The Alexandria Shooting

Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the third highest Republican in the House, was one of four people shot in Alexandria, Virginia, at a baseball practice session for the Democratic-versus-Republican men's congressional baseball game.

The shooter, since killed, was a Bernie Sanders supporter who posted virulently anti-Trump material on social media.  He specifically asked someone before if he was at the Republican practice session before firing.

Republicans will likely blame Democrats and progressives for inspiring the shooting  with their talk of "revolution."  Democrats will likely blame the Republicans for fostering a culture of hate that inspires such extreme behavior on both sides.

But when all is said ad done, not one piece of gun control legislation will be passed.  

Giffords Story Update

Authorities are trying to learn more about Jared Lee Loughner, the young man who shot Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and seventeen others, six of them fatally. He has refused to cooperate with any of the authorities, and new evidence has been found in the form of a note written on an envelope that included the words "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and the name "Giffords" next to what appears to be his signature.

Loughner is to face a judge today to be charged for murder, attempted murder, and assassination. Giffords remains in critical condition and shows positive signs of recovery, but will likely need more surgery later on.

One cruel irony of the shooting is that Christina Taylor Green, the nine-year-old girl who was killed in the shooting, turned out to have been born September. 11, 2001. She was even featured in a book titled "Faces of Hope" that chronicled one baby from each state born on the day the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked and the former landmark completely destroyed by Arab terrorists.

Meanwhile, John Boehner - whose biggest problem four days ago this time was placating the Tea Party members of the House - now has to calm all of the 433 members other than Giffords and himself, all of whom are on edge.

All of America is on edge now.

Tucson Massacre

I was afraid something like this would happen.

With all of the heated and toxic rhetoric against our leaders and representatives in Washington, it was only a matter of time before someone was hurt. In this case, it was Arizona Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Ms. Giffords had been the subject of angry and/or violent demonstrators before. Her district office had been vandalized after she voted for the health care law. Sarah Palin featured on her Web site a picture showing a rifle cross-hair symbol over her district that encouraged voters to take Giffords out in the 2010 midterm elections.

With the influence of talk radio, the presence of guns at presidential rallies, and a U.S. Senate candidate proposing "Second Amendment remedies" to big government, it was not a question of whether a U.S. Representative would be shot. It was a question of when.

I don't know the motive behind the suspected gunman, Jared Lee Loughner. There's nothing in his own rhetoric, much of it incoherent, to suggest a political or even a personal vendetta. But all indications are that he deliberately meant to assassinate Giffords (and killed a federal judge, John Roll, caught in the crossfire), and Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is convinced that something in the heated political discourse in America might very well have provoked Loughner. He is not convinced, though, the Loughner acted alone.

It took Dupnik, an Arizonan, to say what others could not - that Arizona has become a "mecca" for bigotry and hatred, what with the backlash against Mexican immigrants and the hostility toward local politicians like Raul Grijalva, another Democratic congressman, and the questioning of Grijalva's very Americanism. In a state where a former Vice President's son has advocated "knocking the hell" out of Washington as a congressman, there was a powder keg waiting to explode. Today, it did.

Gabrielle Giffords has, as of this writing, come out of surgery and is expected to make a full recovery despite the severity of her wound, a bullet fired at point-blank range that entered her head and exited it at another point. Seventeen other people were wounded, the aforementioned federal judge, a nine-year girl, and four others fatally.

When Nancy Pelosi warned of such violence with great emotion in September 2009, many refused to take her warning seriously. Today, she expressed sorrow at the shooting of Ms. Giffords but didn't say that she'd told us something like this would happen. She was too classy to do so, and she didn't really need to.