TVD, first, it's been widely reported that violent crime is significantly down in Arizona, so please don't suggest that illegal immigration has led to an increase there there in killings and other crimes.

OK, so you take the position that sick brains are not affected in any way by the wider political climate and by hate-filled, violent rhetoric. But if you read a little about Loughner, you find that he did indicate that he felt the government was illegitimate and tyrannical and lying. See this Mother Jones interview with his close friend:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/jared-lee-loughner-friend-voicemail-phone-message?page=2
Lougner was at least somewhat politically aware, having attended a Giffords rally. And he himself called it an "assassination," so he saw it as a political act.

But beyond Loughner, would you say that the wider political environment and hateful political rhetoric had nothing to do with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin? The attack on the two police officers in California? The killing of the security guard in Washington, D.C.? The guy crashing his plane into the IRS office and killing an IRS agent? The armed old guy who threatened Sen. Patty Murray last year in Yakima? The murder of Dr. Tiller in Kansas, and the previous murders of abortion providers? The Fort Hood shooter? John Wilkes Booth?

There are just too many cases of unhinged individuals taking violent action against politicians and government- or politically related figures to assert that their behavior is not affected and encouraged by the broader political climate and pervasive violent rhetoric. Think about it. Would you, TVD, repeatedly tell a mentally unstable person that a particular individual was out to betray them or take away their liberty or conspire with their enemies? That's what mostly right-wing politicians and pundits are doing every day in America.

What isn't being discussed is the real reason this guy was able to do what he did: he was able to buy a semi-automatic weapon. Without that weapon, a "sick brain" can't kill and wound multiple people. A more civil atmosphere wouldn't have prevented this (he was under the influence of his own mental atmosphere); more mental health services wouldn't have prevented this (he wouldn't have been willing to be treated). If he hadn't been sold a gun, this wouldn't have happened.

The babbling heads and "gun sights" imagery of Palin, Fox, and co might not be directly responsible...but they have certainly provided fertile soil for this sort of thing.

Fertile soil or not, he needed a gun to do it. He was able to buy the gun. That needs to be fixed. Then we can spend ten years trying to bring about a more civil discourse.

If you want to go back farther in time, two Presidential assassinations were clearly rooted in extremist politics. John Wilkes Booth, who shot Abraham Lincoln, was a supporter of the Confederacy. Booth was not a lone actor but rather part of a larger conspiracy that also targeted Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Forty years later, William McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist Leon Czolgosz. This was only one of many anarchist assassinations and terrorist acts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Tea Party apologists argue somewhat disingenuously that the whole issue is to be ignored because one cannot trace a direct line between the assassination plot and the hateful rhetoric of the right. But that isn't the point. The point is that civilized people do not threaten to kill each other over policy disagreements. It is quite amply demonstrated by history, both within the United States and elsewhere, that things can get out of hand quickly when the atmosphere gets toxic enough.

He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.

Palin's statement shows that on some level, despite her disavowals of the impact of violent rhetoric, she does get it. If she and her right-wing cohorts actually live the following words from her statement, then they WILL have gotten the message and American political discourse will be greatly improved. We'll see if they return to demonizing their opponents and accusing them of tyranny, alien origins, betraying the American people, and conspiring with enemies:

Palin: “We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country.”

Maybe if Mr. Loughner's access to mental health care had been as easy as his access to firearms, this week's headlines would be different.

The prejudicial Obama and his 'beer summit mulligan' added to the bombastic msnbc collection of left wing whack jobs both on their payroll and as their guests collectively far outweigh and exceed the right in efforts to poison the public dialog. As for Arizona, all they want is honest and effective law enforcement.

Thanks for your comments. I continue to consider the Tucson shootings and their aftermath. For one thing, it seems clear that elected officials at federal and state level will become more security conscious from this point forward. (In the early 1960s, even after JFK's assassination, you
could walk into the Executive Office Building, where White House staff work, the Capitol, or any federal building with not so much as a reception desk to stop you). Easy public dialogue will become more difficult.

The points made by readers about gun control also are telling. After each such shooting episode, there are fresh calls for it. But it seems a losing battle. Arizona, among other states, is awash in firearms. The Glock used in the Tucson shootings is a current best seller and is carried by ordinary people in their purses and in hip holsters. I don't hunt and
cannot understand the impulse of those who feel compelled to do it. I can understand, though, their desire to possess hunting weapons. But the country is awash in pistols and automatic weapons beyond anything which might be required for home security.

I own no firearm---got my fill of them during years of active and Reserve Army duty---and don't want one around me. Among other things, tragic deaths result every year because kids get their hands on their parents and grandparents' firearms. But the political climate is such that even
the most liberal officeholders feel compelled to defend gun-ownership.
In Arizona, you can buy guns at WalMart and there are gun dealers who
do a huge volume retail business. Firing ranges are on the rise nationally. A sad reality.

There is plenty of blame to go around. We don't have adequate programs for identifying and helping the mentally ill. Our media is full of violence. Our laws on guns seem to have little rational reasoning. Our political discourse is hateful and irrational.

This may be a chance to address these shortcomings in our society. I doubt if we will as the voice of a lot of stupid people seem to be taking control. It certainly looks as though this is the time to address all of these issues and look in Pogo's mirror.

John Lay
13724 C Midvale Ave N
Seattle WA 98133
206 384 0201
c21jlay@aol.com

Thanks TVD for your piece. To summarize your argument: a) Arizona politics is conservative, but not weird. b) Oswald, Hinckley and Sirhan were all crazy, not politically motivated. d) Ray was the only politically motivated assassin. Therefore, d) we can't blame politics for this assassination attempt.

Sorry, but I'm not sensing the logic. Arizona politics includes an angry conservatism, a pro-gun attitude, and a low investment in mental health treatment. While it's hard to draw a distinction between political philosophy and its cultural roots, it's clear they're all part of the same twisted system.

What's the use of denying that heated rhetoric, easily available guns, and lack of treatment for mental health lead to catastrophe? The fact that this was an assassination attempt should ask us to seek the political causes (heated rhetoric, lax gun control, and poor mental health services) and political solutions (calmer rhetoric, tighter gun control, and better mental health services).

The word "assassination" isn't really appropriate. This man attempted to kill a Congressperson. He also succeeded in killing a 9-year-old girl. Is the former an attempted assassination, and the latter simply a killing? That's diminishing the crime of killing the girl, and the others who were killed.

We can blame whoever we choose, and there are plenty of people and issues to blame. However, if only ONE thing were changed, this kind of thing wouldn't happen again. That one thing is outlawing all assault weapons, including semi-automatics like Glocks.

Neither untreated mentally-ill people nor people whose hate is politically motivated are inherently murderers. They need guns.

Yes, the attempted murder of a prominent person is called an assassination. Webster's Dictionary: "Assassinate: to murder (a usually prominent person) by sudden or secret attack often for political reasons." Loughner described his task as "my assassination" and his act clearly fits the description of an attempted assassination.

Thanks for the piece, Mr. Van Dyk. I do have two problems with your argument. First, you suggest that Ray's racism is not a personal derangement but Hinkley's obsession with a movie start is. Does this mean that racism or abetting racism is a reasonable, rational response? What makes one deranged and one not? Second, you seem to have a unitary picture of an individual, i.e., each of the assassins is only one thing, deranged or political. But one can have a deranged political goal yet a perfectly rational plan for getting there. For example, each of the assassins systematically planned and carried out their (successful) attempts, especially assessing the environment around themselves to find the most opportune moment. That suggests that the assassins are quite capable of rationally understanding their surroundings, which opens up the possibility of rationally absorbing the messages around them but translating them into the deranged goal. The point is that the human mind and its personality are complex and not reducible to simple definitions of being "sick," or "insane," or "evil."

Thanks for the piece, Mr. Van Dyk. I do have two problems with your argument. First, you suggest that Ray's racism is not a personal derangement but Hinkley's obsession with a movie start is. Does this mean that racism or abetting racism is a reasonable, rational response? What makes one deranged and one not? Second, you seem to have a unitary picture of an individual, i.e., each of the assassins is only one thing, deranged or political. But one can have a deranged political goal yet a perfectly rational plan for getting there. For example, each of the assassins systematically planned and carried out their (successful) attempts, especially assessing the environment around themselves to find the most opportune moment. That suggests that the assassins are quite capable of rationally understanding their surroundings, which opens up the possibility of rationally absorbing the messages around them but translating them into the deranged goal. The point is that the human mind and its personality are complex and not reducible to simple definitions of being "sick," or "insane," or "evil."

Before we go too far villifying Arizona (which admittedly is worth harsh words), we should remember that right now an inquest is being held in the case of a Seattle police officer who within 5 seconds of telling an inebriated, partially-deaf old man to stop, shot and killed that man for no better reason than Loughner killed his victims. That wasn't the first or probably the last example of the police culture in Seattle. That's the culture we're responsible for changing: our own city. We're also responsible for attempting to carry out what hasn't happened yet: outlawing semi-automatic weapons in our country so future Loughners don't kill.

Self-righteous bloviating about Sarah Palin and Arizona and assumptions about who is mentally ill and how, and what their political opinions are, won't accomplish either of those tasks.

TVD I have always enjoyed your information filled perspectives on a variety of issues. But on this one you have been outthought by Meyer, Pepper2000 and bkochis. I watched John Kennedy drive by in his motorcade in San Antonio the day before he went to Dallas. I remember thinking how easy it would have been to have shot him from the curb where I was standing.

The reason for the disturbing thought was the vitriolic political garbage that the right wing was accusing this man of on an almost daily basis. The written material most often came from the John Birch Society in their "Liberty Lobby" newsletter. I had several right wing young (24-25 year old)friends who constantly bombarded me with this trash accusing Kennedy of all sorts of unamerican, tyrannical plans for our country -- very similar to the accusations that the modern day right wing press(read internet - try Moonbat) does with Obama and leading liberal politicians.

I thought it was Adlai that advised Kennedy not to go to Dallas, but Lyndon certainly understood the climate. And that climate, which is amplified in bars, on jobsites etc, leads to little isolated men becoming empowered to do something significant for their culture. They are not truly insane, just isolated and needing a strong sense of mission -- in their minds they are doing a great deed for society.

I say little men as these guys are loners, not leaders and they are male --I can think of no women assassins. I believe this martyrdom tendency is in our genes and organization based vitriol exploits that. The vitriolic segment of the right wing is currently dodging a big bullet with the pass they are getting from influential liberals including our president, and now you. Glen Beck thanking the president for being our president should be the tipoff.

Bellevue Billy