The Don't-Tread-on-Meter: Life after Jared Lee Loughner.

Karl Frisch: Arizona Aftermath: Real Second Amendment Remedies
Growing up, my father -- now retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department after 35 years of service -- frequently took me shooting and to just about every gun show within a 100-mile radius of our Southern California home. In fact, as I write this, several of the guns from his collection are on display at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia. I may be a progressive but I have absolutely no problem with private Gun Ownership. If we are to learn anything from the horrible...

This is why Palin '12 just won't work
It has been widely assumed that Sarah Palin's response to Gabrielle Giffords' shooting would be a pivotal moment for her viability as a 2012 Presidential Candidate. Now Palin has finally broken her silence, with a seven-minute videotaped message released this morning -- one that, more than anything, will probably give Republicans yet another reason to look elsewhere for a '12 Candidate. As is the case just about every time Palin sounds off on a major topic, the result has been instant and bitter...

Sharron Angle: Don't blame me for Tucson shooting rampage
Former U.S. Senate Candidate Sharron Angle says she's not to blame for the Arizona shooting that left six people dead and 14 injured. The former Nevada assemblywoman who tried to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday she condemns all violence. The Tea Party politician calls the killings Saturday senseless and horrifying. Police say 22-year-old Jared Loughner fired at a crowd gathered at an event hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was shot in the head but survived. L...

The Politics of Hate
Violence and politics are two very dangerous things to mix. Unfortunately, this has occurred on 01/08/2011, as Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot outside an event. Six innocent bystanders have lost their lives and the Congresswoman continues to fight for her own. The shooting is attributed to a young, Lone Wolf type, with the terms “mentally ill” and “deranged” being bandied back and forth. However, based on the profile of the individual who was targeted, there is ...

How Many Children Will It Take?
Christina Taylor Green is a message spirit. She arrived on Earth on September 11, 2001, a day when Terrorists armed with no more than boxcutters turned jet airliners into guided missiles and slaughtered almost 3,000 people, mostly civilians. Indeed, she was one of the babies featured in a book, Faces of Hope, that looked at one baby from each of the United States born on that day. The third-grader had been elected to her Mesa Verde Elementary School Student council and was at the meet-up for con...

Putting a Bullseye on the Constitution
[ By Daniel Greenfield , crossposted from Sultan Knish.] There is hardly a better way to degrade the entire idea of Political Speech than by classing everyone who is in any way critical of the government as "anti-government". Such a label creates two camps, the camp of government and the camp of everyone unhappy with government, and defines the latter camp by the actions of a psychotic killer, who was unhappy with government, grammar and higher mathematics, among a seemingly inexhaustible supp...

I Blame Jared Lee Loughner
The man who should burn for the crimes of Jared Lee Loughner is Jared Lee Loughner. Not Rush Limbaugh, who said yesterday that Democrats are supporting the man who shot a Democratic congresswoman in the head: "What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that... the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame . He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a v...

Tucson Shooting Widens Cracks in Rights Coalition
(photo: Adam NFK Smith) The first political figure to resign their post after the attempted Assassination of Gabrielle Giffords was an African-American Arizona Republican: Just hours after 22-year-old gunman Jared Loughner launched a Shooting Spree at a Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) constituent event in Tucson on Saturday that left six dead and 14 wounded, Legislative District chairman Anthony Miller, a Republican, announced that he would resign his position. In an email to the state’s GOP ...

The Left's History Of Violence
The surest way to become a folk hero on the Hard Left is to kill a human being. As Mumia Abu-Jamal, Joe Hill and Huey Newton could have attested, Murder trumps even Treason for establishing radical credentials. You certainly don’t get invitations to deliver commencement addresses, become the subject of folk songs, or hang with the likes of Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda by protesting a traffic ticket. Taking the life of another person elevates a radical to cause celebre status like nothing ...

A U.S. marshal's first impressions of prisoner Jared Loughner
Liberals and Conservatives who were hoping that Jared Loughner would speak out from captivity confirming or refuting suspicions about his motives in Saturday's massacre are going to have to wait a little longer. So far Loughner has been a man of few words, according to U.S. Marshal David Gonzales, who was interviewed by The Daily Beast. "I was with him Tuesday," Gonzales said. "He doesn't say much, he just sits in his cell with a smirk on his face, nothing else." Not a smile, just a smirk. ...

Rep. Peter King would surround himself with 72-acre Constitution-free zone
As Los Angeles Gun Rights Examiner John Longenecker has already discussed, Congressman Peter King (R-NY) has come up with a . . . novel approach to protecting, well . . . . himself, from the kind of sick, deranged lunatic who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and so many others in Tucson Saturday.  According to Politico, he wants to forbid Firearms carried by Private Citizens within 1,000 feet of himself and other "important figures" (who would include Congressmen Russ Carnahan and Will...

Gun-rights advocate: High-capacity magazine restrictions 'makes sense'
A leading gun-rights advocate says there is no constitutional barrier to restricting the sale of high capacity gun magazines such as the one used by accused Tucson shooter Jared Loughner and that such proposals are justified to prevent "looney tunes" from committing more gun massacres. Robert A. Levy, who served as co-counsel in the landmark Supreme Court case that established a Second Amendment right to Bear Arms, said there was no reason the court's decision in that case should apply to the pu...

GOP Rep. Drafting Bill to Let Lawmakers Carry Guns in Capitol
Supreme Court Police Officer A.J. Mackie stands on the steps of the court in Washington, Thursday June 26, 2008. (Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert told reporters today that his staff is working on a measure to allow members of Congress to carry Concealed Weapons in the District of Columbia - including in the Capitol itself. D.C. laws bar regular people from carrying Concealed Weapons for self-defense. There are exceptions - they can carry weapons if the...

Liberal Seek Ban on Metaphors In Wake of Arizona Shooting
After the monstrous shooting in Arizona last week, surely we can all agree that we've got to pass Obama's agenda immediately and stop using metaphors. At least I think that's what the Mainstream Media are trying to tell me. Liberals instantly leapt on the sickening massacre at a Tucson political event over the weekend to accuse tea partiers, Sarah Palin and all Conservatives who talk out loud of being complicit in Murder by inspiring the shooter, Jared Loughner. Of course, to make their case...

Udall: Let's all sit together for State of Union
Colorado Sen. Mark Udall is asking Democrats and Republicans to sit side-by-side rather than dividing up by party during the State of the Union Speech. Udall, a Democrat, said Wednesday the tradition of having the parties sit on opposite sides of the House chamber is a "negative symbol of the divisions in Congress." He says the separate seating arrangement is only a custom, not a rule, and emphasizes differences and divisions. Udall has said the Assassination attempt against U.S. Rep. Gabrielle ...

House Puts Partisanship Aside After Giffords Shooting
This week, Congress was set for a rhetorical battle over Healthcare Reform and federal spending. But Partisanship, at least within the Capital, has taken a back seat to national grieving. In response to the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona, which left six people dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition, Congressional leaders have delayed all major votes until at least next week. [Photo Gallery: Gabrielle Giffords Shooting in Arizona.] On Wednesday, Congress didn't debate a bill to rep...

Political ideology and conflict
In the last few centuries politically motivated tensions have stirred up around the world leading to very cold relations among nations and near disaster for the earth. These conflicts start with a difference in Ideological thought on politics and the world. The differences start with ideology and then lead to actions taken by each side which threatens the other.  The biggest example of this premise is that of the relations with the former U.S.S.R  . The ideological clash was between th...

House pays emotional tribute to Arizona victims
WASHINGTON (AP) — Grief-stricken members of Congress paid tribute Wednesday to the Victims of the Tucson shooting rampage amid consultations with security advisers on how they can protect themselves and their aides against such savage attacks. Still deeply shaken from Saturday's violence half a continent away, House Speaker John A. Boehner fought tears as he spoke of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' battle to recover from a gunshot wound to the head. "Our hearts are broken, but our spirit is not,"...

Foxx spokesman says theres no room for post-Tucson rhetoric like that of Virginia Foxx
There wasn’t a great deal of fanfare last week when U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley released a three-year-long committee staff review of the financial activities of several media-based ministries and churches, but that is likely because the paper offers no concrete steps forward. 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 th...

Both Sides Not
George Packer in The New Yorker:Only one side has made the Rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its Grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s Activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the...

George Packer: No Equivalency; David Frum: Talk May Not Have Caused This, But This Should Cause Talk
George Packer in the New Yorker makes a clear-cut case about the difference between the Rhetoric of the left and the right, regardless of whether such Rhetoric has anything to do with the actions of Jared Lee Loughner. (h/t Taegan Goddard) In fact, there is no balance — none whatsoever. Only one side has made the Rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its Grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment...

As portrait of Jared Loughner sharpens, 'vitriol' blame fades
The suggestion that the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Saturday might have been influenced by political 'vitriol' seems less likely as more becomes known about suspect Jared Loughner. Neighbors check out the media set up at the Loughner home in Tucson, Ariz., Tuesday. Jared Loughner is the alleged gunman in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others on Saturday, leaving six dead and more injured. The wave of national soul-searching about the level of political vitriol and how it mi...

Tea Party America and the Tragedy in Tucson
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 3:33pm. Now of course, as we're seeing with the talking heads and pundits on on television, radio and in the press, there is an attempt to deflect the reality of what has happened in Tucson by trying to promote the idea that there is equal blame to be shared across the political spectrum for the Rhetoric that seems to have brought us to this point. But of course, we all know that is utter and complete nonsense. On the basic premise that having one sid...

Gohmert drafts bill to allow guns on House floor
Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert says his office is drafting a measure to allow members of Congress to carry guns in the District of Columbia, including in the Capitol and on the House floor. Gohmert says he and his colleagues need to be able to protect themselves, in light of the Mass Shooting in Arizona. “It’d be a good thing for members of Congress who want to carry a weapon in the District,” he said. “I know friends that walk home from the Capitol. There’s ...

Sheriff Dupnik faces reelection bid August 28, 2012
In response to a query by the L.A. County Libertarian Examiner,  Pima County Arizona election officials have confirmed that Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik will next be up for election in 2012. Mary Martinson, of Pima County Elections prompty replied to our question and said "The Sheriff in Pima County is up every 4 years. The Sheriff’s term is 4 years. The next time he (Dupnik) will be up for election is August 28, 2012." Republican Arizona State Senator Jack W. Harp...