Friday, January 14, 2011
A Nation in Shock
On Saturday the 9th Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was holding a meet & greet with her constituents in the parking lot of a Tucson grocery store. No one except Jared Loughner could have anticipated what would happen next.
Loughner walked though the crowd, came up behind Giffords and shot her in the back of the head. He then turned on the crowd and unloaded a 30 round clip, killing 6 and wounding 13 others. Among the dead a 9 year old girl and a federal judge. Miraculously Gabby Giffords has survived and the lunatic Jared Loughner is in federal custody.
A number of questions arise...
>How did a mentally deranged person like Loughner get a gun much less the high capacity magazine he unloaded on the crowd in Tucson?
>Could the tragedy in Tucson been avoided if we had a better health care system that actually treated the mentally ill as opposed to ignoring the needs & expense of treatment?
>Was the hyperbolic rhetoric of politics and media pundits fueling violence?
What made Loughner do what he did?
Perhaps there doesn't have to be a reason except the guy was nuts.
The same scenario unfolded on the Virginia Tech campus when a mentally deranged guy (Seung-Hui Cho) got his hands on a couple pistols and killed 32 people before taking his own life.
Apparently you can't keep guns out of the hands of criminals as there will almost always be a market if you have the money but both Loughner & Cho were mentally ill and still bought guns & ammo from a store.
You would think if someone is mentally ill = no permit, no gun and no ammo...
In the wake of this violent tragedy people search for answers and if there is someone to blame.
They blame the gun lobby and politicians for holding up any real legislation that utilizes gun control reforms.
Some also blame gun manufacturers. This one I don't get. It's the shooter not the gun or as Larry the Cable Guy would say, "Blaming the gun is like blaming your pencil for misspelled words".
Some people reject the whole idea of gun ownership and the 2nd amendment as an arcane ideology from the past that represents the needs of farmers and a struggling civilization.
Others blame the talking heads ( Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, etc ) for inciting violent reactions using divisive comments that paint their political opposites as enemies that must be dealt with.
Some look at Arizona , their lax gun regulations and hostile immigration policies as a wild west mentality perpetrated by the ignorance of their governor and senators.
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Loughner walked though the crowd, came up behind Giffords and shot her in the back of the head. He then turned on the crowd and unloaded a 30 round clip, killing 6 and wounding 13 others. Among the dead a 9 year old girl and a federal judge. Miraculously Gabby Giffords has survived and the lunatic Jared Loughner is in federal custody.
A number of questions arise...
>How did a mentally deranged person like Loughner get a gun much less the high capacity magazine he unloaded on the crowd in Tucson?
>Could the tragedy in Tucson been avoided if we had a better health care system that actually treated the mentally ill as opposed to ignoring the needs & expense of treatment?
>Was the hyperbolic rhetoric of politics and media pundits fueling violence?
What made Loughner do what he did?
Perhaps there doesn't have to be a reason except the guy was nuts.
The same scenario unfolded on the Virginia Tech campus when a mentally deranged guy (Seung-Hui Cho) got his hands on a couple pistols and killed 32 people before taking his own life.
Apparently you can't keep guns out of the hands of criminals as there will almost always be a market if you have the money but both Loughner & Cho were mentally ill and still bought guns & ammo from a store.
You would think if someone is mentally ill = no permit, no gun and no ammo...
In the wake of this violent tragedy people search for answers and if there is someone to blame.
They blame the gun lobby and politicians for holding up any real legislation that utilizes gun control reforms.
Some also blame gun manufacturers. This one I don't get. It's the shooter not the gun or as Larry the Cable Guy would say, "Blaming the gun is like blaming your pencil for misspelled words".
Some people reject the whole idea of gun ownership and the 2nd amendment as an arcane ideology from the past that represents the needs of farmers and a struggling civilization.
Others blame the talking heads ( Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, etc ) for inciting violent reactions using divisive comments that paint their political opposites as enemies that must be dealt with.
Some look at Arizona , their lax gun regulations and hostile immigration policies as a wild west mentality perpetrated by the ignorance of their governor and senators.
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