Yesterday in Arizona, a man by the name of Jared Loughner is accused of going on a shooting rampage with a semi-automatic weapon. Loughner was known to be unstable and had made threats in the past.
From CBS News:
Jared Loughner, the suspect accused of killing six people and wounding 13 others Saturday, including Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, had made threats in the past and even interacted with Giffords in 2007.
Giffords is a Democrat.
The media sprung into action almost immediately after this terrible tragedy. Who are they blaming?
The shooter? Nah. Why let a good crisis go to waste?
Before the victims’ bodies turned cold, left wing lunatics were placing blame on tea party activists and right wing commentators for this horrible crime.
Do they have ANY evidence to suggest that this man is a tea party guy? Nope.
Is there any evidence to suggest that this guy is a ditto-head? No.
There IS evidence that he is crazy.
From Michelle Malkin:
Update 7:08pm Eastern – In one of his YouTube videos, Loughner claimed to be a military recruit. Stars and Stripes reports the Army found no record of any enlistment contract with Loughner.
This is not left or right.
He was a nut:
The man linked to the shooting today of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others is 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the Associated Press reported.
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…
…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.”
In a posting on YouTube, Loughner wrote repeatedly about a new currency.
“I’m thinking of creating a new currency,” he wrote. “Therefore, I’m thinking of a design for my new coins size, shape, color, material, and image to start a new money system.”
He also wrote repeatedly about literacy. In a written message on YouTube, Loughner said: “The majority of people, who reside in District-8 are illiterate — hilarious. I don’t control your English grammar structure, but you control your English grammar structure.”
In a message posted on his MySpace account, titled “Goodbye friends,” Loughner said: “Dear friends…please don’t be mad at me. The literacy rate is below 5%. I haven’t talked to one person who is literate.” It was unclear when it was posted.
…He lists among his favorite books “Mein Kampf” and “The Communist Manifesto”. But he also includes a broad variety of other titles, including: “Animal Farm,” “Brave New World,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.
Not only is he crazy, it looks like he’s a pothead.
CBS News quotes a high school friend of Loughner’s who said:
Loughner used to speak critically about religion. He also talked about how he liked to smoke pot.
Since we have no real evidence about his political leanings other than he liked to read “Mein Kamph” and “The Communist Manifesto”, let’s be grown up and focus on what we do know.
Where is pot to blame in all of this? I’m sure Loughner never met Palin or Beck–but it sounds like he did meet spliff and blunt. Why is there NO media attention to his pot use?
Because that doesn’t fit what the media wants the narrative of this story to be: Blame conservative rhetoric, not a drug that can be mind altering.
A 2005 study suggests that cannabis and the mentally ill do not mix.
Cannabis use moderately increases the risk of psychotic symptoms in young people but has a much stronger effect in those with evidence of predisposition for psychosis.
“Dude, we should create our own currency” sounds more like the ramblings of a pothead than a tea party guy.
There are rumblings in the media and on blogs that this guy was everything from a liberal, to a conservative, to an anti-Semite–and maybe a white supremacist.
In the end politics nor pot are responsible for Loughner’s actions, HE is. It’s just too bad that in the course of covering this story, many in the mainstream media sounded as if they smoke pot as well.
Our thoughts and prayers here at The Snark Factor go out to all of the victims of this terrible tragedy…
