmen are usually just that. Unhinged and homicidal. Periodically these lunatics unleash mayhem, make headlines and then, if they haven't killed themselves, spend the rest of their lives in Prisons or mental institutions. Sadly, they also become part of our national narrative. If you're older than 20, you're familiar with the perpetrators of several heinous incidents. The Virginia Tech murderer. The Fort Hood killer. The Oklahoma City bomber. The Beltway snipers. The Columbine shooters...

Philadelphia-area congressmen reexamining security measures
Bob Brady remembers the bullet he got in the mail, with his name scribbled on the paper taped around it. Frank LoBiondo keeps two panic buttons in his district office. A man called Joe Sestak's office to say, "Now I'm going to use my Second Amendment right." Of course, the Philadelphia region's current and former members of Congress say, none of that dissuaded them or their staffs from coming to work each day. But threats such as those have become far too common in this age of wild a...

Can't We All Just Get Along?
I would like to know what rock David Gergen has been living under for the last two years if he thinks this tragedy in Arizona is possibly just the beginning of a period of violence. Someone needs to tell him to go read our contributor Jon Perr's post if he actually hasn't been paying attention to how many people have already been killed over the last couple of years. We don't need to know "what part of that culture" of violence led to the actions by the shooter in Arizona to know that it's long ...

Arizona, where the American Dream went to die
When I arrived in Arizona last March, my bones were still practically numb from the snowiest winter in the modern history of my native Northeast. There was radiant sunshine that made the Valley of the Sun feel like a warm soaking bath, bordered on my far horizon by New-Age red rocks and big sky -- natural beauty that inspired awe for me as it surely once did for so many new arrivals over so many decades. I didn't travel to Phoenix to witness beauty, unfortunately, but to get an up close look a...

Loughner calm in taxi ride to the scene
Jared Loughner ... an only child, worshipped by his father. Photo: Reuters TUCSON: Jared Loughner wanted change from a $US20 note that he used to pay for a taxi ride to the Safeway store where the shootings occurred, the manager of the taxi company said. His demeanour was so unremarkable that the driver thought nothing of walking into the store with Mr Loughner to get change, and did not know that a shooting rampage occurred at the scene until many hours later. ''No red flags went up,'' said Joe...

No explanation for why suspect's hearing was moved
More than two dozen reporters lined up outside a federal courtroom in downtown Phoenix Monday before a hearing for the man charged in Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson. Cameramen and photographers were stationed on corners, but there were no Protesters. Jared Loughner (LAWF'-nuhr) is accused of killing six people and wounding 14 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. No official explanation has been given for why the court hearing was moved, and Court Records didn't offer an explanation....

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik: Where was patrol unit at Congresswoman Gifford's event?
Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Arizona, called his state a “mecca for prejudice and Bigotry” in the aftermath of the terrible shooting in Tucson on Saturday. He described certain political discourse as “vitriol” and implied that this kind of incendiary Speech created the environment for the shooter, 22-year-old Jared Loughner, to seek out Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at a local Safeway Supermarket meet & greet and attempt to kill her by firing at her wit...

Democrats Use Tucson Shooting As Justification For A New Fairness Doctrine
The Fairness Doctrine, of course, being an FCC policy that once upon a time limited the sort of content broadcasters could have on their airwaves by requiring ideological balance. What listeners/viewers actually wanted in terms of content was irrelevant. If you had three hours of a conservative like, say, Rush Limbaugh on air you’d have to have three hours of a liberal. Now, in the wake of the Tucson shooting, liberals are using their baseless conjectures about the motivations of the shoot...

Slain Federal Judge Was Champion for Greater Court Resources
U.S. District Judge John M. Roll, who was killed in the Arizona shooting Saturday, was a bystander in the attack aimed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to news reports. It was not a coincidence, however, that he had come to the Grocery Store where Giffords was holding a meet-and-greet that morning; he came to talk with Giffords about greater resources for his court, The National Law Journal reports. "Such a discussion would have been typical for Roll," The NLJ explains. "He ...

Placing Responsibility Where It Lies
Sheriff Dupnik insists that it's his official duty and his job as Sheriff to spout off his political opinions and his views on what's wrong with today's society. There's just one problem - he's providing a defense for the killer. And I'm not just referring to the defense that the killer's lawyer will no doubt use in court. While Dupnik is using his post as a soapbox for his Democrat political views, the defense attorney is now apt to cite the Sheriff's opinions as a defense for the killer duri...

The false rush to cry 'balance' (Politico)
When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a Federal Judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess down there. Life goes on incredibly quickl...

Dr. Harold Koplewicz: Arizona Shooting: Treating Mental Illness Before it Kills
In the Mass Shooting in Arizona Saturday there were heroes who prevented even more bloodshed. We need heroes to intervene before lives are lost. The three people who wrestled Jared Loughner to the ground and disarmed him outside a Supermarket in Tucson are being hailed as heroes, and rightly so. They prevented further loss of life at the hands of the 22-year-old, who had, in little more than an instant, killed six people and wounded more than a dozen others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords....

Dems ready gun control legislation regulating ammunition clips
Stumble This! Democrats in the House and Senate are preparing to introduce Legislation that would limit purchases high-capacity gun ammunition clips like the one used Saturday in the tragic shootings of 20 people in Arizona. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), two of the most outspoken Gun Control advocates in Congress, are sponsoring the Legislation in their respective chambers. "The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a Handgun is to kill a lot of people very q...

Judges no strangers to balancing security
WASHINGTON — As Americans grapple with the Tucson shootings and congressional lawmakers reexamine changes in their personal security measures, members of the judiciary branch are also mourning the loss of one of their own — a dreaded occurrence for a community that has faced mounting threats of violence in recent years. U.S. District Judge John M. Roll was among the six people killed Saturday when he dropped by a community event held by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shortly before 22...

Fox News: But What Does Mary Jo Buttafuoco Think Of The Arizona Shooting?
Unless you’ve spent every single waking moment since Saturday under a rock, you’ll know that the news has been dominated by the shooting outside a Tucson, Arizona Safeway Supermarket which resulted in six people dead (including John Roll , chief judge for the U.S. District Court for Arizona) and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the Hospital. New news about the shooting - and shooter Jared Loughner - has been steadily streaming across news tickers on every major news ch...

The Tragedy of the Arizona Shooting
The Tragedy of the Arizona Shooting Monday, 01/10/2011 - 1:47 pm by Mike Konczal | Post a Comment There are many ways to look at it, but all say disturbing things about the country. This weekend’s tragic shooting at a Safeway district meeting in which United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously hurt and a dozen more injured and a District Court judge John Roll, a nine-year-old girl born on September 11th, and a congressional aide were killed has left us all stunned. Her...

Tucson Shooting Suspect Loughner Held Without Bail
Jared Lee Loughner's mugshot The suspect in the Saturday shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and many others, which left six dead, appeared in court today. Jared Lee Loughner, 20, was held without bail and apparently smirked in court. His mugshot was also released, and it showed the young man with a big smile. Giffords was apparently the target of the shooting outside a Safeway in Tucson, AZ, where she was holding a constituent event. Among of those who died were Federal Judge John Roll and G...

Shooting Suspect Lawyers Up, Smirks in Court, and His Parents are.??
Look straight into the face of a madman. Jared Loughlin SMIRKED in court.  He has lawyered up with the Unabomber’s attorney and is seeking a change of venue to….where?  Mars?  The attorney is also seeking to disqualify the U.S. Attorney General’s office in Arizona.  Whatever.  Let the games begin.  He is behind bars, finally, where he should have been for years, sadly.  There is no hope for this miscreant. One of my enduring questions as this ...

Colorado Dem rethinks some public events after Arizona shooting
Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) is mulling whether or not he should continue with a series of public meetings billed as "Government in the Grocery" events.  In light of Saturday's shooting in Arizona that killed six people and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in critical condition after being shot in the head, a spokeswoman for Perlmutter said the congressman is weighing changes to the constituent meetings he has held in Grocery Stores in his district since 2006.  "We are going to be talk...

BCS game holds moment of silence before start
The BCS championship held a pregame moment of silence for Victims of the weekend Assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson. The tribute came during ceremonies shortly before kickoff of the game between Oregon and Auburn on Monday night. Names of the six Victims were read and Giffords was acknowledged before the moment of silence, which preceded a choir singing "God Bless America." Giffords was shot in the head in an attack outside a Grocery Store that left six people dead and 14...