Another perspective...

The following perspective is from former SWAT leader and Tea Party activist Doug Dragert:

"I find it difficult to respond to such asinine statements made by Sheriff Dubnik of Pima County, Arizona, or any other leftists for that matter, but I'd like to address Sheriff Dubnik. Sheriff, are you blowing smoke to cover a major problem with you and your department?

If you ran an efficient organization, well trained and professional why were you not aware of the threat that was posed by Loughner? Loughner had numerous contacts with the police due to his bizzare behavior. Was Dubnik so obtuse that he did not see the threat or was he making a political cover up?

When I ran a SWAT team for five years I had floor plans for most of the tract homes in my city so I would know the layout of a house should I need it. I had patrolmen copy me with reports they made concerning mentally disturbed persons. If I felt the person was a possible threat, I would interview the reporting officer and then interview the subject of the report as well as make a schematic of his/her abode for future reference.

Through this simple technique I was able to identify more than one schizo. As a matter of fact, one of the identified paranoid-schizos did in fact "turn the corner". When my team had to make an assault I knew pretty much knew what he was going to do and what type of weapon he'd use. There was no injury to officers or subject.

Am I a law enforcement genius? Far from it! I was a cop charged with the safeguarding of the citizens I served. In my position I had to know what and who posed a threat to my community and be ready and able to neutralize that threat. That is what Sheriff Dubnik is also charged with. Apparently he is not up to the task and would rather blame conservatives for his lack of foresight and concern for the citizens of Pima County. He has sworn to uphold the laws of the State of Arizona and has a legal and moral obligation to protect its citizens. Great job, Dubnik! How dare he say that he would not enforce the immigration law if it were passed! Did he lie when he took his oath of office?

I fail to see what politics has to do with the enforcement of laws, bringing scofflaws to justice and incarcerating those convicted of crimes. Are liberals or conservatives treated differently under criminal laws? If I am a conservative Republican do I only arrest liberal Democrats? Does it matter what political party a crazed murderer belongs to? What party did Ted Bundy belong to? How about Charles Manson?

After the riots in Los Angeles when blacks attacked the Korean community, burned, pillaged and looted, the government sent a commission to find out what caused the blacks to act in the manner they did. WHAT? A group of criminals went on a rampage! That's what happened. It's long past time that we hold individuals accountable for their actions! The only person pulling a trigger in Tucson was Loughner. Loughner is a paranoid-schizo - not a conservative or a liberal. Dubnik failed in his duty to protect the citizens of Tucson.

End of story."

An Arizonan Tragedy

In an unbelievable act of violence, Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a rally with her constituents on Saturday morning. As expected, the political pundits immediately started pointing fingers.

Since she was a Democrat, the left blamed right-wing rhetoric from the likes of Sarah Palin and her political target map which showed a crosshairs icon directly over Rep. Giffords' district. Here's one of many: http://www.nowpublic.com/world/sarah-palin-target-list-reason-jared-lee-loughner-shot-giffords-2745667.html.

Right-wing blogs reported that the shooter was apparently upset at Giffords for voting against progressive Nancy Pelosi as Minority Speaker of the House. Here's the most notable on short research: http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2653556/posts.

The Tea Party, of course, has not emerged unscathed. When asked if his daughter had any enemies, Giffords' father, Spencer Giffords replied, "Yeah, the whole Tea Party." As unfortunate a comment as this may be in my eyes, I am not so callous as to not understand that a grieving father is looking for fault and a place to lay his anger. And the Tea Party in this Arizona district may very well be deserving of this judgment, especially in light of the quite distasteful ad placed by Giffords' Tea Party nemesis, Jesse Kelly: http://yfrog.com/h5p7wp.

However, certain "facts" have emerged which suggest that the shooter was not associated with the Tea Party. (Quotes here are to pay homage to the fact that not only are experts quite early in their investigations, but reliability of sources is rapidly becoming scarce especially from the biased media and politically active bloggers.) As reported by the Huffington Post, listed among Loughner's favorite books are "The Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf." They are also reporting him as being anti-government. This, and coupled with the realization that there's a distinct lack of information that Loughner himself identified with the Tea Party leads me to believe that there is no concrete connection there.

In fact, the only obvious explanation at this point is made clear in Loughner's own ramblings as shown on his YouTube account and posted by the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/jared-lee-loughner-gabrielle-giffords-shooter_n_806243.html.

This man is paranoid, unstable and clearly not grounded in reality. While Palin's target rhetoric is regrettable, its intention was not to incite violence. And while the shooter may have been angry over Giffords lack of support for Nancy Pelosi, there are probably many hardcore Democrats out there who chose to blog, protest, or write Congress to express their disdain.  In either case, shooting her was not a reasonable response by a reasonable personality.

The truth is, this is an emotionally and probably mentally unstable human being who probably decided to do what he did because he is insane and for no other reason.  Assigning political motivation to his criminally insane mind serves no purpose and does not advance any agenda, either left or right.

Until the truth emerges, however, the only appropriate response is to pray.  Pray for Rep. Giffords and the others to recover from their wounds, pray for the families of the deceased and pray for justice to prevail.