Jared Lee Loughner: Palin’s Crosshairs, Obama’s Gun And Glenn Beck’s Hitler

GABRIELLE Giffords is shot in the head by Jared Lee Loughner in Tuscon Arizona. He also shoots 19 others, murdering 6, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl.

A country might mourn its gun laws. Between 1994 and 2004 there was a ban on assault weapons in the US. Loughner used a Glock handgun with a high-capacity magazines. They might blame Loughner, a nihilist who wants to kill. The law will deal with him. But in the court of public opinion, Sarah Palin is getting the stick.

The leftwing point to Sarah Plain’s gun-laden rhetoric and say she did it. The rightwing should point to Barack Obama’s gun-laden rhetoric and say he did it.

But Palin is the news story. She produced a map of target political wards using crosshairs (or were they crop marks?), one of which was over Giffords’ name. Gifffords saw it and said:

“Sarah Palin has the cross-hairs of a gunsight over our district – and when people do that, they’ve got to realise there are consequences to that action.”

Current affairs suggest she was making a valid point. And Palin – who told her twitter followers: “Don’t retreat, instead- RELOAD!” – was not alone.

Republican Tea Party activist Jesse Kelly stood against Giffords in her district. Kelly, a military man, issued a call to arms for a 12 June 2010 rally:

“Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automated M-16 with Jesse Kelly.”

Forget politics. This is war. But it’s the cheap language of a faux war being used to entertain and make the speaker appear tough. It’s childish, shallow and designed to foster the notion that followers are stood on the brink of history. The Tea Party will do to Obama what they did to the British. But Obama is one of theirs. They can vote him out. A war would take longer than a President’s term of office.

Jonathan Raban tells Indy readers that Gabrielle Giffords “is the victim of a debased political culture”.

In his article (front–page news in the Independent), he makes mention of Kelly and Palin. But there is no word on Obama’s metaphorical gun.

The Guardian goes further on its front page, which declares:

US gripped in row over rightwing rhetoric over Arizona killings

Right wing rhetoric quoted – but no left wing rhetoric quoted? But Catie Parker, a former classmate of Jared Lee Loughner, says he was a “left wing” and “quite liberal”. So. Who is the more violent: the left wing or the right wing?

The mayor of West Hollywood has condemned a Halloween display resembling Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose.

And rape can be funny:

In the Times, Catherine Philp says:

“Since President Obama took power, the number of armed anti-Federal Government militia has increased from 150 to more than 500 and gun sales have soared. The price of gold has also risen since Mr Beck [right wing shock jock Glenn Beck] began telling viewers to invest in it to prepare for the ‘End of Days’.”

Philp says the Republicans have not squashed these “falsehoods” but “let them stand“.

But Jared Lee Loughner was, apparently, not of the right wing. And do you recall when an assault-rifle-carrying right wing black man did not kill Obama in Arizona? Remember the Barack Obama Death Cult?

Ewen MacAskill tells Guardian readers:

Palin is well-known for her intemperate language and actions, including her recent call for the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, to be hunted down, and the crosshairs incident has the potential to hurt her in this year’s jockeying for the Republican presidential nomination.

He too makes no mention of Obama’s rhetoric. And here is Obama:

“A suspect is currently in custody, but we don’t yet know what provoked this unspeakable act.”

Why did the white boy shoot the female, Jewish leader? Because he’s a white supremacist? The Times enlarges on this idea by saying Loughner’s “favourite book” is Mein Kampf.

The paper has its agenda and makes no mention of his other favourite books. Want to know what they are? Here goes:

I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

Yeah. He’s a fascist, communist, moralistic libertarian with a fetish for boys in rights and rabbit holes. Or maybe he’s just a ****…