Assassination

It seems that Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona may have survived being shot point-blank in the head by an assassin. I dearly hope she makes it through. But in any event, on the assumption (which seems a rather safe one to me but for which we don't have hard evidence yet) that the assassin was a right-wing nutjob, the Tea Party needs to stop saying that their talk of "Second Amendment remedies" is just metaphorical, or whatever. They have talked violence, they have used violent rhetoric for the routine business of a political campaign, and now we have violence. Rep. Giffords was on Sarah Palin's hit list, a group of Democratic Representatives who were displayed in crosshairs on her website. Somebody held a campaign event against her inviting people to get her out office by firing M16s. This is not fun and games. Between 1963 and 1981 there were 18 assassinations or assassination attempts in this country. I don't want to go back to that kind of world.

Oh, also: the nutjob who shot her is a terrorist. Just sayin'.