Giffords News Roundup

According to Gabrielle Gifford’s husband, the best way to show your support is to make a donation to one or both of the following organizations:

Community Food Bank
3003 S Country Club Rd # 221
Tucson, AZ 85713-4084
(520) 622-0525

American Red Cross, Southern Arizona Chapter
2916 East Broadway Boulevard
Tucson, AZ 85716
(520) 318-6740

It now appears that the suspect became obsessed with Rep. Giffords after meeting her in 2007 and finding her answer to his question to be unsatisfying. What did he ask her?

Mr. Loughner said he asked the lawmaker, “How do you know words mean anything?” recalled Mr. Montanaro. He said Mr. Loughner was “aggravated” when Ms. Giffords, after pausing for a couple of seconds, “responded to him in Spanish and moved on with the meeting.”

Another source says his question was: “What is government if words have no meaning?” Frankly, it sounds like someone introduced Ludwig Wittgenstein to a mind that couldn’t handle the maddening implications of his philosophy. Or, alternatively, he may have been influenced by the writings of a man named David Wynn Miller who appears to be nuts.

Whatever his beliefs, they don’t be appear to be conventionally right or left, but of a more conspiratorial bent. One high school classmate said that he had expressed frustration with the Bush administration, but, then, who didn’t express frustration with the Bush administration. By the time he started attending college his behavior was so strange and creepy that both students and one of his professors openly wondered whether he was planning on bringing a gun to class.

In his back yard they have found a strange shrine.

A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others.

Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner’s home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges.

A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal.

Experts on Sunday said the elements are featured in the ceremonies of a number of occult groups.

One of the more desperate efforts at deflection comes from David Frum who would like us to believe that marijuana is to blame for the suspect’s mental illness. Supposedly, marijuana can contribute to schizophrenia. Never mind that the suspect has not been diagnosed with schizophrenia, we should blame pot for the tragedy in Arizona.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), who lost her husband in the Long Island railroad massacre, is going to introduce legislation:

McCarthy today will officially announce she is working on a bill targeting the high-capacity ammunition clips the gunman allegedly used in the shooting, as Politico first reported.

“My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” she told Politico.

The congresswoman plans to discuss the legislation this week with Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, her staff confirms to CBSNews.com.

“We need to look at how this is going to work, to protect people, certainly citizens, and we have to look at what I can pass,” McCarthy said. “I don’t want to give the NRA – excuse the pun – the ammunition to come at me either.”

The Glock 19 9mm semi-automatic pistol the alleged shooter used was purchased legally. The gun’s high capacity magazine would have been illegal under the assault weapons ban, which Congress allowed to expire in 2004.

Efforts at gun and ammunition control have been dead for at least a decade as Democrats abandoned the cause, but nothing else could revive the issue more than a member of Congress getting a bullet through the brain from a clip that was banned until 2004.

Finally, he apparently kept a dream journal that will tell us everything we need to know about his thinking.

Author: BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.