Gunman attacks political event in Tucson, 12 wounded.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Little cunt's a coward as well, she changed her avatar to avoid being singled out.

[Morilore]

From Yukon Barbie's Facebook page (which the admins have been having to work overtime to scrub criticisms from):



How nice that Tina King found some consolation in the death of a nine year old girl.

http://ww.reddit.com/r/politics/comment ... _overtime/
Tina King alleges that she was attempting satire. She also expresses the opinion that Sarah Palin and her political team are irresponsible in their rhetoric.

[bobalot]

This is fucking eerie.

[Highlord Laan]

So like any other reich-winger, once somebody calls her on her vile bullshit, she backpedals. A "joke?" I bet she finds throwing wadded up $1 bills at a Parkinson's patient amusing as well.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh no, stop blaming Sarah Palin and the right-wingers, guise. This was just the action of a lone lunatic. Certainly the months and years of aggravating rightwing smearing attempts, their divisive tactics, their overblown rhetoric, the Tea Party lunacy, and fuckheads bringing rifles to Zerobamasamabinladenarama (Balls! that's what we call him on the hill) town hall meetings and being lauded for it, certainly none of this has made for a political climate that encourages these things. The Dems expressed concerns about this kind of rhetoric, and now that very same Dem got shot in the face, but we totally shouldn't pay any heed to the crap the right wingers are shoveling, am i rite?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I... don't even see a way an insanity plea could be countered. ironically the Right Wing that would favor the death penalty and dismiss psychiatry as witchcraft really isn't on board with this one :roll:

Only if the defense can produce enough medical experts who can agree that he's actually insane. Instead of just being anti-government, associating with white-supremacists and anti-Semites, and couching his hatreds in rambling codespeak . . . who carefully plotted out an attack against Giffords . . . a Jewish Congresswoman who voted for a number of unpopular Big Government programs.

Let's look at the facts: He bought a gun back on 30 November. The gun of choice? A Glock 19, an easy-to-conceal, exceptionally reliable 9 mm which readily accepts the 30-round magazines from the LEO-only, fully-automatic Glock 18. Then he got proficient enough with his chosen weapon that, when the opportunity to act presented itself; he managed to headshot his target in his first shot from a draw, after forcing his way through a crowd, and then went on to shoot eighteen other people in thirty rounds. This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing inspired by a fit of insanity. I shudder to think what would've happened if he had more time to prepare, had shot Giffords a bit further to the right or at a slightly different angle, or if he hadn't happened upon retired ninjas who proceeded to disarm him after first being shot by him.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the best Loughner can hope for is to end up in the same Federal Supermax prison that the Unabomber is currently at.

incidentally, am I alone in the impression that the left can frame an issue just as effectively as the right? The media has been dumping on Palin for her "vitriolic" rhetoric and crosshairs and what not, but seriously, who was even using that word before yesterday when the Arizona Sheriff jumped on his soap box. I saw him at a press conference this morning respond to the question "Did Loughner say anything to suggest that a vitriolic environment contributed to his decision to carry out the shooting" (Or words to that effect"

Dupnik's position is understandable if you've spent any time, at all, in Arizona. Teabagger rhetoric and sentiment are especially strong here. In the last campaign, my mailbox was innundated with teabagger spam printed on glossy cardstock which pretty much came right out and asserted that Gabby Giffords was out to kill Granny and kill your job because she voted for Obamacare, and was a loyal lapdog for Emperor Palpatine Barack Hussein Osama Bin Obama and Darth Vader Pelosi. The other incidents involving Giffords go without mentioning. Hell, we're so much the teabagger paradise that the prosecution can't tack on a weapons charge to Loughner's rap sheet, because they made it perfectly legal for him to concealed-carry his murder weapon without having to go through any legal scrutiny at all.

And Dupnik was like "Well since you are asking specifically I have to answer specifically, I have to answer specifically... no..."

I was like FUCK! i really was looking at the entire issue as though the police knew or had heard something to the effect that the shooter was influenced by right wing rhetoric, NOW I find out it was just how you were feeling at the time?? :wtf:

i mean it's certainly true that inflammatory rhetoric doesn't help, and what not but MY argument at least, that this was a result of that, was based heavily on his statement.

Seriously both sides need to stick to facts. The media needs to report jsut facts. And it wouldn't be a terrible idea if various media personalities would stop getting on their damn soap box about media personalities getting on their soap box :wtf:

I'm looking at Olbermann here..

Loughner's been absolutely uncooperative with authorities since his arrest. He's invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and hasn't really said anything at all.

[MKSheppard]

So I've been reading the Washington Post's coverage of this case this morning.

They had a brief side story on AZ's 'lax' gun control laws; never mind that Loughner was over 21 and could purchase pistols under federal law; and passed the background check when he bought the G19.

For those of you who don't know american gun laws, you have to sign this each time you buy a gun from a FFL:

Form 4473

11(f) is the revelant section:

Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes a determination by a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority that you are a danger to yourself or to others or are incompetent to manage your own affairs) OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?

There are about 394,000 records in the NICS' Mental Defective File (I love that name) of people who are prohibited from gun ownership and will be denied on the instant check.

The problem was that nobody was willing to pull the trigger (groan) on Loughner, despite stuff like this:

link

Jared Loughner's behavior recorded by college classmate in e-mails
By David A. Fahrenthold

In early June, Lynda Sorenson, 52, had gone back to community college in Tucson in hopes of getting back on the job market. One of her classes was a basic algebra class--and one of her classmates was Jared Loughner, now identified by authorities as the man who killed six people and critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in a shooting rampage Saturday. Sorenson's e-mails to friends from last summer, provided to the Washington Post, reveal her growing alarm at Loughner's strange and disruptive
behavior in class.

From June 1, the first day of class:
"One day down and nineteen to go. We do have one student in the class who was disruptive today, I'm not certain yet if he was on drugs (as one person surmised) or disturbed. He scares me a bit. The teacher tried to throw him out and he refused to go, so I talked to the teacher afterward. Hopefully he will be out of class very soon, and not come back with an automatic weapon."

From June 10:
"As for me, Thursday means the end to week two of algebra class. It seems to be going by quickly, but then I do have three weeks to go so we'll see how I feel by then. Class isn't dull as we have a seriously disturbed student in the class, and they are trying to figure out how to get rid of him before he does something bad, but on the other hand, until he does something bad, you can't do anything about him. Needless to say, I sit by
the door."

From June 14:
"We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird. I sit by the door with my purse handy. If you see it on the news one night, know that I got out fast..."

The class's instructor, Ben McGahee, said in an interview Sunday that Loughner had been removed from class in its third or fourth week, because of repeated disruptions.

Link

McGahee said Loughner disrupted his very first class by yelling, "How can you deny math instead of accepting it?" In later classes, he shouted, listened to his MP3 player and wrote nonsensical answers on his tests. One said "Eat + Sleep + Brush Teeth = Math."

McGahee said he sought repeatedly for college officials to remove Loughner, but they did not.

"They just said, 'Well, he hasn't taken any action to hurt anyone. He hasn't provoked anybody. He hasn't brought any weapons to class,' " McGahee recalled. " 'We'll just wait until he takes that next step.' "

College officials did not respond to questions about McGahee's account on Sunday. After about three weeks of class, McGahee said, there was a final confrontation: Loughner arrived and pointed to a copy of the U.S. Constitution on the wall.

" 'You're violating my First Amendment right of free speech,' " McGahee recalled him saying."That's when I went to go get the dean." A college official came, and Loughner was removed permanently from the class.

He was not suspended from the school for another few weeks, until college officials discovered Sept. 29 that he had posted a video on YouTube calling the college "unconstitutional." After that, Loughner agreed to withdraw.

What good does the Mental Defective File do if nobody is willing to sign off on the committment papers for a clear case like this?

[MKSheppard]

You know, in many ways I'm struck by the similarity to the VTech case.

Except in the VTech case, the guy WAS declared mentally ill by a panel.

However, back then the linkage between mental illness/NCIS wasn't as strong or clearly defined as yet; so Cho managed to skirt through it. Of course, they did pass laws afterwards to change that.

[MKSheppard]

And apparently Loughner's fixtation with Giffords began three years back in 2007:

Link

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.

"He was like ... 'What do you think of these people who are working for the government and they can't describe what they do?'" one friend told The Associated Press on Sunday. "He did not like government officials, how they spoke. Like they were just trying to cover up some conspiracy."

Oh yes, the same article shows more of the weapons grade crazy:

He frequently used "if-then" constructions in making nonsensical arguments. For instance: "If the living space is able to maintain the crews life at a temperature of -454F then the human body is alive in the NASA Space Shuttle. The human body isn't alive in the NASA Space Shuttle. Thus, the living space isn't able to maintain the crews life at a temperature of -454F."

Oh, and he was also a 9/11 troofer for additional icing on the cake of crazy.

[MKSheppard]

The shooter posted on Above Top Secret as "erad3".

Some of his greatest (misses) were:

Questioning Time
Space Travel is Impossibul
Mars Rovers Faked
Infinite Source of Currency!

He also contributed to other threads such as:

HERE I
HERE II

[Aaron]

Sums it all up really:

reply posted on 12-7-2010 @ 06:37 AM by Chadwickus
What the hell are you talking about?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

To play the devil's advocate for a moment . . . isn't all this evidence of Loughner's possibly tenuous grasp on reality an argument for more control of access to weaponry? I mean, what good is filling out the NCIS instant background check form when you can lie on whatever entries don't flatter you (like Loughner apparently did,) and can get away with it as long as you were never caught before (as Loughner had)? One would have to think that if one needed to have a firearms license, complete with classroom instruction, safety training, periodic renewal requirements, and a basic psych evaluation, before even being allowed to buy a gun . . . that someone like Jared Loughner would've been revealed to be untrustworthy with a toy cap-gun, let alone a Glock 19.

I read that someone intends to introduce legislation in Congress to revisit the old AWB ban on "high-capacity" magazines (not that Loughner having only a 10-round magazine, or even a five-shot snub-nosed revolver, would've made things materially better for Giffords,) but again, legislation like the AWB, or restrictions on high-capacity magazines, or types of guns, or whatever else masks the fundamental problem . . . it's too easy for any jackass to legally get his hands on a gun.

[Morilore]

So like any other reich-winger, once somebody calls her on her vile bullshit, she backpedals. A "joke?" I bet she finds throwing wadded up $1 bills at a Parkinson's patient amusing as well.

Look at the picture linked to in the Reddit page. Scroll to the bottom.

[Ritterin Sophia]

whatever else masks the fundamental problem

You realize that you just admitted that your 'solution' is nothing more than a feel-good measure that distracts from the real causes of the crime? How about instead of wasting time and money on pointlessly restricting the rights of law abiding citizens we just have the fuckers committed when they show such obvious signs of instability that teachers are throwing them out of class for insane rants and terrifying the student body by their mere presence or make it a matter of policy that when someone does something like that they're put on a watch list, eh?

Look at the picture linked to in the Reddit page. Scroll to the bottom.

It would appear someone was dumb enough to tempt Poe's Law.

[Civil War Man]

I read that someone intends to introduce legislation in Congress to revisit the old AWB ban on "high-capacity" magazines (not that Loughner having only a 10-round magazine, or even a five-shot snub-nosed revolver, would've made things materially better for Giffords,) but again, legislation like the AWB, or restrictions on high-capacity magazines, or types of guns, or whatever else masks the fundamental problem . . . it's too easy for any jackass to legally get his hands on a gun.

Loughner only having a 10 round magazine or a 5-shot revolver wouldn't have made things better for Giffords, but it would have made it a lot harder for him to harm other people in the crowd. That's probably the rationale behind bringing up restrictions on high capacity magazines.

That said, I do agree with you that the real problem is that he was able to get a gun in the first place.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

whatever else masks the fundamental problem

You realize that you just admitted that your 'solution' is nothing more than a feel-good measure that distracts from the real causes of the crime? How about instead of wasting time and money on pointlessly restricting the rights of law abiding citizens we just have the fuckers committed when they show such obvious signs of instability that teachers are throwing them out of class for insane rants and terrifying the student body by their mere presence or make it a matter of policy that when someone does something like that they're put on a watch list, eh? :|

Now how is making someone demonstrate that they are competent enough to be trusted with a dangerous weapon, and cognizant of the safety concerns, "pointlessly restricting" the rights of law abiding citizens? A law-abiding citizen has the right to not have to feel threatened just because some people in the United States think that what was good for the wild frontier of 18th century America is good for crowded, urbanized, 21st century America. A law-abiding citizen shouldn't have the right to own a deadly weapon any more than he has the right to drive a two ton guided missile. It should be viewed as a privilege accorded only to those willing to invest the time and effort necessary to convincingly demonstrate a firm grasp of the potential consequences. I would expect that a basement-dwelling parental parasite like Loughner would've had the wind taken out of his sails if he had to invest half a year of his time and a non-trivial sum of his money just to be licensed to buy a gun; regardless of his grasp on reality.

And yes, the system dropped the ball with Loughner. It should've been possible for the college to file a formal criminal complaint against him, to be remanded for psychiatric evaluation. His criminal charge for possession of drug paraphernalia should've raised big red flags in NICS that would've put a hold on his ability to have a firearm transferred into his possession . . . regardless of how the case was dispositioned (instead of never coming up because he got the charges dismissed by completing a class.) All of this is not evidence against the assertion that it is way too easy for someone to legally purchase a firearm; especially someone like him.

[Isolder74]

The shooter posted on Above Top Secret as "erad3".

Some of his greatest (misses) were:

Questioning Time
Space Travel is Impossibul
Mars Rovers Faked
Infinite Source of Currency!

He also contributed to other threads such as:

HERE I
HERE II

Man I need a flow chart just to try and figure out what this maroon is even trying to say. The Space travel one is the worst. Not only is his figures for temp colder then it's possible but he can't grasp the concepts involved in pressurizing a cabin and insulating it. By his logic, since it's 25 F outside my house the inside of the house should be at 25 F.

Sums it all up really:

reply posted on 12-7-2010 @ 06:37 AM by Chadwickus
What the hell are you talking about?

I guess that's his winning debate strategy. Put together his statements in such a convoluted way that no one can refute it because they have no clue what he is trying to say.

[MKSheppard]

Mother Jones interview with one of the shooter's 'friends'

Exclusive: Loughner Friend Explains Alleged Gunman's Grudge Against Giffords
A longtime friend shares a message sent hours before the massacre.
By Nick Baumann | Mon Jan. 10, 2011 12:01 AM PST

At 2:00 a.m. on Saturday—about eight hours before he allegedly killed six people and wounded 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), in Tucson—Jared Lee Loughner phoned an old and close friend with whom he had gone to high school and college. The friend, Bryce Tierney, was up late watching TV, but he didn't answer the call. When he later checked his voice mail, he heard a simple message from Loughner: "Hey man, it's Jared. Me and you had good times. Peace out. Later."

That was it. But later in the day, when Tierney first heard about the Tucson massacre, he had a sickening feeling: "They hadn't released the name, but I said, 'Holy shit, I think it's Jared that did it.'" Tierney tells Mother Jones in an exclusive interview that Loughner held a years-long grudge against Giffords and had repeatedly derided her as a "fake." Loughner's animus toward Giffords intensified after he attended one of her campaign events and she did not, in his view, sufficiently answer a question he had posed, Tierney says. He also describes Loughner as being obsessed with "lucid dreaming"—that is, the idea that conscious dreams are an alternative reality that a person can inhabit and control—and says Loughner became "more interested in this world than our reality." Tierney adds, "I saw his dream journal once. That's the golden piece of evidence. You want to know what goes on in Jared Loughner's mind, there's a dream journal that will tell you everything."

On Sunday, federal prosecutors charged 22-year-old Loughner [1] with one count of attempting to assassinate a member of Congress, two counts of unlawfully killing a federal employee, and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. Giffords was the target of Loughner's rampage, prosecutors say, and the sworn affidavit accompanying the charges mentions that Loughner attended a Giffords "Congress in Your Corner" event in 2007. The affidavit also mentions that police searching a safe in Loughner's home found a letter from Giffords' office thanking the alleged shooter for attending an August 25, 2007 event.*

Tierney, who's also 22, recalls Loughner complaining about a Giffords event he attended during that period. He's unsure whether it was the same one mentioned in the charges—Loughner "might have gone to some other rallies," he says—but Tierney notes it was a significant moment for Loughner: "He told me that she opened up the floor for questions and he asked a question. The question was, 'What is government if words have no meaning?'"

"He said, 'Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question.' Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her."

Giffords' answer, whatever it was, didn't satisfy Loughner. "He said, 'Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question,' and I told him, 'Dude, no one's going to answer that,'" Tierney recalls. "Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her."

Tierney says he has "no clue" why Loughner might have "shot all those other people." But, he notes, "when I heard Gabrielle Giffords has been shot, I was like 'Oh my God...' For some reason I felt like I knew...I felt like if anyone was going to shoot her, it would be Jared."

Loughner would occasionally mention Giffords, according to Tierney: "It wasn't a day-in, day-out thing, but maybe once in a while, if Giffords did something that was ridiculous or passed some stupid law or did something stupid, he related that to people. But the thing I remember most is just that question. I don't remember him stalking her or anything." Tierney notes that Loughner did not display any specific political or ideological bent: "It wasn't like he was in a certain party or went to rallies...It's not like he'd go on political rants." But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is "fucking us over." He never heard Loughner vent about about the perils of "currency," as Loughner did on one YouTube video he created [2].

Tierney, who first met Loughner in middle school, recalls that Loughner started to act strange around his junior or senior year of high school. Before that, Loughner was just a "normal kid," says Tierney. When the two friends started hanging out in sophomore year of high school, "there was nothing really dark about Jared," Tierney says. "He was playing drums, doing band things, playing sax. He was raised on writing and reading music." Loughner also did a lot of creative writing in his high school days, Tierney says, and he used to carry around a copy of a short story he wrote involving a character named Angel; he'd ask people if they would like to read it. "It had a lot of hidden metaphors in it," Tierney says.

Loughner would tell Tierney and his friends that life "means nothing."

As Loughner and Tierney grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner's "nihilist" view of the world. "By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion," Tierney says. Once, Tierney recalls, Loughner told him, "I'm pretty sure I've come to the conclusion that words mean nothing." Loughner would also tell Tierney and his friends that life "means nothing," and they'd reply, "If it means nothing, what you're saying means nothing." Other times, Tierney says, Loughner acted like any teen: "We'd go to concerts, play music, get into trouble."

Tierney believes that Loughner was very interested in pushing people's buttons—and that may have been why he listed Hitler's Mein Kampf as one of his favorite books on his YouTube page [3]. (Loughner's mom is Jewish, according to Tierney.) Loughner sometimes approached strangers and would say "weird" things, Tierney recalls. "He would do it because he thought people were below him and he knew they wouldn't know what he was talking about."

In college, Loughner became increasingly intrigued with "lucid dreaming," and he grew convinced that he could control his dreams, according to Tierney. In a series of rambling videos posted to his YouTube page, dreams are a frequent topic. In a video posted on December 15, Loughner writes, "My favorite activity is conscience dreaming: the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don't dream—sadly." In another video, he writes, "The population of dreamers in the United States of America is less than 5%!" Later in the same video he says, "I'm a sleepwalker—who turns off the alarm clock."

"When you realize you're dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything."

Loughner believed that dreams could be a sort of alternative, Matrix-style reality, and "that when you realize you're dreaming, you can do anything, you can create anything," Tierney says. Loughner started his "dream journal" in an attempt to take more control of his dreams, his friend notes, and he kept this journal for over a year.

In October 2008, Tierney was living in Phoenix, and Loughner came to visit. They went to see a Mars Volta concert with friends, and Tierney was surprised when Loughner said he had quit partying "completely." Loughner, according to Tierney, said, "I'm going to lead a more healthy lifestyle, not smoke cigarettes or pot anymore, and I'm going to start working out." Tierney was happy for his friend: "I said, 'Dude, that's awesome.' And the next time I saw him he was 10 pounds lighter." Tierney never saw Loughner smoke marijuana again, and he was surprised at media reports that Loughner had been rejected from the military in 2009 for failing a drug test: "He was clean, clean. I saw him after that continuously. He would not do it."

After Loughner apparently gave up drugs and booze, "his theories got worse," Tierney says. "After he quit, he was just off the wall." And Loughner started to drift away from his group of friends about a year ago. By early 2010, dreaming had become Loughner's "waking life, his reality," Tierney says. "He sort of drifted off, didn't really care about hanging out with friends. He'd be sleeping a lot." Loughner's alternate reality was attractive, Tierney says. "He figured out he could fly." Loughner, according to Tierney, told his friends, "I'm so into it because I can create things and fly. I'm everything I'm not in this world."

"He figured out he could fly."

But in this world, Loughner seemed ticked off by what he believed to be a pervasive authoritarianism. "The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar," he wrote in one YouTube video. In another, Loughner complains that when he tried to join the military, he was handed a "mini-Bible." That upset him: "I didn't write a belief on my Army application and the recruiter wrote on the application: None," he wrote on YouTube. In messages on MySpace last month, Loughner declared, "I'll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow." He also noted on the website, "I don't feel good: I'm ready to kill a police officer! I can say it."

One of the last times Loughner and Tierney saw each other, a mutual friend had recently purchased a .22-caliber rifle. Until then, Loughner had never shown much interest in guns, Tierney says. "My friend had just gotten a .22, and Jared kept saying we should go shooting together." But Tierney and the friend who had bought the .22 demurred. "We were sketched out," Tierney says, "and we were like, 'I don't think Jared's a good person to go shooting with.'" That was in February or March 2010. After that, Tierney didn't hear much from Loughner.

Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. "More chaos, maybe," he says. "I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening. He wants all of that." Tierney thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He fucks things up to fuck shit up, there's no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: 'Another Saturday, going to go get groceries'—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in."

Tierney dwells on the phone call he missed early Saturday morning. But it was late, and the TV show Tierney was watching was creeping him out. So he didn't pick up. "I sort of wish I would have," he says. "I wonder what would have happened if I answered it."

*This sentence has been corrected to reflect that August 30, 2007 was the date of the letter, not the date of the event itself. The event was on August 25.

[FSTargetDrone]

Man I need a flow chart just to try and figure out what this maroon is even trying to say. The Space travel one is the worst. Not only is his figures for temp colder then it's possible but he can't grasp the concepts involved in pressurizing a cabin and insulating it. By his logic, since it's 25 F outside my house the inside of the house should be at 25 F.

<snip>

I guess that's his winning debate strategy. Put together his statements in such a convoluted way that no one can refute it because they have no clue what he is trying to say.

Don't waste even a moment more trying to find some logic behind these rantings. I scanned some of the stuff in the links Sheppard posted for less than 2 minutes and even that was enough. On one of his social networking sites, this clown claimed to have studied "grammar" right? Well, he must not have studied very hard because his posts are riddled with sentence fragments, badly-chosen words and other grammatical nightmares. If he's as full of shit about that as he seems to be, it wouldn't surprise me if he's pulling the rest of this nonsense out of his ass.

[Tsyroc]

Everyone's favorite group of dickheads is reportadly heading to Tucson to picket funerals.

It's in multiple news sources but here's the one I saw. Anti-gay church group plans to picket Tucson funerals

Fred W. Phelps, leader of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church that regularly pickets the funerals of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, is praising the killings in Tucson and says his group will picket the funerals.

I've already seen a group coordinating on facebook to block Phelps' people from disrupting the funerals.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Good grief, they really are just attention whores, aren't they?

The American public are getting desensitized to the picketing of soldiers dead in combat so now they up the stakes by jumping onto the current news piece and going "we'll picket that!"


Jared Loughner was just a stark-raving loonie, the system failed. In no sane system should a man like him have been legally permitted to purchase a firearm, but it probably wouldn't have stopped him. If he couldn't have gotten a gun he probably would've done it with a knife, and a blade can wound or kill just as effectively as a bullet.

This guy should've been committed a long, long time ago. That's where the ultimate failure was, in not noticing what a dangerous... Hell, what's the right word, lunatic? Psychotic? I think I don't have a word strong enough to express how disassociated with reality this fruit-loop was.


Someone should've stopped him before this happened.

[Molyneux]

Everyone's favorite group of dickheads is reportadly heading to Tucson to picket funerals.

It's in multiple news sources but here's the one I saw. Anti-gay church group plans to picket Tucson funerals

Fred W. Phelps, leader of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church that regularly pickets the funerals of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, is praising the killings in Tucson and says his group will picket the funerals.

I've already seen a group coordinating on facebook to block Phelps' people from disrupting the funerals.

I like to think that I'm in favor of freedom of expession. Phelps...really, really tests that conviction.
The man is a troll, pure and simple.

[eion]

It's a sad fact that the only way I can be sure that I'm free to say whatever I want is that Fred Phelps can go and spout his vitriol at the funeral of a wholly innocent 9 year old girl. That being said, I can't think of anyone who I'd rather see struck with permanent laryngeal and ulnar nerve entrapment.

I’ve also seen rumors that Congress is considering dragooning the U.S. Marshal Service to carry out bodyguard duties for members of congress as needed. Maybe it’s time for a dedicated protection service for the legislature as we have had for the judicial (U.S. Marshals) and executive branch (Secret Service).

[MKSheppard]

There's an unconfirmed RUMOR.

I emphasize the word RUMOR, since it appears in only one source...

Anyway, the rumor has that Loughner was known to the Pima County Authorities because he recently had been making threats to people via telphone. The rumor further goes on to state that the PC Sheriff's office told the people who were getting the threats to not worry; that he was being managed by the local mental health authorities.

Granted, this is a rumor; but if it's even halfway true, it's even more damning of the whole system.

[Themightytom]

Only if the defense can produce enough medical experts who can agree that he's actually insane. Instead of just being anti-government, associating with white-supremacists and anti-Semites, and couching his hatreds in rambling codespeak . . . who carefully plotted out an attack against Giffords . . . a Jewish Congresswoman who voted for a number of unpopular Big Government programs.

Ok but...
They Can. There is no shortage of evidence that he is delusional, paranoid, and has been for some time. I haven't seen a single coherent post or quote from him yet.

You know there was a thread a few months back on capitol punishment where I was trying to argue that attempting treatment is more humane than execution, so i suppose I'm eating my words on that one.

Let's look at the facts: He bought a gun back on 30 November. The gun of choice? A Glock 19, an easy-to-conceal, exceptionally reliable 9 mm which readily accepts the 30-round magazines from the LEO-only, fully-automatic Glock 18.

Yeah he bought the fisher price gun, I've used it on a range and you're right its ridiculously easy to use.

Then he got proficient enough with his chosen weapon that, when the opportunity to act presented itself; he managed to headshot his target in his first shot from a draw,

Um I do not know how far away he was, but given the gun in question, proficiency wouldn't require a huge amount of practice if he was withing 50 feet. I'm legally blind with my last eye test coming it at 20/200 corrected and I can not only get within the inner three rings, but I can group within three inches or less.

Without seeing the target. Seriously.

after forcing his way through a crowd,

It's not really hard to force through a crowd.

and then went on to shoot eighteen other people in thirty rounds. This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing inspired by a fit of insanity.

I would NOT consider him to have been temporarily insane. Also, insanity is a legal definition, not a mental health diagnosis. There is plenty of evidence that he was in at least a delusional state of paranoia for quite some time before the shooting, and it would be really easy to argue he was having a psychotic break. Given the evidence that is publicly available regarding his mental state over the past few years, wouldn't the prosecution actually have to argue he was lucid during the shooting?

I shudder to think what would've happened if he had more time to prepare, had shot Giffords a bit further to the right or at a slightly different angle, or if he hadn't happened upon retired ninjas who proceeded to disarm him after first being shot by him.

I agree, he was trying to reload for god's sake.
Possibly literally. he had a lot to say about religion in his videos.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the best Loughner can hope for is to end up in the same Federal Supermax prison that the Unabomber is currently at.

The unabomber is lucid by comparison. he was systematic and functional. Jared was a raving lunatic by any asessment.

Dupnik's position is understandable if you've spent any time, at all, in Arizona. Teabagger rhetoric and sentiment are especially strong here. In the last campaign, my mailbox was innundated with teabagger spam printed on glossy cardstock which pretty much came right out and asserted that Gabby Giffords was out to kill Granny and kill your job because she voted for Obamacare, and was a loyal lapdog for Emperor Palpatine Barack Hussein Osama Bin Obama and Darth Vader Pelosi.

Oh I agree with his statements as they are given, in that they are the same argument Stewart was trying to make at his rally to restore sanity. I am just pointing out he hijacked the event with a massive red herring.

The other incidents involving Giffords go without mentioning. Hell, we're so much the teabagger paradise that the prosecution can't tack on a weapons charge to Loughner's rap sheet, because they made it perfectly legal for him to concealed-carry his murder weapon without having to go through any legal scrutiny at all.

Yes, it seems Gifford herself was a bit of a gun advocate.
This tactless fellow here pointed it out
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... tml?hpt=T2

Loughner's been absolutely uncooperative with authorities since his arrest. He's invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and hasn't really said anything at all.

Right, and it might have been better to let the truth come out, than to accidentally inoculate against it. By voicing the issue when it could be discredited for lack of direct evidence, he allowed for millions of conservatives to put in place cognitive defenses so to speak. If Jared ever makes a confession, or evidence comes to light it'll just be the leftist government trying to play politics and blame the right for what that twitter chick who KNEW Jared said was on behalf of the left.

It will all make sense. They'll have a little endorphin based assurance that everything is as it should be, this will enable them to respond with Righteous Indignation, and declare that the elft needs to Wake Up, etc etc..