The shooting at Tucson, Arizona, is shocking and I extend my sorrow to each one of the families of the victims. My hear goes out to the mother and father of the 9 year old child who was killed in that horrific incident. May God give the devastated parents the courage to face what ought not to have happened.
Rep Gabrielle Giffords was targetted twice. Once by Sarah Palin who put her in the cross hairs of a gun sight on her website. I do not mean to suggest that there is a direct cause and effect between Sarah Palin's ill choice of graphics and the incident at Safeway in Tucson. However, the crosshairs do represent, as does the swastka, a symbol of hatred and to that extent one is not wrong to suggest that it contributed to the violence, albeit in an oblique way.
Jared Loughner, the alleged assasin, has had a history of mental and behavioural issues at his Community College and yet he was able to acquire a 9mm pistol with an extended magazine to hold more rounds. The aurhrities need to be more vigilant and the checking of the antecedents of the gun purchaser need to be done more throughly. Now that a Representative has been targetted, I think the US Congress will finally wake up to the need to control the gun culture in the USA.
This is a wake up call and unless the authorities act more such incidents will take palce as political assasinations are a contagious disease.
I condemn the killing of the 6 innocents and the wounding of 20 others. What is sad is that the tragedy could have been avoided.