A sad day

As I write, the police have told both NBC/MSNBC and CNN that she is still alive, that the death report is incorrect.. Both channels say a hospital press conference is expected soon.

this NYTimes piece

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09giffords.html?hp

has one eyewitness account that sounds relatively reliable and detailed (though you never know with these "breaking "things:)

Dr. Steven Rayle, a former emergency room doctor who now works in a hospice, said that he had witnessed the shootings. He said the congresswoman was standing behind a table outside the Safeway greeting passersby when the gunman approached her from behind, held a gun about a foot from her head and began firing.

. “He must have got off 20 rounds,” he said. Ms. Giffords slumped to the ground and staff members immediately rushed to her aid, Dr. Rayle said.

Dr. Rayle said he performed CPR on some of the victims. He said one of the victims was a young child and appeared to be in critical condition with a gunshot wound.

He said that one of the staffers tackled the gunman and that he and others helped detain the suspect. The doctor described the gunman as a white male in his mid-20s with short hair and “dressed in a shabby manner.”

Hmmm.. I think that's all I will say for now about this report I just ran across:

Gabrielle Giffords, First Jewish Congresswoman from Ariz., Shot in Head

By Ron Kampeas (JTA)

Published January 08, 2011

Giffords was shot outside one of her signature “Congress at your corner” events outside a Safeway in Tucson, the district she represented....

.Giffords was elected to Congress in the Democratic sweep in 2006. The first Jewish woman elected to Congress from the state, she made her Jewish identity part of her campaign.

“If you want something done, your best bet is to ask a Jewish woman to do it,” said Giffords, a former state senator, said at the time. “Jewish women — by our tradition and by the way we were raised — have an ability to cut through all the reasons why something should, shouldn’t or can’t be done and pull people together to be successful.”....

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/134546/#ixzz1AToGEIaN

Shooter said to have used automatic weapon.

Freeper site is down--scrubbing in progress?

This a tragedy. MSNBC reports the Congresswoman is out of surgery and they are optimistic of her recovery. What kind of recovery is probably anybody's guess.

Five dead.Including a Federal Judge who had received tons of death threats within the last year or so.

A lot of repercussions to all of this. A wall shall be built between our representatives and the citizens.

This of course was a tragedy even without the Congresswoman's involvement.

I'm stunned.

From Sam Stein at Huffington Post

There will be, in the next few days, painstaking efforts to uncover and understand the background of Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged shooter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. And right now reporters are generally going off of bits of information taken, primarily, from Google searches.

The most illustrative window is Loughner’s YouTube account, which appears to be hub of anti-government zealotry, obsession over currency and language standards, and, to put it bluntly, outright paranoia.

“In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can’t trust the current government because of the ratifications: the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar,” he writes in one video posting. “No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver! No! I won’t trust in God!”

Here is a link to Loughner’s YouTube site.

There are also some biographical details that can be culled from the page. Loughner attended Mountain View High School, Northwest Aztec Middle College, and Pima Community College. He also appears to have been in the armed forces, at one point in time.

“Every United States Military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix is receiving one mini bible before the tests,” he writes in one video. “Jared Loughner is a United States Military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix Therefore, Jared Loughner is receiving one mini bible before the tests."

Godspeed to all the dead, their families, and the recovering.  Imagine surviving a through-and-through brain shot.  Astounding. 

The pity is that media coverage will travel the same routes as always in these slaughters, family and friends interviewed, law enforcement pronouncements, blame here and there, shrinks weighing in, the NRA screaming about People Killing People...and we'll be no closer to preventing atrocities like this in the future... 

Some dude wrote a column already on Huffpo; I saw the sentence "words have consequences', assumedly thinking or knowing someone ginned this Loughner up.  But why can't we say, "So do guns have consequences" and have it change something?

You know how many states now permit open-carry, even in churches and bars?  And how many county sheriffs give any white person who asks a conceal permit?  Some of my neighbors sleep with loaded guns under their pillows; what on earth could ever act to neutralize the fear of each other that's so endemic in this country?  Or that shooting each other helps solve anything?

The rest of the world watches us with incredulity and empathy, and maybe a bit of mockery.  We are nuts.

Sorry; I'm sad, but I'm also pissed.