Rush to Blame

A horrific tragedy occur ed on Saturday. A mentally challenged man, took a legally purchased firearm and opened up in to a crowd of people in Tucson, AZ. A member of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, a Democrat, was wounded. Six others, including a 9 year old girl, and a district Judge were killed.

Nearly as soon as the brass hit the ground, the "pundits" on the left, otherwise known as the mainstream media were blaming the Tea Party. The right was pointing out that one of the shooter's favorite books was "The Communist Manifesto."
A Sheriff stepped forward to say something has to be done about the new "vitriolic" political rhetoric that surely caused this problem.
Anti-Gun advocates were blaming the high capacity magazine that the shooter used.

The simple fact here is that the man who did this horrible thing, just like any other person who does this kind of thing, was mentally sick. Something was absolutely wrong with him. He was out of his mind, and went on a rampage. There is no one to blame here, except the man who pulled the trigger. Where there opportunities to catch him before the trigger was pulled? Not really. We must accept that in a free society, one can not just be jailed or confined because they give one the wiblies.

Let's take a look at the gun purchase program that he had to go through to obtain his Glock 19.

The Glock 19 9mm pistol is the compact version of Glock's most popular Glock 17 model. It has a 4 inch barrel and has a standard magazine capacity of 15 rounds, however Glock has magazines that can be purchased that fit the Glock 19 in 17, 19, and 33 round capacities. The shooter had a 33 round magazine.
The shooter had to go through all of the background checks that anyone else has to go through to purchase his pistol. Because he had never been convicted of a crime or been declared mentally incompetent, he passed all background checks, and the purchase went through. In fact, if the shooter wanted to, he could have qualified for a concealed carry permit in the state of Arizona. Actually, if he wanted to become a resident of Nebraska, the state with the strictest concealed carry issue laws and checks, he could have obtained a CCW permit there.
If he wanted to purchase a pistol in any state in the union, he would have passed all of the checks. He had nothing in his background to disqualify him from the purchase.

Several people, including Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, came out and said that it was political speech that caused this tragedy. In fact it is said that the shooter rarely listened to political speech. He was obsessed with what Government was, commonly asking, even once to Congress Person Gifford, whom he shot, "What is Government if words do not have meaning?" A seemingly nonsensical question, but it reveals a particular area of questioning that the nihilists would have come up with... I must admit I have thought of similar questions when I was reading Hobbes and Kant. When asking these questions was he actually looking for answers or was he just spouting nonsense?
At any rate, political speech, nor any other type of expression, can, in any way, be silenced or abridged by Government. To do that, would destroy the very freedoms that we hold so very dear.

In fact the only place that could have alerted authorities and offered help was the government schools that the shooter attuned nearly his entire life. His friends, who weren't really friends, just acquaintances, thought him to be crazy. His classmates, teachers, and administrators saw him as mentally unstable. However he was never brought formally to counseling. Was it the failure of the schools?
No. While disruptive, he never did anything physically to hurt anyone. Teachers thought that he might be autistic, have ADHD, or be mentally unstable, he was never crazy enough to warrant them thinking that he was a danger to himself or others.

He was never in trouble with the law, save a pot arrest. He was never charged or convicted of a crime, however. No reason to suspect that he would attempt or do such an act.

It wasn't the books he read, his stance on government, or his purchase of a firearm that made him go nuts. If you like you can make a direct comparison with this man and myself...

We have read the same books. I too have read "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto", the books the shooter were supposed to have read. I too have a deep distrust of Government. We both recently purchased firearms. I have high capacity magazines for my firearm. It was said that he "stalked" Congress Person Gifford. By stalked they mean he attended some events where Gifford was speaking, and wrote letters and emails. By this definition, I too have "stalked" members of Congress. I write emails all of the time so that my representatives know how I, their constituent, would like them to vote.

On the surface, we are very alike the shooter and I. Actually in the eyes of the law, we are nearly identical. Actually, he is cleaner than me. I have a trespassing conviction. He was clean.

The simple truth is that you can't find reason in crazy as much as you try. Unfortunately, the left and the right will attempt to use this tragedy to further their own agendas, and, ultimately, remove our freedoms in the process.