As the days pass:
• Some people agreed with what I wrote last week in the aftermath of the shootings, and some didn’t. I heard from both sides. I try—I really try—to see the other point of view, but if one is discussing human conduct and is forced to use absolutes to try to bolster his position, he’s definitely defending the low ground.
Using absolutes like “never” and “always” lends an air of desperation (not to mention incorrectness) to any position. Even if an absolute can be used correctly, it must be used in a very careful manner. A person can say that he wouldn’t allow the rancid tenor of what passes for political discourse these days move him to violence, but he can’t say that it could never move anyone to act out in a deadly fashion. We just don’t know. The position that it might possibly happen is on far more stable ground than claiming that it absolutely could never, ever happen. Ever.
Unfortunately, admitting that it might be possible is far too great of a leap to make for any of the people who blasted me. For them, I have three questions:
1. How can anybody know for sure that the shooter “never listened to talk radio,” as many are claiming? That notion zoomed through the Internet and onto talk radio in record time. I don’t know how anybody could state definitively that he didn’t partake of omnipresent right-wing media. I’m not saying that he did or that, if he did, it shaped his crazy-ass judgment, but which position is more reasonable: “He might have listened to talk radio and, if he did, there is an infinitesimal chance that it shaped his views,” or, “I know for a fact that he never, ever, never listened to talk radio”?
2. I love asking my gun buddies this one: If all other things were equal, would he have been able to shoot and kill as many people if the ban on assault weapons hadn’t been allowed to expire a few years back? The veins will pop right out of their necks. They’ll shout and sputter and obfuscate, but the answer is obvious: If he’d had a clip with only six or eight bullets in it, fewer people would have been shot. No argument. None. And since he got tackled as soon as he tried to reload, that would have happened about 10 victims earlier.
Explain to me again why somebody needs a gun with 30 bullets in it. For self-defense? Really?
3. Finally, for those who are clinging to the wisp of a thread of a notion that the shooting had “absolutely nothing” (a phrase I keep hearing) to do with politics, why did he stalk and shoot a Democratic politician? Why not a newscaster or a hairdresser or a guy who does TV commercials for an appliance store?
Seems to me that shooting a politician makes it about politics.
• I once wrote that Gabrielle Giffords was such a lightweight that if she passed through an electric eye, the door wouldn’t open. Who knew? She is officially the baddest person in the valley.
• I went to Mass and prayed for Giffords, the other victims and their families. Then I threw in a faux prayer. (God and I have this deal: I can faux-pray as long as I let Him know in advance.)
Oh please, oh please, oh please … please let Sarah Palin be the Republican presidential nominee.
Is she a loon, or what? She tries to pass herself off as this Frontier Babe of Substance, but she’s turning incoherent right before our eyes. It sucks, really. Before last week, I was one of 12 or so Gentiles who actually knew what the term “blood libel” meant. I was waiting for it to come up on Jeopardy! When Palin used it in her video rant, it gave me a headache behind my eyes. Is she freaking kidding? Using an anti-Semitism-related term to try to cover her own butt after the attempted assassination of a Jewish person—that’s really classy.
And on the charge that political discourse has become too nasty and too personal, she brought up the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. You know, the one that happened almost 207 years ago!
After her rambling “It wuddn’t me!” manifesto, pundits debated whether her response was “presidential.” I don’t even think it was residential, as in, of this planet.
Oh please, oh please …
• A note to the people who attended the event at McKale Center: Not even Wikipedia can mix up “memorial service” and “pep rally.” Why did so many of you do so? Watching it on TV, it became a cringe-fest. And what was with the mode of dress? It was a memorial service, not a luau.
Bad form, people. Bad.
• The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, having, in their minds, wasted an entire week of voter-outrage-fueled momentum, are getting back to work this week. They will attempt to pass the Big Fat Lies About the Health Care Reform Law of 2010 Act. It’s even money that at least one clod will suggest that the outstanding care that Giffords received will somehow vanish into thin air if President Obama gets his way.
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2011.
Tom, your comment about Nanooky of the North made my day. Laugh-out loud funny. When she finally does slither off into obscurity, we’re gonna miss her!
Using Danehy logic as presented in this column and last week’s column, Tom states that one cannot positively state that Loughner ‘never’ listened to conservative talk radio. We can also assume then, that we won’t know if Loughner did or did not read left leaning publications like The Weekly. So, I can now opine that reading the Weekly is the cause of the rampage. Duh.
I also continue to enjoy Tom’s hatred of Sarah Palin. I guess she is Tom’s whipping boy (or girl) now that bashing GW Bush is finally falling out of fashion. Like a Pavlov dog, mention ‘Sarah Palin’ and Tom goes ‘woof woof’ with denigrating remarks.
I have NEVER seen anyone who is ALWAYS so full of $hi” as Tom Danehy. Since he
is not a factual reporter, rather a commentary reporter, I suppose he has the authority to put his personal spin on stories, but the real truth is, we don’t know what led this young man to, after reportedly years of frustration, decide to choose this target nor this time to create a personal tragedy for many, many people in Arizona. We don’t know, and should, IMHO, be very careful with our theories.
I find you amazing, too, Tom Danehy.. you are right on!
A reminder, all, that name-calling is not allowed here in the comments section at TucsonWeekly.com. Even when the name-calling target is Danehy.
Tom i love your spin, based in fact and extended through creative logic. At mcKale since i was in, let me say the people were( given there were 13000,many young and culturally diverse) extremely reverent and even a tJudge Rolls funeral there was applause. Cheering and sighing are not so distinct as heart felt emotion needs exspression, especially when it is inspiring and creates love and support as did the McKale service.
I respectfully agree with Tom’s comments about the Memorial Service. I have never been to a memorial service where cheering occured. The service became more about the excitement of the President’s visit than a rememberence of victims of the shooting.
The main problem with “them” is there is no room for “us”. If you want to have people view your comments with consideration then you have to avoid, “venting” in a juvenile and petty fashion. Its the kind of thing that one would hope a parent would do to channel a person, (whose name I will never say), that was so flash point disturbed toward more socially productive behavior. I think everyone can relate to the fear that something we are in favor of would not trigger pathological meltdown. That being said, it is never productive’ in an intelligent debate’ to use terms like: BO, Full of $hi, etc. which immediately degrade the value or direction of what you have to say. In addition, no matter what you think of an elected official the title they have earned should be used, like Former Pres. Bush or Pres. Obama. This is their due, under our constitutional system, not bush, bama, cain etc. This shows disrespect to the voters when you win and when they win. So, if sour grapes is something you can’t see in yourself and opinion without balance seems ok then you might think of a long trip around the world to re-establish what is left and right.
Also, in fairness to the folks at the memorial, I must point out that most of them were young or students who waited outside in first the cold and then direct sun for as much as 8 to 10 hrs in a polite and considerate fashion and had to dress for that and showed a remarkable amount of class, patriotism and respect for the people killed and wounded. If they showed emotional enthusiasm and release it was understandable and made me proud to live here. That is the kind of example we need as opposed to faceless, nameless carping.
Parts of this column are right on … actually the whole column is another well crafted read. In spite of that, I disagree with negative sentiments about McKale.
Who cares if it was a pep rally or a memorial? It was both! Do you think that the survivors, the heros and little Christina Green in heaven aren’t going to jump in rain puddles with greater joy because of the gathering? That memorial / pep rally is one of the most wonderful events I’ve ever seen or heard about.
Those of you … including Danehy … who criticize, denigrate a great event. Listening to the speakers on TV, particularly President Obama, made me cry, made me laugh and overall made me feel a deeper love for Tucson, for Tucsonians and made me homesick for Southern Arizona. It also made me look forward to an upcoming snow bird trip to Tucson in early March, my first since moving to Oregon in December 2009.
Danehy: I love your use of humor to point out human flaws. I hope we all learn to be more inclusive and empathetic with one another. Building a society based on exclusionism, which unfortunately has become a goal of Arizona’s Republicans, will only foster hate. Thank you for speaking out on the tough issues, knowing you will take a verbal beating. There are many of us who feel and agree with your frustrations.
Well said Danehy, well said, this is one of the few political commentaries that I have read in the aftermath of this that actually has any kind of sense of reason. As for your troll fans: Hatas gonna Hate!
“If all other things were equal, would he have been able to shoot and kill as many people if the ban on assault weapons hadn’t been allowed to expire a few years back?” Well, in all likelihood the answer is no. Sure, if he practiced reloading his Glock prior to his attack he might have been able to get off a few more shots but your point is well taken. Here’s what I don’t understand about the gun rights community. Policies have consequences. Some are good and some are bad. You can’t just brush off the bad ones because you fee more strongly about the good ones. A consequence of allowing access to high capacity magazines is that persons bent on killing as many people as possible in as short amount of time as possible will be able to do it more efficiently with a high capacity magazine. Now, that may not change your mind about how freely one can purchase such magazines but it is a consequence. Admit it! Have the courage of your convictions. There isn’t a public policy extant that is all good or all bad. Once we recognize that, we may be able to actually address the bad parts of policy.
Tom, great column. If Nanooky of the North ran for republican president you know she would carry Arizona by a landslide. I live primarily (and as secondarily as possible in Tucson with my house there for sale) in Texas and Texas would go for her too, except for Houston (and perhaps Austin) where the educational level is much higher than the rest of Texas.
I agree with Tom. However, I found the cheering uplifting. They were cheering the President, the survivors, the heroes, and “the message”. It gave me hope for the future as the majority in attendance were students. Regarding guns…I own guns and unless I anticipate an attack by the Taliban, I do not have a need for a 30 round clip or an assault weapon.
Tom, good stuff as always, but I wish you’d stop defending yourself from comments on your previous columns. You stated your opinion clearly, as did your critics, and it’s time to move on.
I liked the cheering, btw. It was a celebration of life, not a dreary wake.
Some persons with UofA connections have told me that the Obama campaign organization, Organizing for America, was deeply involved in the event’s arrangements – responsible for the t-shirts and actually standing in the aisles leading the applause. If true, it should make a reasonable person wonder.
I had an e-mail exchange with Danehy following his earlier rant about this. It’s dismaying he’s making some of the same attempts at assigning blame, using the same red herrings and straw men, that he did in e-mail. Like Krugman, Alter and other leftists, he just can’t let go of the idea that this was a politically motivated shooting, in the same sense the assassinations of Lincoln, both Kennedys and King were. I’m not about to say Loughner “absolutely” wasn’t politically motivated as Booth, Oswald, Ray and Sirhan were, but there’s simply no evidence that he was. There is simply no evidence that he was influenced by right-wing talk radio or any other conservative messages.
Danehy is grasping at straws, seemingly due to an ideologically driven need to see the world through a particular political lens.
I agree Tom, using a definitive in an argument is foolish. The only thing more daft is your retort that is basically the following – Oh yah, you cannot definitely PROVE that Jared Loughner did not… and since you cannot, I am going to assert that it is true.
Well, you cannot PROVE that you are not a space alien, therefore I am going to believe it. As for your Sarah derangement syndrome, I believe a good word and a prescription from the good Doctor Krauthammer could help your condition. “Krauthammer on debating Palin’s use of ‘blood libel’: ‘Have we completely lost our minds?’” http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/201101…
“Shooting a politician makes it about politics”. Yes.
The shooter was stopped by a policeman on the morning of the shooting. Why didn’t he shoot the policeman? Crazy people do that a lot. He had an altercation with his father that morning. Why didn’t he shoot his father? Crazy people do that a lot.
He shot a politician. And if his name had been “Mohammed” instead of “Jared”, and if his victim had been a Republican instead of a Democrat, all we would have been hearing for the last two weeks would have been “terrorism”.
“Some persons with UofA connections have told me that the Obama campaign organization, Organizing for America, was deeply involved in the event’s arrangements – responsible for the t-shirts and actually standing in the aisles leading the applause. If true, it should make a reasonable person wonder.”
WOW! LOL! Completely not the case. Talk about trying to throw fire on such a great service. WOW. This type of thinking is the thinking that keeps America struggling. What a shame that these train of thoughts are out there.
What is a “commentary reporter”? There’s no such animal, dude. You’re either a reporter or a commentator. I think it’s pretty clear what Tom is, and he’s often readable and provocative, which is his job.
For gun owners who employ the standard cliche that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, my question is what if the shooter had a knife or a club instead of a glock with a magazine holding 30 rounds? Perhaps someone would have a head ache and it would be over. The excessive rounds held in the magazine and the easy accessibility of these weapons will most likely not change. Contemporary politicians fear the NRA. My wife came up with a great idea. All of the anti gun folks should join the NRA and vote to sway the lobby.
I do not doubt Tom Danehy’s gun buddy’s were stumped when he proposed his theory that the expiration of the assault weapons ban contributed to horror that awful day. Given the absurdity of Mr Danehy’s premise and the correspondingly flawed conclusion, their stupefaction can only be attributed to factors other than the strength of Mr. Danehy’s proposition.
There are too many holes and flaws in Mr. Danehy’s editorial for me to address them all but let’s start with the most obvious.
How can anyone know what might or might not have happened that day if a given law had or had not expired. The assault weapons ban did not magically eliminate high capacity magazines. High capacity magazines have been around for literally decades. Assault weapons ban or not, the shooter could have easily acquired high capacity magazines at anytime legitimately or otherwise. To think that fairy tale solutions like the assault weapons ban would have altered the outcome is patently absurd. Postulating such nonsense can reasonably be described as “crazy-ass” conjecture.
More significantly, history has shown time and time again that such bans don’t work. The truth is making an inanimate object illegal doesn’t stop the use of that object. It only forces it underground. What so many forget is, the only thing that legislation can do is provide justification for the prosecution of violators. We need laws in order to punish the irresponsible but the truth is, behavior cannot be legislated. Banning inanimate objects in an attempt to legislate behavior just doesn’t work. Never has. Never will. To think otherwise is a delusion.
In fairness to Mr. Danehy, I wish the prevention or at least the reduction of horrible crimes was as simple as passing a piece of legislation. I wish we could legislate away irresponsibility. I wish we could legislate away criminal behavior. I wish we could legislate away the Tragedy in Tucson. Unfortunately for all of us, it just doesn’t work that way. The world is such a wonderfully more complex and, as demonstrated that fateful day, such a hideously more evil place, it will take far more than simplistic solutions to resolve.
Tom, Tom, the lib’ral’s son,
Saw a free man buy a gun;
The gun was shot,
And Tom was not,
But his pants were filled
With you know what!!!