Arizona Shooting

This is not an isolated, rare case. Annually, people with untreated schizophrenia and bipolar disorder commit 1,000 homicides, out of total 20,000, and 9,000 self-murders (suicides). There are 7.7 million Americans, 3.3% of the adult population, with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Half of them are undiagnosed and untreated. There are almost 4 million potential time bombs, of whom 200K are homeless (33% of the homeless) and 300K are in jail (17% of prisoners). Selling guns to psychos is bad public policy. We do it because they cannot be identified by sight or conversation. As former Special Ops, I'm not afraid of guns. I'm also not so insecure I feel the need to own one, despite having been shot at a few times. I have a handgun I found, but I never bothered to buy ammunition for it. I see this as sufficient evidence civilians shouldn't be allowed to own guns. There is no NEED for them. Cowardly people want them as security blankets. For hunters, I like the Japanese approach o... Read more

This was very tragic. Opened our eyes to many things that need to be taken care of in the "system"

Another deranged criminal type at work. It's gonna happen, folks.

The only thing I think we can agree on: that guy was bats!@# crazy. Politics aside, the guy was just plain insane. It's our nature to read into it things as possible. Humans seek patterns, to make sense of the world. So we immediately see ties into things that could have set him off, blaming something that is the opposite of our own political views as an "argument". And the media feeds on it, looking for any obscure connection with his life that might make for a good headline, we read about it and argue, and it goes on . . . . But the only thing we have that we're sure of is some kook that had a bizarre view of the idea of language that just snapped, and ended up killing and hurting a lot of innocent people.

Tragic event and loss of life at the hands of yet another mentally unstable person. Unfortunately, politicians will use this event as a stepping stone in a failed attempt to advance their agendas and it, like Columbine and VT, will be buried as a footnote in the media by meaningless happenings. Time will wither its significance.

Sure made Sarah Palin and her "crosshairs" look like a real douchbag! Which she is, shooting or not

The shooting just shows how fucked up people are. The story has been politicized beyond belief, and while the attack might not have been politically motivated, it makes me hate politics even more. The tragedy is that people lost their lives.

Regular civilians and politicial figures got shot. Some of them died. In other countries this event would not even be news worthy. Yes it is unfortunate; however, what is the impact upon the global function of the world? I am trying to view the shooting from an unbias and foreign perspective versus an emotional and patriotic perspective. However, thanks to this Jared wack job now here in the united states it is going to be a witch hunt for lunatics and maniacs. In other words, after events like these Americans tend to lose freedoms because the shock of such an event reoccuring seems possible. Personally I am a fan of freedom of speech.

I think the whole event was very sad. At least they got the nutcase off the street. But that doesn't bring back the innocent lives he took. And I hope Congresswoman Giffords and all the rest of the survivors have a speedy recovery.

Early in 2011 to be sure, and I could be wrong about this, but I don't see this story dying. To even begin the conversation of the possibility of violent political rhetoric as (perhaps) augmenting the imbalance of a crazy nutbag has been met with the oh-so-predictable "that's the lee-brul media". . .even the conversation of whether or not that has anything to do with this has been met with the "reload" mentality. Even this loser did a lousy job at political murder - Gifford's gonna make it. Let's see if this story dies down during re-election cycle. Hey repubs, still gonna keep your lovely websites with demos in crosshairs? They'll make great re-election campaign ads. . . This might fade as a story. . .but I don't see it yet. To be re-evaluated in June-ish. . .

When I first heard about it, I was sure that it was some crazy, Palin loving, gun toting loon who was prepared to stop those liberal traitors by any means necessary. Now it appears that this isn't the case. While the slaughter has to be considered political given the nature of the target, it seems like this was just some crazy, messed up dude with a glock. Brutal and heartbreaking, yes. Avoidable and with any meaningful lessons for the future? I'm not so sure.

Tragedy turned into a political event. What else is new? I think the Dems picked up a couple of points in the polls. I thought we were going to see a memorial service tonight...looked more like a pep rally. GO DEMS!

Three factors make this event overwhelmingly significant: the target, the location, and the media environment. Not only did we have an assassination plot which very nearly succeeded, but it happened in Arizona, our very own modern-day "Bleeding Kansas." Arizona's recent extremist politics has made it difficult for anyone to occupy the middle ground, and Giffords has become the symbol of that excluded middle. And our crazy news cycle forces people to take up positions really quickly. Giffords as the nearly murdered moderate is very symbolically potent. Our country was born in a civil war between revolutionaries and royalists, suffered through maybe the worst war in the 19th century, and now constructs itself as red versus blue. While as individuals we all like to call ourselves middle class, we usually imagine the rest of the country in these kind of dualistic, us-versus-them terms. (What other modern country has only two political parties?) The only problem with all of this is that t... Read more

My condolences go out to the families of those lives that were tragically ended, and my prayers go out to Congresswoman Giffords and her loved ones.

Please scroll down and read Abicharas excellent take on this. Personally, I am sad for the people who got shot and their families,and even feel for the parents of the killer.While the perp is obviously a disturbed individual,it's ludicrous to claim that this event was "not political".I do not hold Palin or Beck personally responsible,yet rhetoric such as theirs can not help but inflame their listeners,many of whom are not playing with a full deck.Tea Party candidates,especially the woman who ran against Harry Reid in Nevada & lost,have made it fashionable to wear guns to political rallies,and ranted on about how when voting doesn't work, we'll have to use "A SECOND AMENDMENT SOLUTION".That's pretty much saying that bullets will fly.Long before the recent shooting,when listening to these assholes,I said to myself,"someone is going to act on this".I'm not the least bit pleased to be right.

Just another Saturday afternoon at the mall in Anytown, USA.

This is pretty significant in that many innocent people lost their lives. Their families are left to deal with the senselessness of it all. While I personally subscribe to the "lone gunmen" theory, this event will continue to be politicized by the lazier members of the press. Vultures never miss a fresh kill. The media will run with this story until the populace is sick of hearing about it. A tragedy in itself as this will cause us to forget about the innocent lives lost.

A tragic situation that became excessively politicized, because of who the main target was. But as I pointed out in an earlier thread, the problem runs far deeper, and it won't be remedied with more gun laws or banning forms of political speech, or any other type of legislation. It is a problem that is far more difficult to get at. In fact, it could be fairly stated that the problem is largely spiritual in orientation. This incident, along with the recent spate of school shootings, the terrorist attacks on major cities throughout the world (including 9/11 NYC attacks, Mumbai, London, Madrid, etc.), and suicide bombings all have a common denominator: the perpetrators of the crimes in question all suffered from an extreme form of nihilism that fundamentally disregards human life, cheapens it. It is a war against civilians and innocents first and foremost. Even though they come from different faith traditions and hold different political views, they all have in common the will to ... Read more

I'm sure people are going to have a bit to say about it. I'm kinda done talking about it, myself, so this will have to do...

A couple of days after the event, this seems highly significant. However, given the vagaries of the instantaneous news cycle and the goldfish attention span of the average person, I suspect that by year's end this will have faded into just another vague and ugly memory, as so many other mass murders have before.