Shooting in Arizona - right to blame Palin?

[Sarcasmo]

Avoiding human151's rabbit hole for a moment, I figured I'd weigh in on the AZ shooting.

While the onus of responsibility ultimately falls upon the shooter, he's also (from what I've seen and heard) clearly mentally unstable. It remains to be seen whether or not our criminal justice system will take that into consideration before judging him guilty and throwing him into prison for the rest of his life. Although, being Arizona, they'll probably execute him.

I don't believe it's appropriate to blame Sarah Palin for anything. At the very least, if we're going to lay blame at her feet, all Americans need to accept an equal share. Ours is a country obsessed with guns; that glorifies violence as a solution to problems. Combine this with a pseudo-religious belief in the God given right to carry high powered firearms, and it's not the greatest leap in reasoning to see how a mentally disturbed individual could look at a map with crosshairs and names, and decide that his alien overlords want these people dead.

The vitriolic and hateful language might be toned down for a bit, if only for propriety's sake, (if the events of 9/11 couldn't effect some sort of mass re-socialization toward more civility and understanding, then this wont, either) but it will be back before you know it. What concerns me more is that this shooting is going to bring gun control back to the forefront in many states, and I have the sinking feeling that the concealed carry folks are going to win a great deal of additional freedoms. As if we read in the newspapers every day about some mild mannered software analyst or CPA personally thwarting a mugging or convenience store robbery with his Glock-22.

No, I would like Sarah Palin to get as much exposure as humanly possible in the next 18 months. Like the Klan: the more she's seen and heard, the more obvious it is to everyone that she's terribly misinformed and nothing more than an attention whore. Anything that keeps her from sniffing a presidential nomination, as far as I'm concerned. Also, take a good look at who responds to her, and people like her and Glenn Beck. I'm talking about the Keith Olbermanns and the Bill Mahers, as two examples. They're not part of the solution, either.

Now, I don't disagree with the facts of human151's statements. I do however, question the motivation behind them. The fact that we, as Americans, discuss what happened, and who is suffering as a consequence is perfectly human and appropriate. It does not mean that we don't also care about the hundreds of thousands of lives lost everywhere else around the world, but geographically, this happened in our back yard. Additionally, I think it's insensitive and disingenuous to suggest that we should not be allowed to mourn some dead people unless we mourn ALL dead people, when I see no evidence that you've made it a daily habit to do so yourself.