Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and six others were shot after a gunman opened fire at a public event on Saturday, the Pima County, Ariz., sheriff’s office confirms.
The 40-year-old Democrat, who was re-elected to her third term in November, was hosting a “Congress on Your Corner” event at a Safeway in northwest Tucson when a gunman ran up and started shooting, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.
Update: There is now more there.
Another update: A White House statement is here.
There are conflicting reports on the extent of the injuries. Truly horrendous.
Update Reuters saying Congresswoman Giffords still alive, in surgery, nine other patients brought in from shooting: hospital spokeswoman
An appalling crime. Prayers for her and her family as also all of the other people shot.
Memory Eternal
Prayers ascending
Wow, just wow. Has the palpable anger in America really come to this? We must pray.
The press and media are starting to come up with background information on the alleged shooter. Some of which includes rambling and incoherent videos and writings. Obviously this investigation is just beginning but if what has been uncovered so far gives an even remotely accurate view of this young man, I feel rather sorry for the DA who will have to try to prosecute him. What I have read so far indicates a man who is several fries short of a Happy Meal.
Sounds like a John Hinckley type…same sort that shot Reagan. He’ll end up in the madhouse or whatever the PC term is these days for the repositories of the criminally insane. We’ll see what the investigation brings to light.
The shooter’s name is Jared Loughner, he’s 21 or 22, he is NOT a military veteran, as some have claimed. His myspace page was found (before it was deleted rather rapidly by myspace) as well as his youtube account, which includes three videos he made. Mad rambling things, but given other stated information Loughner included, for example, among his favorite books are, The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf. ABC News contacted an old classmate of Loughners, and she identified him as a radical leftist.
The left gleefully started trying to pin this on conservatives, and Sarah Palin. Obama started screaming about a new gun control effort.
It’s at least as significant that a prominent federal judge was killed in this, but there has been virtually no coverage of that issue. To date, the implication is that he just walked into this through bad luck. that may be the case. However, the loss of a federal judge to violence is a huge loss in a government of laws.
RE: “Has the palpable anger in America really come to this?”
Heh — and judging by the news this morning it looks like the answer is — regretfully for those on the left — “no it hasn’t.”
Another INSANE idiot who — blessedly and unlike what the news reported as fact yesterday — was NOT a military veteran.
Thank God.
Heartfelt horror for all those who went through this, some of whom died because of this insane 22-year-old man and others of whom will never be the same.
Liberals all over the blogosphere were jumping to the conclusion that Jared Lee Loughner was former military and a teaparty member…but they appear to be very wrong. This nutcase seems to have come from the Left, according to recent reports. It is hard to tell now, because instead of speculating about his politics as they did initially, the news media seems to have gotten the memo and are now merely saying that he was a “radical” or that his politics were radical. They seem to have stopped identifying whether he was on the Left or Right. Either way, he was crazy, but the Leftist media showed their true colors once again.
This from MSN:
[blockquote]Loughner’s YouTube videos are also disturbing, and strikingly similar to the sort of pseudo-intellectual chatter regarding overbearing governmental power that has become a mainstay at American Tea Party rallies.[/blockquote]
This from Politico:
[/blockquote]The feds are reportedly probing whether shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner has ties to an anti-Semitic, anti-government hate group that has ads for tea party organizations on its website. [/blockquote]
Business Insider quotes Politico:
[blockquote]”One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.
“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,†said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.â€
[/blockquote]
This from New York News Magazine:
[/blockquote]When asked if his daughter had any enemies, the congresswoman’s father, Spencer Gifford, told the New York Post, “Yeah. The whole tea party.” But he said, “We don’t really have any information.”[/blockquote]
This fellow’s background is being scrubbed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFyC-0hRoYc