Pascrell, Paterson mayor continue to politicize Giffords shooting

Arizona Proves That the Politics of Guns Leave Us Defenseless
It seems as though it never ends. Mass Shootings. Blood baths. Angry, disturbed killers. Innocent Victims mowed down. We go through it on a regular basis. And nothing seems to put it to a stop. The attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson, by Jared Lee Loughner in which six others were killed and 14 wounded, has focused the nation’s attention on the widespread use of guns and the great obstacles we face in trying to limit gun violence. The Arizona congresswoman said in March o...

No Signs Obama Will Shift On Gun Control After Giffords Shooting
Virtually since the Obama Administration took office, the White House has avoided touching the third-rail issue of Gun Control with a 10-foot pole. So will the mass shooting in Arizona that gravely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six others (including a Federal Judge) change their approach? Gun control advocates hope so. Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said in an interview that banning the high-capacity clips (the type use...

Tucson Victim "Outraged" Giffords Was Shot
Eric Fuller, wounded during attack in Tucson on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, on "The Early Show" Jan. 11, 2011 (CBS) (CBS) Eric Fuller was shot in Tucson Ariz. Saturday during the rampage Jared Loughner is accused of carrying out. It left six people dead and 13 wounded. Fuller, 63, a Military Veteran, former limo driver and avid Tennis player, is a strong supporter of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot through the brain. He cut a Tennis game short Saturday so he could hear her speak, only to ...

Shooting tests US West love affair with guns
A billboard in Tucson, Arizona, invites residents to a gun show. Arizona ha... Months before she was shot in the head, US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords won a tight re-election battle vowing to be "moderate" -- including by staunchly backing the right to own guns. As she lies in critical condition, some are publicly questioning the gun-slinging culture of the American West where weapons at restaurants do not cause a second glance and opposition to guns is considered political Suicide. Jared ...

Matthews Links Palin&Bachmann; to Giffords Shooting, Portrays U.S. as Gun Crazed Nation
Chris Matthews, on Monday's Hardball, used the attempt on Gabrielle Giffords' life, to not only portray America as some sort of gun crazed country, but also to blame the likes of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann for political violence as he blurted : "Sarah Palin using gun play language. What is she talking about crosshairs and reloading...and Bachmann out there with her kind of talk . I mean it seems like the way people talk now has, has gotten more ballistic... Why are guns talked...

Giffords promoted softer political discourse in email to GOP colleague day before shooting
Stumble This! Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) on the eve of the shooting that left her in critical condition and six others dead wrote an email to a Republican colleague promoting a softer public political discourse. "After you get settled, I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation," Giffords wrote to Trey Grayson, Kentucky Secretary of State who resigned to take a position as director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. Giffords wrote the congr...

The false rush to cry 'balance' (Politico)
When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a Federal Judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess down there. Life goes on incredibly quickl...

Chris Matthews: Hardball: Tea Party Under Fire Over Arizona Tragedy
Below is the video and transcript of my interview with Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. If people on the right and Sarah Palin and so forth are responsible for all of this and this vitriolic Rhetoric is so pitched, how come this isn't happening every day? Why is it the vast exception to the rule? There's no logic in any of the assertions they're making. None. Chris Matthews: That was Rush Limbaugh responding to the Giffords shooting and overheated Rhetoric swirling around. How doe...

Outlaw that speech because it MIGHT be a threat...
It was only a matter of time before the Gabrielle Giffords tragedy was turned into a rationale for the government to take more of our freedoms. This is how our government always responds to tragedy--it's almost formulaic: Step 1 - wait for tragedy to occur, or actually create the tragedy. Step 3 - pass laws, or institute policies, that take away people's freedoms. This same process, has led to the creation of most traffic laws, to the Patriot Act, to "enhanced pat-downs," and countless other usu...

Apparently, The Real Culprit In The Giffords Shooting Was..Guns!
Now that we are a few days from the shooting of Representative Giffords, and the cold blooded Murder of many others, including a judge and a 9 year old, the media and Democrats are slowly ratcheting up the meme that guns are to blame. They haven’t dropped their fixation on “vitriolic Speech”…….you know, all the blamestorming coming from the mostly liberal media, elected Democrats, and liberal talking heads could be considered “vitriolic speech.” You also...

Chris Matthews Grills Tea Party Leader: Why Would Someone Bring A Gun To A Political Rally?
Chris Matthews talked to Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips today, and grilled him on Second Amendment issues and the "history of violence" in America. Referencing the fondness of tea partiers for bringing guns to political rallies, Matthews asked: "Why are guns talked about so much, especially on the right?" Phillips replied that "guns are talked about on both sides of the political spectrum," and "liberals talk about it all the time. Usually in terms of taking the right to Bear Arms aw...

Tuesday Open Thread
Tweety talks about this country’s history with political violence, including talking to a so-called leader of the Tea Party, asking him why sane people would bring a GUN to a political rally. Chris Matthews talked to Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips today, and grilled him on Second Amendment issues and the “history of violence” in America. Referencing the fondness of tea partiers for bringing guns to political rallies, Matthews asked: “Why are guns talked about so...

Christianity and Gun Control
In the wake of the horrific massacre in Arizona Saturday, there are calls to renew restrictions, some of which lapsed when Congress permitted the federal assault weapons ban to expire in 2004, on certain types of weaponry, particularly the high-capacity magazine used by the Arizona shooter. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), whose husband was murdered in a 1993 rampage on the Long Island Railroad, plans to introduce a measure in the House, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in the Senate. The General B...

Your Opinions
On Saturday, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was targeted and shot in the head during a mass meeting with voters. During the contentious Elections last fall, her opponent, Jesse Kelly, held fund-raisers where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle (Page 1A, Jan. 9). Hate Speech proclaimed by politicians and political pundits riles up the violent to violence. Those politicians and pundits can't escape charges of complicity. Ther...

Philadelphia-area congressmen reexamining security measures
Bob Brady remembers the bullet he got in the mail, with his name scribbled on the paper taped around it. Frank LoBiondo keeps two panic buttons in his district office. A man called Joe Sestak's office to say, "Now I'm going to use my Second Amendment right." Of course, the Philadelphia region's current and former members of Congress say, none of that dissuaded them or their staffs from coming to work each day. But threats such as those have become far too common in this age of wild a...

Culture and Conditioning
Remarkably, some rightie Bloggers are still trying to peg Jared Loughner as a “Left Wing radical.” This is true even as News Media are doing their best to argue that only those nutty lefties are claiming politics had anything to do with the shooting in Tuscon. Chris Cillizza: In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, liberals sought to paint Loughner as an anti-government, Tea Party conservative. Conservatives retorted that Loughner lacked anything close to a coherent political p...

Daly: Bam's mum as Bloomy leads fight vs. guns
Our mayor was at his undeniable worst during the blizzard, but he has always been at his indisputable best when it comes to bullets. And the horror in Arizona proves once again how right he is to campaign so tirelessly against gun violence. When even our President has been cowed by the supporters of "Gun Rights," Mayor Bloomberg has done everything in his power to stem the unending carnage. He has been that rare political leader who acts because he believes it is the right thing to do. He cert...

Nation gets first look at suspect, Tucson grieves
A woman prays at the memorial located in front of the University Medical Center, Monday, Jan. 10, 2011, in Tucson, Ariz. The memorial has been set up for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who is in critical condition at the Hospital, and other Victims who were shot on Saturday, leaving six dead and more injured. When Jared Loughner walked into the courtroom, everything fell silent. Law clerks, courtroom artists and reporters alike turned from the wooden benches to look at the vacant-e...

Dr. Harold Koplewicz: Arizona Shooting: Treating Mental Illness Before it Kills
In the Mass Shooting in Arizona Saturday there were heroes who prevented even more bloodshed. We need heroes to intervene before lives are lost. The three people who wrestled Jared Loughner to the ground and disarmed him outside a Supermarket in Tucson are being hailed as heroes, and rightly so. They prevented further loss of life at the hands of the 22-year-old, who had, in little more than an instant, killed six people and wounded more than a dozen others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords....

Gabrielle Giffords Gives Thumbs-Up
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. Doctors treating Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said Monday the congresswoman was responding to verbal commands by raising two fingers of her left hand and even managed to give a thumbs-up. Giffords, 40, is in critical condition in the intensive care unit of Tucson's University Medical Center after she was shot through the head Saturday during a meet-and-greet with voters outside a Supermarket. Two patients were discharged Sunday n...

Live Updates: The Gabrielle Giffords shooting
Updated 12:25 p.m. The National Rifle Association declined Monday to enter the political fray over Saturday's shootings in Tucson. Asked to weigh in on the role of the Brady Bill in the shooting, NRA spokesperson Andrew Arulanandam told Politico's Ben Smith: "Anything other than prayers for the Victims and their families at this time would be inappropriate." The Brady Campaign has contended that the 1994 assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004, would have prevented the alleged ...

The false rush to cry 'balance'
By: Michael Kinsley Politico.com January 11, 2011 When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a Federal Judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess dow

The Note: 2012 Politics Gets Tangled In Arizona Shooting Aftermath
By MICHAEL FALCONE and AMY WALTER The place that Sarah Palin has occupied in the debate about civility in politics in the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting in Arizona that left six people dead has inevitably dragged other potential 2012 contenders into the discussion. One of the first to join the fray is former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, whose long-planned book tour kicks off this week. Pawlenty weighed in on the swirling Controversy about the appropriateness of Palin’s use of rifle cro...

Warning bells
Warning Bells by digby I'm listening to Tea Party chief Judson Phillips on TV this afternoon saying that there's no correlation between guns and politics and that the debate hasn't been particularly violent. I'm sorry to do this again, but it's just got to be emphasized right now: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 Working Themselves Into A Frenzy by digby You've probably already heard about the arrest in Washington of a person who threatened to kill Senator Patty Murray for her vote on Health Care Re...

OG Oyiborhoro: Don't Politicize Arizona
We cannot allow the acts of a few to shake our nation. Arizona, was not the fault of the right, left, or anywhere in between. In fact, we may never know what truly caused the events of last Saturday. The tragedy in Arizona was despicable, but we cannot overreact or react in a manner unbefitting our free society. In the last two decades alone, we've seen acts of Domestic Terrorism in Oklahoma and international attacks in New York. Each time our nation has not only shown resolve by coming toget...