Liberal Newspaper Seizes Gun Control Moment, Blames Republicans for Stoking Anger

David Brooks Fails To Name Names At The NY Times
David Brooks is correct in his overall analysis of the media smear against Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement: All of this evidence, which is easily accessible on the Internet, points to the possibility that Loughner may be suffering from a Mental Illness like schizophrenia.... In short, the evidence before us suggests that Loughner was locked in a world far removed from politics as we normally understand it. Yet the early coverage and commentary of the Tucson massacre suppressed this evid...

Poll: Americans smarter than Democrat politicos, MSM
Glad to know that the 24-7 hyperventilating, sensationalizing , and demagoguing by MSM outlets and talking point-led Democrats aren’t persuading the American People in the aftermath of the attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ8), the Murder of 5 others, and injury of 11 others that happened in Tucson, AZ this past Saturday. Via CBS News ( hat tip ): Nearly six in 10 Americans say the country’s heated political Rhetoric is not to blame for the Tucson shooting rampag...

You're Damn Right that America's Macho Gun Culture Played a Role in Arizona Shootings
It's not about Gun Control; it's about the devastating impact of our gun culture. As an advocate of gun control, I believe in the strong Regulation of lethal weapons. It's just common sense. But until we start changing the gun worship of far too many American males, we are going to have a difficult time stopping the ravaging of our society by bullets. More than 10,000 Americans die in gun homicides each year, a figure that far surpasses any Western nation. In Arizona, obtaining a gun is about as...

Arizona Shootings and the Gun Debate: How Will The Public Respond?
Tragic and shocking events like the shooting rampage in Arizona inevitably revive the debate over Gun Control laws and no doubt will do so again in the aftermath of the spree in which suspect Jared Lee Loughner used a legally-purchased semi-automatic woman to put a bullet in the brain of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and kill or injure 19 others. But over the last decade, major shooting incidents across the country has not led to a surge in public support for tougher Gun Control laws. There ha...

Personally, Tim Pawlenty Would Not Have Made a Map That Targets Congressmen With Crosshairs
Photo: Allison Shelley/Getty Images Do Sarah Palin's potential Republican rivals sense an opening to ever-so slightly and subtly undermine her with the Tucson shooting? In an interview Monday with reporters at The New York Times, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, considered another contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, defended Ms. Palin, if only to a point. “There’s no indication at present that those cross hairs, Fox News, any particular commentator ...

The Vitriol Will Likely Return
With any disturbing event, like the tragic and horrifying shooting in Tucson last Saturday, there is a natural tendency to extrapolate the impact of it for months or even years to come. The unspeakable event cost people from such varying walks of life as a 9-year-old girl and a Federal Judge their lives and has left Rep.Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., fighting for her life. Something like this creates a memory that is certain to be burned into the consciousness of current and former elected offici...

Poll: 57% of Americans dont buy media spin on Tucson massacre
CBS polled almost 700 adults in the wake of the mass Murder in Tucson committed by Jared Lee Loughner to determine whether the media spin that the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the murders of six others was a political act had resonated with the public.  Perhaps surprisingly, the spin machine seems to have failed.  A majority of 57% say that politics had nothing to do with the shooting, and even a plurality of 49% of Democrats agree (via Dan Spencer): Nearly six in 10 Americans say...

Tomorrow's speech in Arizona is a big test for Barack Obama
We will find out a great deal about Barack Obama’s character tomorrow - or at least about the wisdom of his advisers. If his Speech at the Memorial service for the Victims of the Tucson shooting is spotlessly apolitical - if it manages to avoid any hint of support for the quite astonishing smear campaign which has explicitly attributed responsibility for this crime to his electoral opponents - then it may help to revive his original 

Sophia Bush Talks About Cousin's Death in Tucson
NEW YORK (CBS) One of Sophia Bush's second cousins, 9-year-old Christina Green, was among those killed in the Tucson shooting rampage on Saturday. The "One Tree Hill" actress spoke about the tragedy during an appearance on "Chelsea Lately" Monday night. PICTURES: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords "It's been, I think, a lesson more than anything for me and for my family that life is incredibly short," she said about her cousin's death, according to ET Online. "I remember hearing when she was born and it's ...

Will the Arizona tragedy end Palin's presidential hopes? (The Week)
New York – As the Assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords brings new scrutiny to Sarah Palin's gun-themed Rhetoric, pundits debate the political fallout The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is being called a "turning point" and a "defining moment" for Sarah Palin, whose use of gun imagery (a 2010 campaign "map" targeting Giffords district with a crosshairs symbol and a call to "reload") has been linked, unfairly or not, to the Arizona tragedy. As soon as the media made the co...

CNN Goes After Arizona's Gun Laws as Major Factor in Shooting
On Monday's Newsroom, CNN treated Arizona's Gun Laws as a significant contributor to the shootings in Tucson. Correspondent Jessica Yellin prompted the local prosecutor to spout her pro-gun control views. Anchor Brooke Baldwin highlighted a local Republican's gun-toting ad and the infamous clip of an anti-Obama Protester carrying a semi-automatic rifle outside a 2009 presidential event in Arizona. Yellin interviewed Pima County, Arizona Attorney Barbara LaWall, a Democrat (though Yel...

Apparently, The Real Culprit In The Giffords Shooting Was..Guns!
Now that we are a few days from the shooting of Representative Giffords, and the cold blooded Murder of many others, including a judge and a 9 year old, the media and Democrats are slowly ratcheting up the meme that guns are to blame. They haven’t dropped their fixation on “vitriolic Speech”…….you know, all the blamestorming coming from the mostly liberal media, elected Democrats, and liberal talking heads could be considered “vitriolic speech.” You also...

Apparently, The Real Culprit In The Giffords Shooting Was…..Guns!
Now that we are a few days from the shooting of Representative Giffords, and the cold blooded Murder of many others, including a judge and a 9 year old, the media and Democrats are slowly ratcheting up the meme that guns are to blame. They haven't dropped their fixation on "vitriolic Speech".......you know, all the blamestorming coming from the mostly liberal media, elected Democrats, and liberal talking heads could be considered "vitriolic speech." You also have Joe Scarborough, RINO, complaini...

No Signs Obama Will Shift On Gun Control After Giffords Shooting
Virtually since the Obama Administration took office, the White House has avoided touching the third-rail issue of Gun Control with a 10-foot pole. So will the mass shooting in Arizona that gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six others (including a Federal Judge) change their approach? Gun control advocates hope so. Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said in an interview that banning the high-capacity clips (the type use...

Shooting Debate Omits Gun Control
Politico: Few politicians talking about tougher Gun Laws. Get The Page delivered to your inbox. newsletter today!...

Tuesday: Guns for everyone (and bullets for every gun) edition
As realists we know that here in the United States we aren’t ever going to outlaw private ownership of guns. But, you might (realistically) think that this Tuesday Morning — nearly 3 days after the terrible shooting in Tucson — there would be a steady stream of articles calling for more serious Regulation of the guns in this country. There isn’t. Apparently Gun Control is off the table. With my background in programming and maintaining databases I should have known bett...

Lawmakers push to exempt Kentucky-made guns from federal regulations
FRANKFORT — Lawmakers are pushing three identical bills to exempt Kentucky-made guns and ammunition from federal Background Checks, dealer licenses and other national regulations if the items remain in the state. The effort comes as a recent report shows Kentucky is one of the nation’s biggest exporters of guns that cross state lines — legally or illegally — and end up at crime scenes in other states, often in cities with tight Gun Ownership restrictions. At the same time...

'Angel Action' against Westboro Church is a sign of hope in Arizona
The Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas has announced they will Protest the funder of Christina Green, the nine-year-old Victim of the Tucson shootings.  The church attempts to gain publicity by picketing the Funerals of people who died from AIDS and Soldiers who died in war.  Their purpose is to spread their anti-homosexual message.  Often they hold up signs which says something akin to “Thank God for dead soldiers” along with some message condemning gays....

Is there a foreign-policy angle to the Tucson shooting? Not really.
The tragic shooting in Tucson is a signal event in recent U.S. history and could well have implications for domestic politics. But the implications for U.S. Foreign Policy (this blog's bailiwick) are likely minimal. Indeed, from a parochial foreign-policy perspective, the truly consequential act of violence against a politician last week occurred halfway around the world: the Assassination of the Pakistani reformer and the Governor of the Punjab region, Salman Taseer. So far there is no evidenc...

The Teabaggers are Responsible for the Tuscon Shooting!: Poll Shows Americans Know Better
by the Left Coast Rebel The establishment, legacy, Democrat far-left media establishment/personalities just don't get it. No matter how much they huff and puff and scream, "the tea-baggers did it, they shot Congresswoman Giffords and those people!" with nil evidence in sight, the more Americans -- for the most part -- see right through the charade. The leftist progressive agenda is dying and after the November 2 election, leftists have never been more angry about it. And since they can't take ...

57% of Americans Think "Tone" of Politics Had Nothing to do with Tucson Shooting
From a CBS News poll: 57 percent of respondents said the harsh political tone had nothing to do with the shooting, compared to 32 percent who felt it did. Republicans were more likely to feel the two were unrelated - 69 percent said Rhetoric was not to blame; 19 percent said it played a part. Democrats were more split on the issue - 49 percent saw no connection; 42 percent said there was. Independents more closely reflected the overall breakdown - 56 percent said Rhetoric had nothing to do with...

Times Mark Halperin: Fox News, Conservatives Using Tucson Shooting For Fodder
Almost immediately after the shootings in Tucson over the weekend the left was in full spin mode, blaming (despite not having any evidence) Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement for creating an “atmosphere of hate” that inspired the attack. As you might expect, Conservatives pushed back against this notion. Now Time’s Mark Halperin is claiming that the media “behaved” in the wake of the Tucson shootings and that it’s really Conservatives who made this politic...

Hate Speech the Rights Magic Bullet (Guest Voice)
Hate Speech the Right’s Magic Bullet by Michael Winship The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a rule: if you show a gun in the first act, by the time the curtain falls, it has to go off. For weeks and months, that gun, the weapon of angry Rhetoric and intemperate rabblerousing, has been cocked and loaded in plain view on the American stage; Saturday morning outside a Shopping Mall in Tucson, Arizona, it went off again and again and again. The target, Gabrielle Giffords, a member of the Un...

The Case for Involuntary Commitment
Like many others, I remain unconvinced that the Tucson shooting is mainly a story about Incivility in politics. Jared Lee Loughner, by all accounts, appears to be deeply mentally ill, and Mental Illness seems to have taken hold of him before the rise of Sarah Palin. The story, so far at least, seems more about the way we as a society manage the violently mentally ill among us. Obviously, the Tucson shooting raises questions about one politically incendiary issue, Gun Control, but it also interse...

The Note's Must-Reads for Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The Note's Must-Reads are a round-up of today's political headlines and stories from ABC News and the top U.S. Newspapers. Posted Monday through Friday right here at www.abcnews.com Compiled by ABC News Digital News Associates and Desk Assistants JAYCE HENDERSON, JACQUELINE FERNANDEZ, CLAUDIA MORALES, MOLLY HUNTER and KATY CONRAD Arizona SHOOTING / Gun Control: ABC News’ Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller: “Obama Phones Sheriff Dupnik, Families of the Victims, The Heroes, and Giffor...