U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head outside a grocery store in Tucson while holding a public event

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/08/132764367/congresswoman-shot-in-arizona

I hope that's not where we're going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies [emphasis added] and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out." Sharron Angle

"Don't retreat. Instead - reload" Sarah Palin

"To the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter." Glenn Beck

"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous [emphasis added] on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." and "...having a revolution every now and then is a good thing" Michele Bachmann

Just updated, she's dead.

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/sarahpac_0.jpg

RIP

:(. God this is fucking awful.

Yes. It's better not to hide this topic in the general politics thread. This is not general politics any more.

from gawker

Update: We spoke to an eyewitness, Steven Rayle who was on the scene at the time of the shooting and helped to hold the suspect down while waiting for police. Here's what he said:

The event was very informal: Gifford had set up a table outside the Safeway and about 20-30 people were gathered to talk to her. The gunman, who may have come from inside the Safeway, walked up and shot Gifford in the head first. According to Rayle, who is a former ER doctor, Gifford was able to move her hands after being shot.

After shooting Gifford, the gunman opened fire indiscriminately for a few seconds, hitting a number of people, including a kid no older than 10 years old. Rayle hid behind a concrete pole and pretended to be dead. When the gunman apparently ran out of ammunition he attempted to flee, but a member of Gifford's staff tackled him. The Rayle helped hold him down while waiting for the sheriff to arrive, about 15-or 20 minutes later. 30 minutes later the EMS came. Rayle said he was "stunned" by how long it took medical help to arrive.

The man 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. He didn't look like a businessman, but more of a "fringe character," our source said.

whos reporting shes dead?

fuck limbaugh, bachmann, tea party, beck et al's inflammatory rhetoric, but just as much, fuck everyone in the GOP who tacitly endorses it by refusing to condemn it

npr xp

NPR link @ top: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and six others died after a gunman opened fire at a public event on Saturday, the Pima County, Ariz., sheriff's office confirms."

gr8080, click on your link again

one silver lining (if you could even call it that) is that this will undoubtedly draw scrutiny to the Palin campaign for the irresponsible ad and the 'getting out of control' tendencies of the extreme right, regardless of whether it is determined that the motivation had anything to do with it at all.

still, I wish we didn't need events like this to make this country realize shit needs to change.

Rest in Peace.

Seven people!

fuck limbaugh, bachmann, tea party, beck et al's inflammatory rhetoric, but just as much, fuck everyone in the GOP who tacitly endorses it by refusing to condemn it

― uh, do you have an electronic virgin, uh what (Z S)

Seven people is more people than died in the Boston Massacre./

disgusting

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

ZS otm.

Don't you see, if she was carrying a gun (and the little kid and others were, too) maybe none of this would have ever happened.

Tragic. I'm not even sure of the feelings I've feeling. Anger, revulsion, frustration. I hope this is not the direction we're going in.

I am really bummed about this.

This just strengtheners my conviction that handguns should be banned.

This is truly incredible. I can't imagine the disgusting " ... but ..." Republicans will inevitably tack onto their pat condemnations.

*strengthens

This is the direction we have been going in. Everyone was basically waiting for this to happen.

xpost

me too Abbs. the biggest fear in my mind right now, is regardless of what turns out to be the reasoning, I'm afraid if this isn't handled properly by both parties in the media and press, more of the fringe lunatics are going to start seeing that "if you can't get your way, kill the person keeping you from it" is a viable response to political disagreements.

I mean I miss the days when political disagreements just made for amusing SNL sketchs :(

yeah, I have a feeling the level of disgust is going to elevate in the coming days as the reactions start coming in

isn't this type of thing rare (senate/congress assassinations)? I know about the Rev Jim Jones incident, but not sure about others?

Really, though, at this early stage it's really a gun control issue. We don't anything about the person that did it yet, do we? Or why?

Man I think I am just going to avoid the news for the next week. I don't need to think less of the human race.

one silver lining (if you could even call it that) is that this will undoubtedly draw scrutiny to the Palin campaign for the irresponsible ad and the 'getting out of control' tendencies of the extreme right,

No it won't. The Republican Party and its apparatchicks are made of fucking teflon.

Totally understand and share the sentiments here, but honestly we have no idea yet why this guy did this. He might have thought she was part of a Martian invasion. I almost hope so, because psycho-off-his-meds is less scary than if he turns out to have Sarah Palin books in his car.

Anyway. Just fucking awful awful awful.

http://i.imgur.com/HBrrK.png

nope, and might not for a little while.

re: gun control though, I mean it drives me insane that the rhetoric that works the best on the pro-gun constituency is usually OTT conspiratorial rambling ie "everyone murdered could have been saved if they had a gun" or "who's gonna protect you from the gov't under martial law"?

if I had a gun I'd probably shoot myself in the knee with it, even if I had one if someone wanted to off me they probably would succeed.

Man I think I am just going to avoid the news for the next week. I don't need to think less of the human race.

good luck, usa

i am with tipsy on this one. praying this is unrelated to stupid fringe politics.

Turn to 'ban all guns' vs 'arm everyone' sad but inevitable. We've got several gun control threads if you want to do that.

thanks michelle

Michelle Bachmann

Rep. Giffords and all victims in today's shooting are in my prayers. Those responsible must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
4 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone

i am with tipsy on this one. praying this is unrelated to stupid fringe politics.

― mavisbeacon666 (San Te), Saturday, January 8, 2011 9:24 AM (6 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah i hope this was just a crazy demons-in-my-head guy

not that that would make anything better

http://www.warchat.org/pictures/world_war_i_1914-1918_archduke_ferdinand.jpg

xpost is that really bachmann's twitter feed? because she has one l in her first name

things like this sometimes make me want to emigrate but then I think to myself "Fuck that, let THEM leave"

ZS: http://twitter.com/MicheleBachmann/status/23816961121058816

that would be "my bad"

Turned on Fox News...they're reporting that the gunman shouted something as he started firing...Fox host asked "do we know what he shouted or what language it was in?"

yah i hope this was just a crazy demons-in-my-head guy

not that that would make anything better

― gr8080, Saturday, January 8, 2011 7:25 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark

But the extreme right needs to be confronted. There are some scary currents in this country, and maybe this could serve as a warning.

xpost

yea, regardless of whether it's linked or not, or even if this hadn't happened today, there's a frightening 'tone' to the rhetoric of the right that makes me long for the days of people going "FUCK BILL FOR GETTING HIS DICK SUCKED", at least you could just lol at them.

yeah, even if it is a violent psychotic, why a democratic congresswoman? it's unlikely the irreponsible climate of invective has had no effect on this

we'll know in 48 hours max anyway

A better knowledge of "game" and his wife / gf probably ends up dead. Guy is screwed in the head, probably since childhood. To shoot eleven people what kind of normal affections can you have for a person? People like that, as the books say, seek completion of themselves.

trying to decide if i want to know or dont want to know what roissy thinks about the issues of the day. its one or the other

generally you can kind of make it up yourself if you've ever read anything by him. interesting, tho, as an example of the phenomenon where people with strong political opinions think their "own side" is weak and the opponent is ruthless and effective

yeah that was probably the weirdest part to me, im so used to hearing dems make similar conclusions via entirely different language

about their own party

the hard right blogs piss and moan about that kind of thing all the time! the maine senators are their lieberman and stuff. it's kind of the source of the talk radio dudes' power, they're the lonely voices crying in the wilderness, nobody listens, nobody does anything about it...

sorry if this has been posted before: apparently safeway surveillance videos clearly captured the shootings. this will be key evidence in loughner's trial.

fuuuuck

Don't think I'm ready for that yet. Meanwhile, more on Loughner's high school years and family life
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12loughner.html?_r=1&hp

there are some interesting details in this longform article about events leading up to the shootings.

i suppose, like o'rourke said about the NYT coverage, you could complain about how it frames the issue, but whatevs.

hey remember how i was stressing abt my friend's mom being at the grocery store when this went down? AP caught her at one of the memorial services:

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0ePyfVee8ofJi/x610.jpg

wow. hope neither she nor anyone she knows was hurt.

geez that picture.

she was out of the state the day it happened but knew/knows a few of the victims and has worked w/ giffords on charity fund raising stuff

hey guys remember that congresswoman who got shot in the face? she stood up on her own feet:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/20/arizona.shooting/

<3

:)

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/01/mass-comic-book-dealer-/1

douchebag comic book dealer who posted the "1 down, 534 to go" blog post has his "arsenal" seized.

lol

Ok lol

hit him where it really hurts and take his rare collectibles out of the polybag wrap

Open a giant bag of potato chips, thumb through every comic, and then put them all back in the racks without backboards OR wraps. And then put a huge Ben Affleck "Daredevil" poster in the window of the store.

cooooooooooold blooooooooooooooooded

:D

In the film version, can we have him being visited by cockney gangsters first?

http://mobile.theonion.com/articles/shooting-suspect-released-after-not-breaking-any-a,18809/?mobile=true

I give it a week before someone takes that seriously and it ends up in some legit newspaper.

c'mon we're a dumb country but we're not that dumb

Open a giant bag of potato chips, thumb through every comic, and then put them all back in the racks without backboards OR wraps. And then put a huge Ben Affleck "Daredevil" poster in the window of the store.

― VegemiteGrrrl, Thursday, January 20, 2011 7:24 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I see that you speak fluent nerd.

:D

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/national/jared-lee-loughner-removed-from-court-after-outburst-20110525-ncx

last few grafs of that are just super depressing

5 months after being declared dead by the first news reports:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/13/us/13giffords2_inline/13giffords2_inline-popup.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/06/13/us/13giffords2_inline.html : Ms. Giffords in a photo released via her Facebook page.

More on how she's doing - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110612/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_photo

she shd keep that haircut

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/10/10098445-tucson-survivor-giffords-makes-me-want-to-vomit

Nice giving that dude a forum MSN.

yet another "man bites it" story

it's more like 'what a devastating story that didn't need to be told', let alone cherrypicked for a headline. like obviously - gross - but maybe don't write up the opinions of a bereaved ultraconservative guy unless you're looking to publish a gross story.

i'm glad i know that such a man exists.

'FORMER MARINE: "HURRRRR"'

Reactions to her resignation

wow Onion has been next-level lately

loughner pleads guilty

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/jared-loughner-plea-guilty-tucson-arizona-giffords-shooting-200803181.html

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/08/victims-enter-court-for-giffords-shooter-sentencing/?hpt=hp_t1

Judge Larry Burns has sentenced Loughner to seven consecutive life terms in prison, plus 140 years, without the possibility of parole

mark kelly's full statement is here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/gabby-giffords-jared-loughner-sentenced_n_2094351.html

Wow; did not know that the guy who replaced her got shot in the leg that day

Spoke today at Congress:

http://m.gawker.com/5980190/watch-gabrielle-giffords-moving-statement-at-the-senates-gun-safety-hearings

Also

Giffords was followed at the hearings by the NRA's Wayne LaPierre, who reiterated his call for armed guards in schools.

Meanwhile, back in Phoenix, a guy started shooting people at an office complex while she was talking.

http://m.gawker.com/5980253/mass-shooting-in-phoenix-office-building-hours-after-gabrielle-giffords-testifies-at-congressional-hearing-on-gun-control

After, not while

RIP

― max bro'd (nakhchivan), Saturday, January 8, 2011 2:12 PM