Congresswoman and Staff Gunned Down 2166
tkprit writes "What a shame that a Congresswoman makes herself available to her constituents and she and six of her staff were gunned down for the effort. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot, along with members of her staff, for trying to hear the concerns of the people she represents."
CNN reports that at least 12 people were shot by the gunman. According to NPR, "The suspect ran off and was tackled by a bystander. He was taken into custody. Witnesses described him as in his late teens or early 20s." Update: 01/08 20:07 GMT by S : Other sources are reporting she's still in surgery, and early reports have been amended to list Congresswoman Giffords in critical condition.
Not dead yet in surgery (Score:5, Informative)
Or so says yahoo news.
http://yhoo.it/hBMCx6 [yhoo.it]
Re:Really, Slashdot? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really, Slashdot? (Score:3, Informative)
How's this for the nerd connection: From TFA:
Giffords, a Democrat, was first elected in 2006. She has served as chairwoman of the House Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee and also holds seats on the House Science and Technology and Armed Services committees.
wife of astronaut Mark Kelly (Score:5, Informative)
Representative Giffords is the wife of astronaut Mark Kelly, and seems to be one of the few congresspeople who are knowledgable about science and technology.
This is a great tragedy.
Politics should not be conducted by gunfire.
Re:LOL@"Progressives" (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting, one of the by-standers, who helped hold the gunman down, said he was white and clean shaven. Where did you hear he was hispanic?
"The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing and said nothing during the shooting or while being held down, although he struggled at first."
http://gawker.com/5728501/arizona-congresswoman-shot-outside-grocery-store [gawker.com]
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
Fox is actively deleting comments on that story, so who knows what anyone is really saying?
Re:Ban guns (Score:5, Informative)
Take a look at what happened in Australia when guns were banned.
http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp [snopes.com]
Important news [Re:Really, Slashdot?] (Score:5, Informative)
How so? She's a minor member of a minority party.
Um, since the Democrats hold two out of three of the elective branches of the US government, I don't see how you can call them "a minority party."
She is also the wife of astronaut Mark Kelly, a member of the House committee on Science and Technology, and the chairwoman of the House subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics; so this is news of interest to anybody interested in science and technology.
Re:Ban guns (Score:5, Informative)
For those asking, yes I meant that in an extremely sarcastic way.
Re:Ban guns (Score:5, Informative)
Careful with those stones. The US has one massive genocide on its hands as well, one which it has never properly acknowledged either.
Re:"Death Panels" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ban guns (Score:3, Informative)
"spray-fire"?? Really? Did you make that term up? It's certainly not used by anyone who knows anything about guns.
Semi-automatic handguns are extremely useful -- why do you think police carry them? Because they're useful for self-defense.
Tucson native here (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
ohioboy Welcome to fascism in America (aka Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc. ad nauseum).
cbus79 Dems need a target list: Beck, Boehner, Hannity, Limbaugh to start.
sandpeople Teabaggers just made their biggest mistake yet, they will pay dearly for this...Palin is finished.
Guest119 Is the Judo-Christian thing "an eye for an eye"? And if so, when does someone put a cap in Palin?
Re:Edit this now, please (Score:5, Informative)
According to the live news conference that just occurred at UMC:
Congresswoman Giffords was shot in the head, thru-and-thru, and is now out of surgery. She is in critical condition, but is alert and responding to commands, the surgeon believe she will come thru this in good condition.
Updated numbers indicate a total of 18 people injured, 5 of which are dead including a young girl about 9yrs old.
Mod parent up. (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't just "crosshairs". People like Palin are continually exhorting their followers to "reload". Her facebook page even has crosshair symbols on a map and the names of politicians who didn't vote the way Palin wanted them to.
http://www.alan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/sarahpac_0.jpg [alan.com]
And Gabrielle Giffords name is on that.
This was encouraged by a Daily Kos Blogger (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
The nutjob was not killed, and not even arrested with the help of a gun.
Re:Sick Political Ad - Eerily Prophetic (Score:5, Informative)
"Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action.”
--Gabrielle Gifford March 25, 2010, MSNBC Interview.
http://kateoplis.tumblr.com/post/2655554409/msnbc-talks-to-rep-gabrielle-gifford-about-the [tumblr.com]
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
Or on the other hand, the extreme that blames an entire group of people for the actions of a derranged man that has absolfuckinglutely NOTHING to do with anything that group of people?
The shooter was Jared Loughner [msn.com] and if you watch his Youtube [youtube.com] channel you'll see his simply a mentally disturbed individual who ascribes to nothing even remotely resembling Republican or Tea party beliefs. He has an entire video where he burns an American flag for God's sake, and another were he venomously declares he refuses to believe in God and that the Government is trying to mind control everyone with "grammar control". I haven't been to any Tea Party meetings but I have the feeling Flag burning and denying the existence of God prolly aint listed on their usually scheduled agenda.
But don't let the facts get in the way of taking a tragedy and trying to use it to to further your own political preconceptions because clearly THAT is more important to you than the suffering the lives lost today.
Re:Ban guns (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to let you in on a secret: the second amendment isn't about hunting.
Re:Ban guns (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ushomicidesbyweapon.svg [wikipedia.org]
Handguns are the number one murder weapon by far, outnumbering all the other weapons added together. Will you take your own advice and revamp YOUR argument? Or will you be a hypocrite?
Re:Ban guns (Score:2, Informative)
There are no "assault weapons" "optimized for this type of use". It's a made up term, that means nothing.
there are weapons that are optimized for use in providing suppressive fire, for instance the M240 and the M249 -- and they are extremely accurate -- not "spray firing" weapons.
Having used firearms my entire life, I have never heard that term -- with the exception of from people who don't know anything about guns.
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
but can easily imagine ACORN or similar organization doing it.
Just out of curiosity . . . why can someone imagine that. Acorn has never called for that, used any of that in it's rhetoric, been accused of anything like that. The worst accusation against them that you might not be aware was thoroughly disproved was of 'aiding' a pimp, the worst accusation that had some truth behind it was that they were not properly policing people gathering signatures for vote registration.
Yet . . . some people can imagine this coming from Acorn more easily than they can imagine someone being influenced by a massive media network and political machine like Fox that routinely espouses eliminationist rhetoric.
Seems odd.
Re:Edit this now, please (Score:5, Informative)
How in the hell does one guy injure eighteen people and kill five at an event that surely must have had dozens of police and security personnel?
Why would there be dozens of police and security? Congresswoman Giffords is local representative, not the president. She regularly holds "Congress on Your Corner" informal meetings at shopping centers. Anyone can come up and talk with her on any subject regarding her district. You know... actually talking with your constituents about their concerns, instead of camping out in palatial gated estates where only insiders and lobbyists are invited.
The meet-and-greet event was just starting and there were a total of about 20 people waiting to talk with Giffords, dozens more walking in and out of the market. A total of eighteen people were injured, 6 of which are dead. Not all the injured were shot. The suspect reportedly had a 9mm gun with an extended 20-round clip.
Re:Double standards. If this was a Republican... (Score:2, Informative)
Why yes, yes they were. They same people who call him Bushitler, nice people like that. The sort of people who spent eight years burning him in effigy. The kind of people who did cheer when a crazy guy tried to kill Reagan, or when apocalyptic hippie Squeaky Fromme pointed a
Re:Ban guns (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dude. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
No, actually, it isn't.
People waiving the flag of false equivalence are intellectually corrupt. Violent rhetoric is not coming from both sides of the political spectrum, it's coming from the Fox News right.
I think a lot of people buy that crap because they're too gutless to take a stand for what's right.
You have missed a great deal if you think the Left isn't full of violent rhetoric. Forget all the stuff leveled at Bush? Heck, a CBS show literally displayed a picture of Bush with "Snipers Wanted" imposed over it. Look at Bill Ayers, who has at least some relationship with the President of the United States, and is unrepentant of the violent actions of the Weather Underground group he helped found. He has event been quoted as wishing he did more. Look at the violence at G20 conventions or the death threats against people like Ann Coulter. I could go on and on. Check out this page for a large number of links to "Left-wing Eliminationist Rhetoric" http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/?s=ELIMINATIONIST [pajamasmedia.com]
Take some advice from Media Matters after the Discovery Channel incident. Should be applied to all similar incidents.. "Discovery Channel hostage-taker is the perpetrator of a crime-not liberal, conservative or a chance to score points " http://twitter.com/mmfa/status/22739013962 [twitter.com]
Very spot-on (and unexpected) insight from a "Law (Score:5, Informative)
"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," the sheriff said. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
Very spot-on (and unexpected) insight from a "Law Man".
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
Proof that you are wrong even precedes our Declaration of Independence. The reason people were given the right to own arms, is because their government is obligated to keep a "standing army" to repel invaders. But freedom lovers (including our Founding Fathers) were aware that it was that very standing army that was the biggest threat to the people and their freedom. This was evident from their own recent world history, which was full of countries being taken over by their own armies.
"Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - Henry St. George Tucker. Source: Blackstone's 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England
"... that the people have a Right to bear Arms for the Defence of the State, and as Standing Armies in Time of Peace are dangerous to Liberty, they ought not to be kept up, and that the military should be kept under strict Subordination to, and governed by the Civil Power." - North Carolina's Declaration of Rights, 1776
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - Thomas Jefferson
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." -- George Washington
"... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that its people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them..." -- Thomas Jefferson [emphasis mine]
The history books are full of this stuff. The reason for the Second Amendment -- very clearly and quite easily provably -- was to protect ourselves, if necessary, from our own government and any army it fields. So YOU go study your history. It is obvious that you need to.
Re:sad (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly, no. There are hundreds of assaults and beatings daily throughout the US and there was no (objective) evidence ever presented that this particular one was politically motivated. The police never found the alleged attackers.
Wasn't that the man who got caught on video [mediamatters.org] faking the injuries after a 2 second scuffle? As far as I know the police did not find sufficient evidence for any sort of assault case despite of abundance of witnesses.
That is for the simple reason that there was footage of it like in the case of Kenneth Gladney, of whom I heard (that is the nature of infotainment). Should someone have a film of the other assault, it would have been cheerfully exploited and squeezed for its last advertising dollar by the "media".
Just [wikipedia.org] of the top [wikipedia.org] of my head [wikipedia.org].
Frankly, these few examples are a pretty good illustration of the difference in the level and quality of the violence of the two sides. On one hand (if true) you get a broken leg and a skinned knee and on the other there are body parts littering a few city blocks.
Re:Dude. (Score:5, Informative)
"A free people ought not only to be armed but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well digested plan is requisite: And their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories, as tend to render them independent on others, for essential, particularly for military supplies."
Regardless of his exact meaning, that statement cannot be considered to support my point. Conceded.
Wikiquote states that my first Jefferson quote is "falsely attributed". However, the author of that claim did not sign it, and it has no other citations or references, other than a casual mention of someone unnamed doing a search of Google Print, so I have no reason to take that seriously. On the other hand, monticello.org does say that it is likely a spurious quote, but that Jefferson DID say:
"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]." (Second draft of the Virginia Constitution, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1:353.)
Which of course is not the same thing. However, my second Jefferson quote appears in a letter he wrote on Nov. 13 1787, to New York senator William Stephens Smith. His meaning there is very clear and exactly as I stated above.
The other quotes are also accurate as I have presented them. Thank you for pointing out the errors. I have corrected my collection of quotes.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)