Jared Loughner Sentenced to Life for Arizona Shootings

Good, this monster will never get to taste freedom again:

Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords stood next to her husband in court Thursday as he spoke directly to Jared Loughner, the Arizona man who tried to assassinate the then-congresswoman in a January 2011 shooting.

"Mr. Loughner, you may have put a bullet through her head, but you haven't put a dent in her spirit and her commitment to make the world a better place," former astronaut Mark Kelly said.

Giffords was seriously wounded when Loughner walked up and shot her in the head during her meet-and-greet event with constituents outside a Tucson grocery store on January 8, 2011. A federal judge, a congressional aide and four others were killed and 12 other people suffered wounds.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns sentenced Loughner to serve the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. The punishment includes seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years.

"The evidence clearly shows that he knew what he was doing, despite his mental illness," the judge said.

Loughner, 24, spoke just once, confirming to the judge that he would make no statement before sentencing.

"That is true," he said.

Beside the dramatic appearance by Giffords and her husband, nine other victims spoke at the sentencing hearing held in a packed federal courtroom in Tuscon.

Kelly, in an interview Thursday evening with CNN's Piers Morgan, said hearing what they had to say "was really a tough thing" for Giffords.

"Gabby said afterwards, for her the biggest emotion was just sadness," Kelly said. "To hear story after story of what the impact of this horrible day had on people was really difficult."

Politiks As Usual: In The News 8/13/12

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The Gun Laws We Desperately Need

Gabrielle Giffords Makes First Appearance In House Since Tuscon Shooting To Cast Vote In Favor Of Debt Deal

Now that's courage:

Emergency legislation to avoid an economy-rattling government default sped through the House Monday night, a scant day before the deadline for action — the dramatic vote made all the more memorable by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' first appearance in Congress since suffering a head wound in a shooting six months ago.


The vote was 269-161, but all eyes were on Giffords, who drew thunderous applause as she walked into the House chamber and cast her vote in favor of the bill.


A final Senate sign-off for the measure is virtually assured on Tuesday.


"If the bill were presented to the president, he would sign it," the White House said, an understatement of enormous proportions.


After months of fiercely partisan struggle, the House's top Republican and Democratic leaders swung behind the bill, ratifying a deal sealed Sunday night with a phone call from House Speaker John Boehner to President Barack Obama.


"The legislation will solve this debt crisis and help get the American people back to work," Boehner said at a news conference a few hours before the vote.

Politiks As Usual: In The News 6/13/11

First Gabby Giffords Photos Released Since Arizona Shooting

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Liberal Democrat Loretta Sanchez Tries To Boot Gabrielle Giffords From Committee Assignment

Sanchez is a far-Left nutcase from California who voted with Nancy Pelosi 98% of the time when she ran the House. In other words she's part of the same crowd that's made our country far worse off than it was 4 years ago when the Democrats took over Congress. To think a congresswoman would disrespect a recovering colleague this way is disgraceful:

Behind closed doors, California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez has proposed removing Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords from the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) until she recovers from injuries sustained after being shot in the head on Jan. 8 in Tucson, The Daily Caller has learned.


The proposal sparked an outrage, according to those in the room - including from those in Sanchez's own party.


"It's not appropriate," Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes told The Daily Caller, adding that there was outrage among some members in the room when Sanchez made the suggestion. "It's bad for morale during her recovery period."


Reyes and Rep. Adam Smith of California put up most of the fight against Sanchez, and helped squash the idea.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Moved To Houston Hospital Rehab Center

This is what most matters now, but in the long run something needs to be done to prevent mentally handicapped people from possessing guns so this kind of incident never happens again:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Friday left the Tucson hospital where she had been treated since being shot in the head January 8, traveling down streets lined with well-wishers before flying to the Houston, Texas, hospital where she will continue her recovery.


She arrived at Houston Hobby International Airport shortly after 1 p.m. local time and was flown in a helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital, where one of the surgeons who has treated her since the shooting will hand over care to a new team of doctors.


Although previous reports had indicated she would move directly to a rehabilitation facility affiliated with the hospital, she will instead be taken to the hospital's trauma center for evaluation and treatment, said Dr. Dong Kim, a neurosurgeon at the hospital.


"She's not quite ready for rehabilitation yet," he said, citing concerns about ongoing medical issues. He declined to elaborate.


The hospital said in a statement that she will be transferred to the rehabilitation facility, TIRR Memorial Hermann, when her health allows.

Politiks As Usual: In The News 1/17/11

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Dana Milbank & The Continued Crusade To Falsely Link Beck & Palin To Violence

Tucson Shooting Survivor Arrested for Issuing Death Threat to Tea Partier at ABC Town Hall

Audio of Eric Fuller’s previous comments on Beck, Palin, and the Tea Party below:



Mediaite.com:

Merely a week after a crazed gunman shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head and left several others dead and wounded at a local political event, a Tea Party spokesman in the same area received a public death threat at a town hall meeting– from one of Jared Loughner’s victims.


Local station KGUN is reporting that Eric Fuller a 63-year-old military veteran who was shot in the back last Saturday while attending Rep. Giffords’ “Congress on Your Corner” event, became enraged by the statements of some of the participants at the town hall events and threatened the life of Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries. This is how the scene is believed to have played out:


Toward the end of the town hall meeting Saturday morning, one of the shooting victims, J. Eric Fuller, took exception to comments by two of the speakers: Ariz. state Rep. Terri Proud, a Dist. 26 Republican, and Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.


According to sheriff’s deputies at the scene, Fuller took a photo of Humphries and said, “You’re Dead.”


Deputies immediately escorted Fuller from the room.


Fuller is being charged with threats, intimidation, and disorderly conduct according to authorities. He has been profiled by CBS and has publicly blamed Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Sharron Angle for inciting the violence that caused the events of last Saturday. The town hall meeting is scheduled to be aired tomorrow on ABC– whether this incident will make it to broadcast is yet to be seen, though, oddly, ABC News has yet to report on this incident.

You reap what you sow.

Barack Obama Refutes George Soros Liberals Who Blame Jared Loughner Shooting On "Rhetoric"

NRO.com:

You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations – to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless. Already we’ve seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health systems. Much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our exercise of self-government.


But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.


Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “when I looked for light, then came darkness.” Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.


For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.


So yes, we must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.


But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.

Well done Mr. President. Well done.

Majority Of Americans Doesn't Blame Rhetoric for Giffords Shooting

Unfortunately for the Left, the majority of Americans aren't as stupid and naive as they'd like for us to believe:

A majority of Americans reject the view that heated political rhetoric was a factor in the weekend shootings in Arizona which killed six and critically wounded a congresswoman, a CBS News said on Tuesday.


Since the Saturday incident in which Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot at point-blank range, various politicians and commentators have said a climate in which strong language and ideological polarization is common may have contributed to the attack.

Some of the analysts cited anti-government statements from the man arrested in the shooting, Jared Lee Loughner, as support for that view.

But CBS said its nationwide telephone poll found that, "57 percent of respondents said the harsh political tone had nothing to do with the shooting, compared to 32 percent who felt it did."

WaPo Editorial: 'Violent Metaphors' Don't Kill People, 'Guns Kill People'

Newsbusters.org:

While many liberal media outlets are obsessing over conservative political rhetoric they insist leads to incidents like the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona), the Washington Post today has opted instead to exploit the tragic shooting to push for gun control.


"The early evidence raises questions about mental illness and indiscriminate access to guns," the Post complained in the subheadline to its top January 10 editorial, "Carnage in Arizona.":


The temptation will be, as Arizona and the nation mourn the dead and hope for the recovery of the wounded, to infuse the terrible attack with broader political meaning - to blame the actions of the alleged 22-year-old gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, on a vitriolic political culture laced with violent metaphors and ugly attacks on opponents. Maybe. But metaphors don't kill people - guns kill people.


Of course the Post editorial board went on to see a broader political meaning in the tragedy, namely, the "need" for more gun control:


Saturday's rampage does illustrate the need for tighter control of semiautomatic weapons and ammunition. The gunman arrived at the supermarket with a Glock semiautomatic equipped with an extended magazine of about 30 bullets and additional ammunition. The long-lapsed federal ban on assault weapons, which prohibited such high-capacity magazines, should be reinstated: There is no justification, outside of law enforcement or military use, for such ammunition. A magazine with a smaller capacity might not have stopped the gunman, but it might have at least reduced the carnage.

It's like did we learn anything from the Virginia Tech massacre??? Crazy people shouldn't have guns in their hands and everything should be done to prevent another Jared Loughner or Seung-Hui Cho from ever killing innocent people again..

This Is Unsettling: Jared Loughner’s Mug Shot Released

Mediaite.com:

As if we needed further evidence that Jared Loughner, the alleged assailant in this weekend’s Arizona tragedy, was a troubled man.

They'll keep blaming Sarah Palin.

Politiks As Usual: In The News 1/10/11

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Jared Loughner Had No Business Owning A Gun

It's what gets lost in all the "who to blame" smears and rhetoric...what business did Jared Loughner have owning a gun?!? The guy was clearly a nutcase. Gun responsibility: that needs to be the conversation we're having in the wake of this senseless tragedy:

The man linked to the shooting today of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others is 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the Associated Press reported.


Saturday afternoon, police surrounded a house at 7700 N. Soledad Ave., which is the address listed by a man with the same name on a variety of online accounts and in the volunteer registry for the 2010 Tucson Festival of Books. The home is near West Magee Road and North Thornydale Road on the northwest side, about five miles from the shooting scene.


Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik would not confirm Loughner is the suspected shooter. He said the person arrested for the shooting is uninjured and uncooperative.


The suspected shooter has made death threats before and been contacted by law-enforcement officers, but the threats weren't against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Dupnik said. The suspect is unstable, Dupnik said, but the sheriff would not say he is "insane."


A former classmate of Loughner at Pima Community College said he was "obviously very disturbed."


"He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts," said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College's Northwest campus.


Sorenson doesn't recall if he ever made any threats or uttered political statements but he was very disruptive, she said. He was asked to leave the pre-algebra class several times and eventually was barred from class, said Sorenson, a Tucson resident.


Another Pima classmate, Lydian Ali, said Loughner would frequently laugh aloud to himself during the advanced-poetry class they attended. Only about 16 people were in the class, so Loughner's behavior stood out, Ali said.


"It almost seemed like he was on his own planet, because his comments would have nothing to do with what we were talking about," Ali said.


MySpace, YouTube and Facebook accounts maintained by Loughner suggest he has spent most of his life on the northwest side: His profile says he attended Thornydale Elementary, Tortolita Middle School, Mountain View High School


The online accounts also contain bizarre discussions of a new currency and literacy, as well as threatening and despairing messages.


"WOW! I'm glad i didn't kill myself. I'll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow .... why doesn't anyone talk to me?.." he posted on MySpace Dec. 14.


On Dec. 13, he wrote: "I don't feel good: I'm ready to kill a police officer! I can say it."

Moulitsas Markos, Stupid Liberals Already Blaming Sarah Palin For Shooting Of Gabrielle Giffords

From all accounts U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is a moderate Democrat (or Blue Dog) who recently made very public stands attacking Barack Obama for not securing our borders--not the type of liberal, elitist posing as a politician that could would even be in far-Right crosshairs or even in their afterthoughts. But if you're an idiot douchebag like Moulitsas Markos and all the rest of his lemmings at Daily Kos, why let something liek facts get in the way of smearing Sarah Palin. It's who they are:

Some prominent liberal bloggers wasted little time before politicizing the horrific and tragic shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona on Saturday.


Almost immediately after the nation learned of the shooting of Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others (including a federal judge), a few prominent liberal web writers sought to blame Sarah Palin and other conservatives for the action.


Linking to a map of U.S. House districts that Sarah Palin's pac wanted to "target" during the 2010 mid-term elections -- which sadly included crosshairs over Rep. Giffords' district (among others) -- DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas Tweeted, "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin."


The liberal blog Firedog Lake also went there.


(Palin has deleted the image from her website, and issued a short statement on the shooting, writing on her Facebook page: "My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice."


Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias Tweeted out several other examples of "violent rhetoric," including Rep. Michele Bachman saying, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous" to block climate change legislation.


A few personal observations...


First, it is sad to see folks immediately politicize such a tragedy. If your first response to such an event is to think of Sarah Palin, something is wrong.


Like it or not, the sort of rhetoric and imagery employed by Palin's PAC is not terribly unusual. Politicians constantly talk about "targeting" voters -- does anyone think they want to shoot them? Political consultants tell politicians to "hunt where the ducks are, " but they certainly don't mean to shoot voters. Ironically, Moulitsas has also previously urged his readers to "target" Giffords and put a "bulls eye" on her district because she "sold out the Constitution..."


To be sure, it is possible for a politician to use words to incite violence, but putting a target on a congressional district is clearly not an example of that.


Our culture is full of rhetoric that uses violent analogies for everyday events. Here is a headline I just pulled up: "Aaron Rodgers in the Eagles' Crosshairs...Literally." (Here's another: Lindsay Lohan in Sheriff's Crosshairs, Calif. Investigators Ask ..." (Clearly, we had better hope nothing happens to the Aaron Rodgers or Lindsay Lohan in the near future).


It's also worth noting that the majority of the most egregious comments were made on Twitter, an outlet that allows folks to Tweet before thinking.

UPDATE: Turns out that one the Dauly Kos's own writers recently wrote a scathing piece attacking Giffords for being "too conservative". Hypocrite much?