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Looking for a p.c. villain in the Arizona shooting

by

Byron York contrasts the media reaction to the Fort Hood shooting in 2009 and the Arizona shooting in 2011.  In the recent shootings,

. . .  media outlets were also filled with speculation about the attack and pronouncements on the state of American political rhetoric.  What a markedly different situation from 15 months earlier when, in the face of actual evidence that Maj. Hasan was inspired by Islamist convictions, many media commentators sought to be voices of caution. Where was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE:  As expected, the Jewish Athena gets it:

The horrific shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), the death of six (including a 9 year old and a federal judge) and the injuring of a total of 18 revealed the best and the worst in American politics.

First, let’s look at the best. President Obama issued an eloquent statement as did Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor. . . .

Then there are those who conducted themselves with far less dignity, namely partisan leftists and a segment of the blogosphere. The shooter seems to have no agenda, unless you conclude that a mix of conspiratorial rantings about currency and a fondness for the writings of both Hitler and Karl Marx represent some coherent ideology.

Just read the whole thing.  (H/t:  Instapundit.)

Comments

  1. Amazing. But not really. Your side is always on about ‘let’s not play the blame game,’ when it’s your your right wing whackjobs that have been insinuating that the violent overthrow of the government is a viable option: Angle, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Arizona’s gun-toting pastor Steven Anderson who leads prayers for the deaths of enemies, including the President and gay people.

    For the first time in ages, the 28 year veteran of slopping at the public trough (while losing track of how many houses he owns) John McCain got something right: “”Whoever did this, whatever their reason, they are a disgrace to Arizona, this country and the human race, and they deserve and will receive the contempt of all decent people and the strongest punishment of the law.”

  2. “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

    “The vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business … This has not become the nice United States that most of us grew up in.”

    ~ Clarence W Dupnik, the Sheriff of Pima County, Arizona

  3. Auntie D,
    I guess you haven’t seen any of this mornings headlines. The mentally unbalanced shooter was an ardent leftist. He was denied enrollment in the United States military because of subversive socialist pronouncements.

    So, all of that in mind, I am very, very unclear as to were your vitriolic attack on ‘right wing whackjobs’ comes from. It would seem to me the tyrannicidal elements of the US, currently live on your side of the street.

  6. It’s so disgusting the lack of compassion and the high level of ignorance being tossed around. How can justice be served if no one will see the situation for what it is and report it as such? Clearly this kid is suffering from some kind of paranoid schizophrenia, and this could have been prevented if had gotten some help. It’s tragic, but it’s not political and I really wish the finger pointing would stop. Jared Lee Loughner was sick. Plain and simple.

  8. Glenn Reynolds (http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/112816/) said it best:

    If you’re using this event to criticize the “rhetoric” of Sarah Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either asserting a connection between the “rhetoric” and the shooting — which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie — or you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. So which is it?

  9. Our young inexperiecedliberal President should comeout and denounce people like the shooter. Left winger who read the communist manifesto leading to him becoming unstable and hateful. Obama should rein in these hateful lefties and try to exert some control on the hateful language spewed from MSNBC, which can cause the unstable to go off unhinged. Obama can show true leadership by telling his far left that conservatives, even blue dog Democrats aren’t evil, but politically they just disagree with the socialist agenda. Behind the scenes, the govt should protect all conservative Democrats until they are sure this is just one crazy guy and not a conspericy to attack those who disagree with the far left of Obamas party.

  11. Two of the most hateful disgusting radcals on the left are Sargent Ed Shultz and Keith Oldermann of MSNBC. Some one in the press needs to get their reaction to a blue dog Democrat being gunned down in AZ. It was just a week ago that Schultz went off on conservative Dems and said “we don’t need em in the party, good riddance.”

  12. Now several of the Gay-Left bloggers like Towleroad are filtering any comments that don’t agree with their world-view. I swear, the Gay orthodox Left are more intolerant than anyone….

  14. I’m struggling with the issue of gun control. I just joined a gun club and bought a .22 to do target shooting. I love the sport, and the guys are all responsible, safe people. There are a lot of rules you have to learn to be a shooter and you are constantly reminded of safe firearm use. I hate to think of gun rights being taken away from responsible gun owners.

    On the other hand, I hate to see 9-year-olds killed or hear about teenagers killing themselves. I had to have a background check to get my rifle and my handgun permit. I didn’t get the permit the same day. I don’t how crazy people get through the net. In one way, I can see that all guns should be outlawed so no more children get killed by crazy people with guns. But, in another way, it’s unfair to those who try to keep guns out of the hands of crazy people and who handle guns responsibly.

    I think that anyone whose gun ends up in the hands of a crazy man or an unsupervised teenager should be charged with the same crime as the one who uses the gun. If a teenager commits suicide with someone’s gun, the owner should be charged with murder or manslaughter.

    So, where did this guy get his gun? How thorough was the background check? If we are going to be allowed to own guns, then we have to be vigilant about who can own them.

  15. Ashpenaz – I think that we all agree that guns in the hands of crazy people are a bad thing.

    However, who gets to define crazy? Some people think TEA party people are crazy. So if you have a government in power that is hard left doesn’t like TEA party ideas, it could define that as “crazy talk” and take away guns.

    Likewise if you have a person espousing socialist values that a hard line right government doesn’t like those ideas – then it could determine that is “crazy talk” and deny guns to people with those beliefs.

    And then – it could come down to the political leanings of the mental health professional who determines what is crazy. If you have someone from the left evaluating someone espousing TEA party beliefs, then they could determine that person is “crazy.” Same goes for a mental health professional from the right treating someone espousing marxist ideals – they too could be branded as “crazy.”

    That’s the danger of broad based definitions.

  16. There are good people and bad people in the world. No matter how many times the good people may wish it, hope it, pray it, legislate it or kumbaya it, the bad people are still gonna be around. You can either deal with the reality of the situation or sit on your hands and moan and complain about it.

    The sad reality is that a rabid anti-semitic, lunatic nut from the left (his favorite books are Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto) that was upset that the Congresswoman (she’s my rep btw) wasn’t far enough to the left.

  17. Ash, the incident itself defeats your ‘being vigilant’ bit. It’s not like he said “I’m a crazy loon, I’d go postal, but wait, my gun’s illegal. I guess I won’t.”

  18. Why did Sportsman’s Warehouse sell him the gun? This guy had problems with the law. I went through a background check. Why didn’t he? Why didn’t it red flag him?

    Unless we want all our guns taken away, we have to enforce the laws on the books.

  19. The shooter is now labeled an anti semite. His politics are identical to those of MSNBC. But I would not lobby for MSNBC to be banned from the air waves or cable. Like skin headed nazis, it’s good to view them from a far and know true evil.

  20. I’m struggling with the issue of gun control.

    Dunno if it’s true: One of the early reports I heard was that armed security guards shot the guy and stopped him. One report said it was a guy in the crowd. Let’s say it was just a regular guy in the crowd carrying his piece as he’s allowed. Would you rather he didn’t have the gun and possibly let the guy get away?

    There’s many instances out there where folks with legal guns were able to stop crimes in progress and either stop the situation from getting worse and/or holding the suspect for LE.

    Folks always say that allowing people to carry makes America like the Old West. If you actually dig into the history of the west, it really wasn’t as violent as books and movies make it out to be. Why? Because people knew that others were carrying and few wanted to start shit. And of course states that have open carry laws have not turned into the Old West as predicted. Yeah there’s some bad apples, but for the most part, it’s not as bad as predicted.

  21. Ash – I don’t think this guy had been convicted of any felonies (or serious misdemeanors) so the background check would’ve been clean. He’s obviously a mental case (although I don’t think I’d let him off the hook on those grounds). I don’t know if he’d been treated for his mental issues but I can guarantee that the world would have a conniption if a serious mental history was used to deny anyone their rights.

    Oh, and gun control doesn’t work. Just take a look at Mexico or, for that matter, Chicago.

    Auntie – you’re full of sh*t (sorry to brush up against the rules; not sorry for the sentiment).

    I’ve heard more than one major Democrat spew major-league hate on the floor of the House/well of the Senate (troops are war criminals; Republicans want to kill granny/gays/blacks; conservatives want to starve children… whatever). And some of Obama’s pals certainly have a history advocating (and actively pursuing) the violent overthrow of our government.

    Neither is Frances Piven a tea-partier.

    http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/01/05/marxist-frances-fox-piven-calls-for-a-violent-uprising-against-the-american-system/

    I’ll give you a good example of liberal hate speech. Back in the 2006 election, Claire McCaskill (D-MO) told a predominately black audience that Bush botched the Katrina relief effort (which he didn’t) because he wanted black people to die. Is McCaskill just f-ing stupid? Or is she evil? There are no other possible answers.

    The libs have been telling blacks this drivel for 40+ years now. The result that entire generations of black kids have internalized this idea making their plight worse than anyone could have imagined. Do the Dems and their mouthpieces like the Revrum Sharpton or members of the CBC try to do any better? No.

    Even as the body count in black neighborhoods increases, year after year, and more and more black kids grow up with a terminal chip on their shoulders (making them unemployable)… the Revum Wrights and the Dems keep right on going. I’d bet money that even during days of Jim Crow, the average black person was safer that he is now… and little kids weren’t routinely hit by stray bullets while playing or sleeping in their own homes.

    PS: on a happier note, I read that the bullet doesn’t appear to have hit any major structures in Giffords’ brain… what a great day it will be for the country when she returns to her seat in the House.

  24. I’m struggling with the issue of gun control.

    Of course you are. The Constitution doesn’t “struggle” with it, it takes a clear position in favor of citizens owning guns… but we’ve established in previous debates / threads that you don’t find the Constitution terribly important, when it doesn’t say what you want.

    I hate to see 9-year-olds killed or hear about teenagers killing themselves.

    Good for you, you officially feel the same as everybody.

    I don’t how crazy people get through the net.

    … yet, doubtless, you will avoid drawing the inference that should be drawn, about the (lack of) efficacy of gun control, and of government controls in general.

    If we are going to be allowed to own guns, then we have to be vigilant about who can own them.

    A viewpoint which was shared by (and which, in historical context, worked to the benefit of) Louis XIV, George III, Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

    To be clear: I agree with common-sense efforts to keep guns out of the hands of the insane and convicted criminals. But let’s recognize that those efforts can never be made perfect… and that the tighter the gun controls, the more they only serve to disarm the sane and the law-abiding.

  25. (continued) Going back to the Constitution, the question is not (or should not be) who is “going to be allowed to own guns”. That is a rather statist viewpoint; its underlying premise is that the State morally controls all, and of its grace, may sometimes allow some of us to own guns. F*ck that. Under the Constitution, we all have a **right** to own guns. The proper question is whether, when and how the State should be allowed to impinge on our right, i.e. who “the State is going to be allowed to take guns from”.

  27. “If you actually dig into the history of the west, it really wasn’t as violent as books and movies make it out to be.”

    Exactly, TGC. Of course the eastern-establishment media’s going to make out that this tragedy was Arizona’s fault. But had this been a Tea Party gathering instead of a bunch of Democrats, the gunman probably would have been taken down before he was able to shoot 19 people.

    Wait, he never would have picked on a Tea Party event. Far from this being because he was one of them, it would have been because they would never have let his plot come off.

  28. This sheriff is really something. He doesn’t seem interested in discussing the case or the facts behind it. He seems more interested in having a soap box to vomit the liberal whining that people just aren’t nice anymore. Note that he doesn’t offer any examples of the so-called “vitriolic rhetoric” or whether it had anything to do with the case.

    He wants to be on TV to express his opinion instead. Is this really appropriate? Didn’t Mike Nifong do the same thing?

    http://video.foxnews.com/v/4490428/did-vitriol-on-airwaves-trigger-arizona-attack/

  29. Is it possible the sheriff is deflecting attention away from himself and his department? Were there warnings? Was the shooter on a left wing watch list? It sounds like another 30 people could have been shot, had bystanders not taken action. How close were law enforcement, why weren’t they closer to this public event? The sheriff may be deflecting the dummy media away from the truth.

  32. Yesterday I got ticked at the whole “Words Have Consequences” diatribe aimed at Palin… (Oh… can I still use the term “aim”?) and wrote this in response:

    “Jeez. I just can’t believe people can’t put politics aside for for just one moment. Consider that many of you have posted something on FB complaining that everyone has gotten too partisan. The grandstanding after this horrible shooting in AZ does nothing to decrease the hyper-partisanship we loath. And judging from some of the shooter’s writings, he’s a REAL socialist… And probably would have shot Palin too.”

    If you guessed that a ton of my liberal friends immediately started demanding “what the F*** is wrong with you… Words have consequences!!!!… Blah Blah Blah…” you would be absolutely right.

    Just after I posted that comment, I posted this, which, based on our knowledge of the effects and limits of the influence of mass media on human behavior, probably contains the larger kernel of truth:

    “MOVIES HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

    Why is no one criticizing any one of dozens of movies or TV shows that came out in the last year or so that showed a politician getting assassinated! Because.. You know.. That probably had a much bigger influence on Jared Lee Loughner than the political ad of one idiot screw-ball pol, with whom the shooter had… opposing political views.”

    Unlike the other comment… That got a grand total of one “like”.

    Draw your own conclusions.

    ————————————————————

    Since then, as expected, various versions of the “targeting” type ads and phrases used in Democratic ads and circles have been dug out of the internet graveyard by the right. I’m not going to post any links as you just need to google on this topic and you’l find plenty of stuff. One of the members of The Daily KOS has posted an almost heart felt apology:

    “Ifullyapologize to all the victims in this shooting, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, for my poor choice of words in thatdiary. I fully and respectfully apologize to this blog and to Markoshimselffor the bad publicity amongst the right wing this has caused. … ”

    …right up to the point where he again goes on the attack:

    “However, I have to offer a heartfelt ‘f— you’ to the right-wing blogs, for even mentioning my username here in any connection to that unspeakable and unthinkable horror.”

    Why? You did the same thing you’re maligning Palin and the right wing blogs about. You deserve to be called on it!

    Meanwhile…. It’s gets even worse… because Sarah Palin has been silent up to this point.

    Have their been some bright spots? Yes. Obama and Boehner have handled this with class, but the rest????

    I am completely disgusted by the behavior on both sides of the isle. They are sick and badly need to re-examine the values each side claims to have.

    And tomorrow, it’s only going to get worse, as the talk radio flame war cycle is set to explode…. I’m just so disappointed by it all.

    I’ve never been more glad not to be a part of either ruling party.

  33. I kinda regret my previous post, but I stand by its essential point. The left has a sad and unfortunate habit of excusing violence when its done in the progressive cause. (Bill Ayers, Sara Jane Olson, Al Sharpton, Mumia Jamal, the FALN terrorists pardoned by Bill Clinton…)

  34. The left seems to be segueing into some sort of bastardized morality play saying that we all should be careful of what we say.

    I’m not buying it.

    After all the bullshit they’ve been shoveling for the past decade, they’re suddenly going to take some sort of high ground? The people that THRIVE on anger, hate, rage, division and lies is saying “enough”? Please. Seems to me that they can dish it out, but when people get fed up with them and start pushing back, they wet their panties.

    They’ll forget about it by Wednesday, if not sooner. Bathtub Boy or the low-rated fat idiot will pop off about something and it will all be forgotten.

  36. No responsible gun owner would think this guy should be able to buy a gun. The fact that he was suspended from a community college for disruptive behavior should have come up on his background check. People with drug and mental problems shouldn’t be allowed to purchase guns. I think the store that sold him the gun should be charged with his crime.

  38. The fact that he was suspended from a community college for disruptive behavior should have come up on his background check.

    What background check would that be?

    I think the store that sold him the gun should be charged with his crime.

    So you’re keen on absolving him of any responsibility?

  40. The left seems to be segueing into some sort of bastardized morality play saying that we all should be careful of what we say.

    Then they can start by taking out(* metaphor) Keith Olberman.

  41. I am pretty sure being expelled from college is not a criminal offense. I am also pretty sure mental illness is covered under rules protecting the privacy of medical information. Therefore, there would have been no public record available to indicate he was a threat.

  43. Unless the gun store knowingly violated the law, making them responsible for one of their customers’ actions cannot be included in the “common-sense efforts to keep guns out of the hands of the insane and convicted criminals” that I support.

  44. If they’re going to start punishing gun store owners for what people do with the weapons they purchase there, why don’t they just go ahead and punish car dealerships for selling vehicles to people who drive drunk and kill people in accidents?

    I’d better be careful who hears me ask that question. Pretty soon the Left will be advocating exactly that.

  45. #48 Well, they already want to punish gun shop owners because the Mexicans fabricated a lie that all the weapons the cartels have came from American stores.

    I’m sure Los Zetas pop into the local Academy store on their way to a beheading. Just don’t ask where their RPGs come from or ask to see the receipts. That would be inconvenient.

  46. Makes you wonder about the effectiveness of all those .gov ads re: mental health. Still don’t understand the back shaving one, except that you’d have to be crazy to do that (especially whilst eating cereal).

  47. Stop the presses!!!!! This is from the Jan 10 WSJ:

    “All he did was play video games and play music,” said Tommy Marriotti, a high school friend. Mr. Marriotti said much of Mr. Loughner’s free time was devoted to the school band. He wasn’t especially political, Mr. Marriotti said, though he expressed frustration with the Bush Administration.

    Now the left-o-whacks have what they most treasure: Bush made him do it.

  49. he expressed frustration with the Bush Administration

    Since much of what the Left said about Bush was lies all along – for example, “BUSH LIED!!!(tm)” was in itself a lie; or 9-11 Trutherism is a lie, and some reports say Loughner was into Trutherism – then perhaps “the Left made Loughner do it”?

  50. Why didn’t the fact that he failed a drug text when enlisting in the Army come up on his background check? There is no reason a guy like this should be able to buy a gun.

    Ok, the store owner is absolved if he submitted a background check and it came up fine. If the state of Arizona is OK with guys like this being able to buy guns, then the state of Arizona is responsible.

  51. Why didn’t the fact that he failed a drug text when enlisting in the Army come up on his background check?

    Yes, considering the utter GOODNESS and EFFICIENCY of government, and the fact that All Good Things have government as their ultimate Source, it is truly inexplicable.

  52. the store owner… the state of Arizona… [who is] responsible[?]

    Ash, try this one on for size. Just try it on. Consider it. How about LOUGHNER being responsible for his own actions? (Drug user or not.)

  53. A drug test is considered a private health record; thus, it cannot be divulged in most cases without express written authorization from the person, and even then only to a very limited list of people (usually the person’s health care provider and insurer).

    Hence, disclosing the test results would likely be against current law.

  56. People with mental problems are not responsible for their own actions

    Only in the severest cases. What people today call “mental problems” colloquially (meaning emotional, drug and/or family problems) in no way absolve a person of responsibility for their actions.

    And anyway, it’s for a jury to decide. Loughner will get his day in the court system – probably several of them. We will find out how bad his “mental problems” really are. Your wish to find others to blame for Loughner’s actions shows that you have jumped the gun, so to speak.

  57. Funny, I don’t see that in my enumerated powers in the constitution., Ash.

    That, too. Again: the Constitution makes clear that we all have a *right* to own guns, and that people can be deprived of rights only by due process – i.e., only *after* a process of law in which it is proven that they are criminal, dangerously insane, etc.

  58. I wonder if law enforcement thought to immediately protect the other 18 members of congress, the other blue dog Democrats who voted against Pelosi as speaker.
    Also do you think Calif will rethink it’s liberal pot access, now that a daily pot smoker has gone off the rails and was a mass killer?

  59. The Constitution guarantees us protection from threats foreign and domestic. A guy with mental and drug problems who has threatened public officials is a domestic threat and it is the job of the State to not let this person own a gun.

  60. We need to ask the Democrat Sheriff how his dept reacted to the many threats issued by this gunman. We need to ask President Obama if he wished now he had spent some of the $900 billion dollar stimulus on real mental heath reforms. Instead of totally wasting it.
    I dont’ want to cite blame here but I thought at the time it was awefully odd that a sheriff would blame the media of any kind first, then the shooter for these crimes. It turns out the police knew about the gunman, he had made lots of previous threats, and the sheriffs dept had taken no action. And made no attempt to guard the congresswoman more closely.

  64. The Constitution guarantees us protection from threats foreign and domestic

    Ash, you are confusing the Constitution with the Federal Oath of Office wherein federal officials swear to protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. The Constitution itself guarantees no such thing.

  66. What Ash doesn’t realize is this guy passed the background checks. So, strangely enough, his vaunted government system failed. So he wants more government.

    Ash would be the guy saying the Titanic needs more ice.

  69. Well, there’s a MoJo article where they interviewed a friend. He says that Loughman, or whatever, hadn’t smoked weed since 2008 or 2009, but hadn’t seen him in about that long. Further, wasn’t there something with the Virginia Tech guy where privacy laws prevented much being done with him? I’ll have to go back and look. I would imagine that might play into it as well.

    Also, who said that they were OK with it? It’s just that there probably isn’t a whole hell of a lot that could have been done, I would guess.

  70. TGC, what Ash fails to see is that part of having freedoms, is there’s going to be a guy somewhere who abuses them.

    There’s a place where they restrict everyone’s freedoms to insure that people don’t harm one another. That’s called North Korea.

  71. Here are the books Loughner listed as his favorites:

    Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

    TalkingPointsMemo smacks Glenn Beck for trying to bias the picture of Loughner by only mentioning The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf while “conveniently” ignoring We the Living.

    Any moderately educated person should be able to see the drift of this psycho’s mind. The loner consumed with the flaws in the mechanics of utopian ideals and a dreamscape desire for simplification. Maybe he didn’t get to Moby Dick, but it might well have fitted his view.

    Anyhow, he read his books, made up his mind and shot his way to fame.

  72. If Loughner were mentally ill to the point of not being responsible for his actions and that he should be denied his right to a gun, then he should have been *committed*… which is a process of law, in other words, *due process*.

    TNR and Ed Morrissey suggest that if anyone or anything other than Loughner is to blame for his rampage, it’s that he wasn’t committed: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/01/11/is-it-time-for-a-national-debate-on-the-mentally-ill/

    I say again: under the Constitution, each adult citizen has a right to own a gun. The question is not “who are we going to allow to own a gun”. Rather, it is “whom are we going to allow the State to restrict”. We can deny individuals their rights (only) by due process… i.e. by criminal conviction, a legal process of commitment, etc.

  73. (continued) And so yeah, maybe Loughner is mentally ill enough to not be responsible for his actions. Maybe. Then the failure would be either in the commitment laws, the people (both close to him, and/or in government) who didn’t exert themselves to get him committed under the law, or some combination.