A horrible and tragic shooting has struck the United States, only this time a member of Congress was shot in the head and is in critical, but stable condition. Six people were killed at a political event in Tuscan, Arizona on Saturday, 8 January 2011, including senior Federal Judge John Roll, a nine year old girl and four others. Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, and 12 others were injured during the shooting. The accused is Jared Loughner, a 22-year old Army reject who was unemployed and living with his parents at the time of the tragedy. Loughner was reportedly rejected for reasons of mental unsoundness, a point which will more than likely be a defence to his two counts of federal murder charges and one count of attempting to assassinate a member of the United States’ Congress. Separate charges will ensue for liability under Arizona criminal law. Both Arizona and the US have the penal sanction of capital punishment as a tariff for criminal liability. In my opinion, the justice system should render justice and a capital penalty for the actions of the accused.
The greatest fear stemming from this shooting is (i) antigun legislation and (ii) access to all-ready-elite-members-of-congress being limited due to security - which is horrible for any ‘democratic-republic’, such as the US, Canada and many EU states. No crime is solved by more legislation - bad things happen to good people and that's a fact of life - as a society we cannot prevent all harm, as to do so would be to have safety without liberty or freedom. “If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969). Rebuts to arguments concerning freedom, liberty and opportunity tend to be based on the notion of creating a more secure society. Think about it, health care legislation was passed in 2010 to give Americans the ‘peace of mind’ that they will not have to worry about what happens when they get ill or are the victims of a delictual liability. In the name of public safety and security legislation is being introduced in the halls of Congress to limit the scope of the Second Amendment and undermine a fundamental right enjoyed by Americans. Firearm ownership is a right enshrined in higher law, which is unlike a driver’s license for a motor vehicle, which is a privilege not to be abused. America’s third President and early advocate for limited government, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) proclaimed, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
Nationally sensationalized and emotionally devastating catastrophes tend to produce an outcry for reform and prevention. The Tuscan supermarket shooting is no exception. In a highly charged polarized environment, liberal bloggers began accusing former Alaska Governor and 2008 GOP Vice-Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin as having been the promulgating factor behind the assassination attempt of US Representative Giffords. Palin had listed the congresswoman’s seat on her “cross-hairs” targeted districts. If Palin’s rhetoric is “blood libel”, then perhaps the Democrats need to re-assess their own political free speech. In October 2010, American Vice-President Joe Biden told party stalwarts at a fundraiser in Minnesota that he was going to “strangle Republicans” who complained about the budget or how he encouraged supporters to “kill patriotic Republicans” who were using ‘procedure and substance to block a health care vote’ in the US Senate. Therefore, if President Barak Obama’s memorial conversation to the country about how “discourse has become so sharply polarised [...] 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”, then he assumedly means both sides of the political spectrum. If this presumption is in the affirmative, then ‘Hollywood’ sensational ‘documentaries’, such as the one funded by top Democratic Party donor and billion George Soros, which celebrates left-wing terrorists who plotted to napalm Republicans at the 2008 GOP Convention (and encourages ‘freedom fighting’ tactics in ridding America of its second largest political party) a “wound” which does not serve to heal the widening partisan divide of the last decade. If the president wants to be a leader, then he himself needs to reign in members of his own party who have crept into militant like tactics before chiding opposition rhetoric. Otherwise it looks as if the president is but a mere politician preparing for another campaign.
A shooting is horrible, though it hasn’t taking long for politicians and the media to turn this random event into a national catastrophe. Let’s get the facts straight, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 46 individuals are victims of ‘murder’ every single day of the year in the US. Everyone with ‘bleeding liberal hearts’ need to lighten up see this in perspective of the larger picture of falling victim to over emotionalizing one tragic shooting over another. Let's not let one horrible event destroy the purity of our current democratic system.
The greatest fear stemming from this shooting is (i) antigun legislation and (ii) access to all-ready-elite-members-of-congress being limited due to security - which is horrible for any ‘democratic-republic’, such as the US, Canada and many EU states. No crime is solved by more legislation - bad things happen to good people and that's a fact of life - as a society we cannot prevent all harm, as to do so would be to have safety without liberty or freedom. “If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969). Rebuts to arguments concerning freedom, liberty and opportunity tend to be based on the notion of creating a more secure society. Think about it, health care legislation was passed in 2010 to give Americans the ‘peace of mind’ that they will not have to worry about what happens when they get ill or are the victims of a delictual liability. In the name of public safety and security legislation is being introduced in the halls of Congress to limit the scope of the Second Amendment and undermine a fundamental right enjoyed by Americans. Firearm ownership is a right enshrined in higher law, which is unlike a driver’s license for a motor vehicle, which is a privilege not to be abused. America’s third President and early advocate for limited government, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) proclaimed, “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
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| Rep Giffords was shot in front of a Safeway |
A shooting is horrible, though it hasn’t taking long for politicians and the media to turn this random event into a national catastrophe. Let’s get the facts straight, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 46 individuals are victims of ‘murder’ every single day of the year in the US. Everyone with ‘bleeding liberal hearts’ need to lighten up see this in perspective of the larger picture of falling victim to over emotionalizing one tragic shooting over another. Let's not let one horrible event destroy the purity of our current democratic system.
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