'Loughner was crazy' argument misses the point in the Arizona shootings case

Reports Downplayed of Loughner's Extremist Ties
Like this Story? Share it: Only On The Web: CBS News digital Journalist Arden Farhi spoke to Tucson-area residents as they reflect on Saturday's shooting and the impact it's had on their community. Chris Wragge speaks with Tucson shooting survivor Eric Fuller about the gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, and his thoughts on Rep. Gabrielle Gifford's recovery. New details about Tuscon gunman Jared Lee Loughner are being revealed as investigators search his home. Ben Tracy reports. Evidence is continuing t...

Should We Lock Up Mentally Ill Before They Act?
Jared Loughner may be suffering from schizophrenia, experts say. (CBS) If Jared Loughner, the man accused of killing six and injuring 12 in Arizona last Saturday, turns out to be suffering from schizophrenia, as many doctors have surmised, why shouldn't the state have had the power to lock him in a mental ward BEFORE he went on a rampage? That might sound like common sense, but the law in most places is designed principally to protect individual rights. If you don't appear to be an immediate thr...

Rush Limbaugh Poetry: Democrats Helping Jared Loughner Avoid Jail
Let’s throw it to our top Arizona legal analyst, Rush Limbaugh, Esq., sitting in a hole of Excellent Broadcasting on the other side of the country: “This guy clearly understands he’s getting all the attention and he understands he’s got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he’s not convicted of Murder.” Poetic! Rush Limbaugh is using this opportunity of pundits’ examining their rhetor...

Today in Comprehensive Solutions
[Long Island Republican] Rep. Peter King said Tuesday he plans to introduce a new gun safety bill in Congress in the wake of the Mass Shooting in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 14 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. King said his bill would make it illegal to knowingly carry a gun within a thousand feet of "certain high-profile" government officials. Oooookay. I guess that's one option. Hooray for safety! [Long Island Republican] Rep. Peter King said Tuesday he plans ...

Gray Lady editorials respond to Ariz. massacre by demanding increased gun control (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Tapper: Some say civil Libertarians the reason loonies like Loughner are out on the street Leahy warns against calls for government Speech restrictions Sen. Kerry calls for political 'civility' post-shooting, but doesn't seem to agree with Republicans on anything Rep. Peter King to introduce bill making it illegal to carry a gun within 1,000 feet of 'high-profile' government official Fellow commenters at UFO Conspiracy website questioned Jared Lee Lough...

Polls: Shooting spree not due to rhetoric
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Most Americans don't blame the shooting rampage in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was wounded on violent political language, two poll released Tuesday indicated. While 57 percent said the Mass Shooting in Tucson, Ariz., was not related to political Rhetoric, 32 percent said the two are linked, CBS News reported. The poll was conducted by the CBS News Polling Unit. GALLERY: The aftermath of the Rep. Giffords shooting There was a partisan divide with 69 percent of Repu...

Newsweek Stubbornly Pretends Loughner a 'Lone Wolf' Right-winger
Jared Loughner, the suspect arrested in Saturday's shooting death of a Federal Judge and critical wounding of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona), is no right-winger and certainly not a Military Veteran. All the same, Newsweek published an article today suggesting that Loughner's deadly rampage on Saturday was the consequence of conservative politicians dismissing the warnings of a Homeland Security report from 2009 warning about "Lone Wolf" attacks by right-wingers, particular...

Huck: Blaming tea party 'reprehensible'
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee lashed out at “left-wing politicians” and the media for their handling of Saturday’s Mass Shooting in Arizona, saying the rush to blame right-wingers for a Shooting Spree committed by a “whack job nut maggot” was “reprehensible.” Speaking on his radio show, “The Huckabee Report,” Monday and Tuesday, Huckabee, a top potential 2012 presidential contender, took up one of the right’s favorite themes in t...

GOP Stresses Need For Mental Health Services, Despite Pushing For Repeal Of Aid
Following Saturday’s tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, some Republicans have argued that 22-year old assassin Jared Lee Loughner was more affected by his Mental Illness than the nation’s lax Gun Control laws or Washington’s divisive and often times violent political Rhetoric. “What will solve this problem is removing the politics from it and getting after the crux of this problem and that is somebody who needed Mental Health services and or legal intervention much ear...

GOP Stresses Need For Mental Health Services, Despite Pushing For Repeal Of Aid
GOP Stresses Need For Mental Health Services, Despite Pushing For Repeal Of Aid Following Saturday’s tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, some Republicans have argued that 22-year old assassin Jared Lee Loughner was more affected by his Mental Illness than the nation’s lax Gun Control laws or Washington’s divisive and often times violent political Rhetoric. “What will solve this problem is removing the politics from it and getting after the crux of this problem and that...

Lawmaker calls for briefing on mental health danger signs
A leading lawmaker on Mental Health issues is calling for a Bipartisan debate on how to keep lawmakers and their staff and families safe in the wake of Saturday's deadly shooting in Tucson. Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.), co-chair of the Congressional Mental Health Caucus along with Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Penn.), wants the group to hold a briefing focusing on the behaviors and threats that raise red flags. "Police agencies already do that," Napolitano told The Hill. "I want to make sure some of ...

The Don't-Tread-on-Meter: Life after Jared Lee Loughner.
Some events stop the news cycle, freeze politics, and start them both over on a schedule no one can control. The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and the Murder of six people who were attending a meeting with her in Tucson, was one of those events. Within hours of the news, Republicans had announced that the ongoing debate over the Repeal of the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act would stop, to be picked up again in one week. What else changed for Republicans and Tea Partiers that day?...

Content Provider! That Would Be Me.
I find the term "content provider" hilarious. It's getting more common as a definition of what writers do on the net, sorta like viewing birthday gifts from the point of view of how to sell the largest possible amount of wrapping paper and bows. To sell those, you gotta put something in the box itself. Jennifer Armstrong provided the link to a story about the squinting bush brown butterflies. From the article: Squinting bush brown butterflies use reflective "eye spots" on their wings to attract ...

Gabrielle Giffords staffers, volunteers carry on in face of tragedy
As the House reconvened for the first time since Saturday's rampage in Tucson, Staffers and volunteers in Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) Washington office did what they have done since the Mass Shooting -- persevere in the face of tragedy. Of the 20 or so Staffers in the office, eight have remained in Washington; the others returned to Arizona following the attack. Those currently in Washington are expected to travel to Tucson for Wednesday's memorial service and may stay in Arizona through ...

Loughner/Supremacist Link Thoroughly Debunked
I noted yesterday the unavoidable non-existence of any link between Jared Loughner and either mainstream-right or far-right groups. Today, Ken Vogel at Politico thoroughly debunks the juciest of those claims — that Loughner was aligned with the white supremacist group American Renaissance: An Arizona Law Enforcement agency is backing away from a document it produced in the aftermath of Saturday’s shootings in Tucson – and which was leaked to Fox News – that linked the man...

Tucson suspect's troubles didn't keep him from gun
This undated photo obtained from MySpace shows Jarad L. Loughner. At an event roughly three years ago, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords took a question from Jared Loughner, the man accused of trying to assassinate her and killing six other people. According to two of his High School friends the question was essentially this: "What is government if words have no meaning?" Loughner was angry about her response _ she read the question and didn't have much to say. On Sunday, Loughner was charged in the shoot...

Bogus Fox claim that DHS tied shooter to white supremacists is debunked
I reported yesterday that the Department of Homeland Security was denying a Fox story claiming the agency had established possible links between the shooter and a white supremacist organization. Now Ken Vogel debunks the story completely: An Arizona Law Enforcement agency is backing away from a document it produced in the aftermath of Saturday's shootings in Tucson -- and which was leaked to Fox News -- that linked the man accused with carrying out the Crimes to a white nationalist publication...

Citing shootings, Sen. Sanders solicits campaign donations
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) issued a Fundraising plea Tuesday in which he cited the Tucson shooting and accused "right-wing reactionaries" of contributing to a threatening political climate. "Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country," he wrote at the opening of the lengthy plea for campaign donations. Sanders, who is up for Reelection i...

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick....
By John Ballard, just saying....   Glock pistol sales surge in aftermath of Arizona shootings After a Glock-wielding gunman killed six people at a Tucson shopping center on Jan. 8, Greg Wolff, the owner of two Arizona gun shops, told his manager to get ready for a stampede of new customers. Wolff was right. Instead of hurting sales, the massacre had the $499 semi-automatic pistols -- popular with police, sport shooters and gangsters -- flying out the doors of his Glockmeister stores in...

Jeff Kass: Jared Loughner, Columbine and Diversion
Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner shared an unusual legal background, known as diversion, with the Columbine killers, as recounted in the New York Times. It may also be a window into the character trait of these mass shooters. "In September, Mr. Loughner filled out paperwork to have his record expunged on a 2007 drug paraphernalia charge," the Times reported. "Although he did not need to bother -- he had completed a diversion program so the charge was never actually on his record -- the i...

Dr. Alan Lipman: If Loughner Would Have Received Help This Would Not Have Happened (Video)
New questions arise about the Mental Health of Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner. Some medical experts say that there were signs that Loughner was a danger to himself and the public. Criminal psychologist Dr. Alan Lipman talks to Megyn Kelly on the “warning signs,” and whether someone should have noticed them. “People are now able to see based on the information that we’ve been talking about for the last 24 hours that Loughner was not an individual acting on a politi...

Various Law Enforcement Responses to Mass Shootings
Watch as various Law Enforcement agencies react to Mass Shootings across the country. (video is available on the Associated Press YouTube account.) We seriously doubt that any of these Law Enforcement individuals have gone on Keith Olbermann’s show to blame and decry political Rhetoric....

Conservative Joe Scarborough Goes after Beck, Bachmann, and Palin Video 1/11/11
Here is video of Joe Scarborough attacking Glenn Beck as “paranoid,” and also criticizing Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin in the wake of the Tucson Mass Shooting. Scarborough says the political Rhetoric needs to be toned down, even though he does not believe that had anything to do with the Tucson Shooting tragedy. Scarborough called himself a “conservative,” and said he feels a responsibility to call people out “on his side” who go too far. I’m not s...

GOP Rep: Loughner's Beliefs 'The Liberal Of Liberals'
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) says political Rhetoric doesn't really incite violent behavior at all -- but not before describing Arizona shooting suspect Jared Loughner as a "Communist" and "the liberal of liberals." "This guy appears to be a communist," Foxx told the Winston-Salem Journal. "His beliefs are the liberal of the liberals [sic]. There is no evidence whatsoever that this man was influenced by Sarah Palin or anybody in the Republican Party. This man is not a conservative; he's a fan of ...

Rick Santorum Opposes Bullseye Ban
By Grant Bosse (MANCHESTER, NH) Rick Santorum doesn’t want to restrict Political Speech in the wake of this weekend’s shooting in Tuscon, Arizona. The former Republican Senator discussed calls for toning down fiery political Rhetoric following the attempted Assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, which left six people dead. Congressman Robert Brady (D-PA) has proposed banning cross-hairs and bullseyes in political ads, as liberal commentators have tried to tie accu...