UPDATE: I watched This Week this morning and they DID NOT show the outburst from the leftist who threatened the tea party president. Christine referred to it obliquely saying he “could have been considered threatening.” They had the outburst on tape. They could have showed it and let us judge for ourselves.
I should add that Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, attending as a friend of Giffords’ went into full campaign mode when asked about the mental health aspects of the story. She went straight to the Obamacare vote coming up next Wednesday. There was no mention of ACLU-inspired barriers to treating the mentally ill before they hurt someone or end up homeless. Nope, it was those nasty Republicans who want to snatch health care from everyone.
UPDATE #2 There are now a few questions about whether Fuller was actually a victim, or this is an attempt (successful so far) to claim victimhood status by a nut. I watched him walk out with the cops and saw no limp or evidence of a significant injury. Knees hurt for a long time and most people would limp one week post GSW of the knee, if they could walk. He drove himself to the hospital. Something’s fishy.
It is well known that Jared Loughner is psychotic and his mass murder last Saturday had nothing to do with politics. He has been obsessed with Representative Giffords since 2007 when he asked a delusional question at a public meeting and got what he considered an “ignorant” answer.
Loughner’s animus toward Giffords intensified after he attended one of her campaign events and she did not, in his view, sufficiently answer a question he had posed, Tierney says.
Tierney, who’s also 22, recalls Loughner complaining about a Giffords event he attended during that period. He’s unsure whether it was the same one mentioned in the charges—Loughner “might have gone to some other rallies,” he says—but Tierney notes it was a significant moment for Loughner: “He told me that she opened up the floor for questions and he asked a question. The question was, ‘What is government if words have no meaning?’”
Giffords’ answer, whatever it was, didn’t satisfy Loughner. “He said, ‘Can you believe it, they wouldn’t answer my question,’ and I told him, ‘Dude, no one’s going to answer that,’” Tierney recalls. “Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her.”
The question was something from his obsession with grammar and his delusion that government could control his mind that way.
Tonight, another agitated person, this time a left wing victim of the shooting last Saturday, threatened a tea party official at an ABC TV taping for tomorrow’s programming. Eric Fuller, a Giffords supporter who may also be mentally ill, was shot last Saturday but quickly recovered and then spent the rest of the week loudly accusing the right of complicity.
I didn’t quite know how to react. I felt like we were in for more, and possibly to be given a coup de grace by this madman that was so vigorously exercising his Second Amendment rights.”
Tonight, he exercised his “rights” by threatening a tea party official by saying “you’re dead !.
The man, J. Eric Fuller, 63, a military veteran who supports Ms. Giffords, was “involuntarily committed for mental health evaluation,” said Jason Ogan, a spokesman for the Pima County sheriff’s office.
Mr. Fuller, who was shot in the left knee and back on Jan. 8, was among several victims, medical personnel and others who attended a special forum at St. Odilia Catholic Church hosted by Christiane Amanpour to be televised Sunday on ABC.
State Representative Terri Proud, a Republican, was sitting two rows behind Mr. Fuller. The topic of gun control came up in the forum, she said, and one of the speakers made a comment about a bill introduced recently in Arizona that would allow faculty members on college campuses with concealed weapons permits to carry guns.
Ms. Proud said she spoke up to clarify the bill’s language. Trent Humphries, the founder of the Tucson Tea Party, who was sitting one row behind her, rose to speak and suggested that discussion about gun legislation be postponed until after the funerals. He started to say that he had also been affected by the tragedy because a neighbor was a victim.
At that point, Ms. Proud said, Mr. Fuller blurted out to Mr. Humphries, “You’re dead.”
Mr. Fuller then began to “behave in a very odd manner,” she said. “He was making inappropriate comments.”
And, so we go as the rhetoric from the left stimulates less disabled adherents to threats and maybe violence. I worry about Sarah Palin’s safety.
After the shooting I suddenly started hearing about the “second amendment solution.” I am active in gun rights here in Montana and NEVER heard of this. Have you?
No. That may be a riff on Sharon Angle’s statement that was similar.
I haven’t heard any mention of Congressman Leo Ryan, Jim Jones, etc in all this.
Now there were some Leftists under stress.
[…] Giffords and 18 others. The climate of political rhetoric by the right was blamed. The fact that one of the “victims” threatened a tea party member at the memorial service was not considered newsworthy. Now, we learn that even a real assassination […]
Thank you for the information!