The atmosphere here in Tucson is tense and emotions are running very high due the shooting of 18 people, including Congresswoman Gabby Giffords this morning outside of a grocery.
I’ve gotten calls from friends wanting to make sure I wasn’t at the grocery store gathering where the shooting happened. I wasn’t. I could have been. My husband could have been. He has spoken to Gabby outside Safeway Grocery stores before. Gabby has petted our mastiff and asked if he was a blue dog Democrat. My husband said, “Yes, he is a blue dog, but I am a yellow dog.”
A person who grew up next door to Jared Laughner told my daughter that Jared was relatively normal until High School when he reportedly suffered emotional problems and was rumored to have tried to harm himself more than once.
The shooter was disturbed, no doubt about it, but whether he was politically motivated or not, the zeitgeist that allowed this to happen was partially created and constantly churned by Right Wing Hate Speech including Sarah Palin and Jesse Kelly.
Read about Jesse Kelly’s target practice aimed at Giffords here.
Read about Sarah Palin’s targeted list including Giffords here.
Read about previous problems Giffords has had with violent hate speech and actions here.
The powers that be here in Arizona have some explaining to do. Gun laws here allowed this slaughter of innocents to happen. Law enforcement’s comfortable numbness to the wackos here who in many cases are their buddies helped this to happen. The unconscionable statements by the Govenor of Arizona and other Republican elected officials from Arizona today to “move on” from this event show the disconnect from reality that the right-wingers in this state have developed over the last few decades and last few years in particular. The shooting was this morning. The terribly disturbed partisanship and sense of right and wrong in this state is well evidenced by these statements. Move on? MOVE ON? How about investigate? How about mourn? How about draw together to learn and grow from a horrific event. But move on? How callous. This is the type of depersonalization or devaluation of those who disagree with you that must end.