Category: Current Events

Dave Hardy talks about Judge Roll’s viewing and funeral. He also speak about attending the ABC Town Hall, and some mistakes the legal community think is being made with the killer’s prosecution:

Local legal conversation is that running with the Federal charges first is a mistake, and probably an FBI publicity grab. (1) The insanity defense is the likely defense, and while the Feds have a modified M’Naughton “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense, Arizona has “guilty but insane,” which means the defendant goes to a mental institution, and when release from that goes to prison to finish his sentence. (2) Arizona has a “natural life” sentence, meaning a real life sentence, he leaves the prison when he dies. I don’t know if the Feds so. (3) Proving murder one in Arizona involves proving just that. The Federal crime is murder of a government official, which requires proof in addition that the victim was on official duty. Gabby Giffords was clearly on duty, but it’d only be attempted murder. Judge Roll would be murder, but it may be hard to prove he was on official duty if he hadn’t already started speaking to the Representative within hearing of witnesses, and had brought up court business. Odds are that he was indeed there to speak about the needs of the court, or to thank her for past concern shown, but proving that beyond a reasonable doubt may be a problem.

So the Federal charges may be harder to prove than the State ones would be, the Federal insanity defense is much more effective, and the State sentencing options are better. It’d be better to go with the State charges first, or to go with them exclusively.

These are the people we’re supposed to count on to protect us? The goal should be making sure the killer never walks the streets again. Otherwise this guy is going to be like Hinkley, and end up back out on the streets. The feds are doing everything to make sure that happens, it seems. They should leave this to the State of Arizona, so we can get this guy off the streets for good, and get some justice for the families. This guy was with it enough to plan. He’s with it enough to pay a debt to society for what he did.

Fortunately, I believe the State of Arizona can still pursue state charges after the feds are done with him. Double jeopardy only applies to each sovereign separately. You can still be tried by both the state and federal governments for the same crime.

Even New Yorkers are buying more pistols. And as KOAT in, Albuquerque, NM notes, the shooting has generated renewed interest in gun ownership. Considering what prompted the rush, I’m not going to celebrate this. I’d rather have 5 people not be dead, and no one injured. But I would point out that all our opponents are accomplishing with their exploitation of this tragedy is to put more guns in homes, to convince more people to carry, and otherwise encourage an interest in shooting among the law abiding.

Dave Hardy takes a look at Arizona law, which makes it quite difficult to get someone committed involuntarily. I don’t think it should be easy; there needs to be due process to deprive someone of life, liberty or property under our system, but Arizona looks to make it nearly impossible.

Michael Bane offers some cogent thoughts:

My take is that the gun control fanatics have overplayed their hand…that is, the rush to get some legislation in both the House of Representatives (ever the fanatic Carolyn McCarthy , D-NY) and in the Senate (the reprehensible Frank Lautenberg, D-NJ) looks more like political opportunism than reasoned thought, of course generally the case with antigun legislation.

I think he’s spot on. I think their reaction to this crisis has been awful, and I mean that even from the point of view of their own cause. They tossed their lot in with the left’s and the media’s premature ejaculation. Those days are past. It used to be that a lie had a chance to get around the world before the truth got its pants on. Now maybe it gets as far as Kansas. Our opponents have not adapted to the new reality, and the beauty of it is that I don’t think they can.

UPDATE: I think Jacob’s read is correct too.

I know my dad reads this blog occasionally, and no doubt Bitter will see this. If I ever lose my marbles to the point that I’m constructing satanic skull shrines on the veranda in the backyard, you have my full permission to have me committed to the loony bin, and keep me away from sharp and dangerous objects.

I say this now, being of sound mind and body. That is all.

The Southern Poverty Law Center would like to note, that if you just look through the bat shit crazy, you’ll see, underneath, a tea partying, militia movement whack job. By this twisted logic, pretty clearly the movie industry was responsible for the shooting of Ronald Reagan, since it helped Hinkley cultivate his obsession with Jody Foster.

Not that I can say I’m surprised. The SPLC has been shameless for a while now, and much like MADD, who’s largely achieved what it set out to do, is also out to do whatever it can to avoid slipping into irrelevance.

After reading this, I don’t consider these people to be fellow travelers on the road to greater freedom, even though I agree with decriminalization of pot:

The part that really disturbs me is that just last year, Arizona Gov. Brewer signed a law that allows adults 21 and older to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, joining Alaska and Vermont as the only states where any citizen can be legally packing heat in public at a political rally without any sort of registration or training to do so.  Had Loughner been approached by a police officer and that pistol was found in his pocket, legally there would have been nothing the police could have done.

But if Loughner had a joint in his pocket, police could have arrested him and he may have faced six-to-eighteen months in jail.  If Loughner had been pulled over driving to the rally and a piss test revealed he had smoked a joint last week, he’d be placed into mandatory 24-hour custody and faced six months in jail.

Maybe I’m nuts, but I don’t exactly want people driving around on the nation’s highways drunk or otherwise impaired, whether drugs are legal or not. Either way, the attempt to deflect blame onto other social policies, or onto the use of gun metaphors in political dialog, doesn’t strike me as a productive response to the blame pot smoking is going to take for this guy. It amounts to say “It’s this other freedom’s fault!”

It should be noted that even though there’s some credible science linking marijuana use to an increased risk for developing schizophrenia, the vast majority of people who use marijuana will never develop the disease. There’s been research, however, that shows it can dramatically increase the risk for people with a family history of schizophrenia, so there’s likely a genetic component to it as well.

From Rand Simberg:

But suppose that, instead of being hit by a bullet, Representative Giffords had been struck by a rock falling from space. It does happen occasionally, after all. And you know what? It happens about as often as an American politician is shot by a crazy person.

But that wouldn’t be anywhere near as interesting, because anyone who proposed that politicians never again have public meetings outdoors, or that a crash project  be undertaken to sweep the sky clean of meteoroids to make sure that one was never again hit by one, wouldn’t be taken seriously, or have op-eds published, or bills introduced to implement their ideas. They would instead be treated as the lunatics they would be. People with any sense would understand that life carries risk and uncertainties, and that we have to accept them, and get on with it in the face of them.

This is no different. People get randomly struck by lightning, and sometimes there are storms and lightning strikes in human minds, setting off events that are impossible to either predict or prevent.

I agree. Many would like to turn the country at large into a low level loony bin, where you can’t have dangerous materials or dangerous objects for fear you might hurt yourselves or others with them. But I agree with Rand’s outlook. It’s not really much different than other natural phenomena, and as we’ve seen, it happens everywhere, across the globe.