Arazona shooting

Ok I will admit that this particular posting is really badly written. However, this is my fifth attempt at writing it, and I said that this will be my last attempt. That whatever came out of it will be what I publish. Having said that I hope that it expresses something. Feel free to ask questions and I will try to clarify what it was I was trying to say. Will try to do better next time, but this was a really hard one to write.

Lets be honest, Jared Laughner is a very, very bad man. For anyone who has been living under a rock for the last week, he is the man who shot and killed six people and wounded 14 others in an attempt to assassinate Gabrielle Giffords a US Democratic Congresswoman. Those killed were mostly innocent bystanders, who were there to meet the Congresswoman, including a nine year old girl.
There is absolutely no reasonable excuse for his actions. This is particularly so since, although it seems that his target was Giffords, it is obvious that he meant to kill as many people as possible. This is based on the fact that he had purchased 90 rounds of ammunition and was changing clips to keep shooting when he was tackled by a couple of people.
Now even a quick look at this guys past will show that he is not what you would call the most stable person in the world. The fact is that he probably does have some form of mental illness, and that this did play a role in his actions. However, the problem that I have is that many, especially on the far right are blaming what happened on his mental illness.
Although, there is little doubt that when all is said and done, we will find that mental illness did play a role in this tragedy, that fact must not be allowed to go unchallenged that this act happened in a vacuum. In other words, I will absolutely agree that mental illness played a part in what happened. However, even the most psychotic person will have a reason for their actions. Even if those reasons do not seem rational to an outside observer. Therefore to deny that the political climate in the USA had nothing to do with it does not stand up to logic.
For a person who is having delusional (or even not so delusional) thoughts about what the government is doing to add blatantly inflammatory language to the mix, is a recipe for something like this to happen. The only real surprise I had when I heard about this is that it took so long to happen. The sad part is that it will, probably, happen again. So are the Republicans, Tea party and the extreme right to blame for what happened? Well the answer is yes, they played a role. But so did the moderate right of the Democratic party. Although they used some of the same tactics of the far right, their primary sin in creating this mess is cowardliness. Backing down at every opportunity to the Republicans.
They are not the only ones to blame of course. There are school officials at various levels who knew something was wrong, and had a responsibility to report it, but chose to do nothing except remove him from the school. His parents must have know that there were problems but again did nothing to help him. He had had run-ins with the police in the past, which in a truly just society would have lead him to mental health services, but didn't. Then of course there is the completely ridiculous gun laws in the US that will basically allow anyone to get a gun, and all the ammunition they need to kill as many people as possible.
Because of all these factors, I was saddened, although far from shocked when I heard that this had happened. When it happens again I will be saddened but unfortunately not shocked.
I may try to rewrite this again, or at least write more on specific areas in order to clarify some of the things I said in here.