How words can move us.

Jared Loughner is not mentally stable: This much must be understood if one is to come to grips with the crimes he committed this past Saturday in Tucson, AZ. It was then that Loughner showed up at a meet and greet session called Congress on your corner, hosted by U. S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, with a Glock 19 semiautomatic handgun and a high capacity magazine, intending to assassinate her.



Perhaps his madness knew no bounds, but for whatever reason, once Loughner had shot Rep. Giffords, he kept on shooting until he'd wounded 14 people, including Rep. Giffords, and killed the following six people: U.S. District Chief Judge John McCarthy Roll, 63, appointed by President H. W. Bush in 1991; Gabriel Zimmerman, 30, director of community outreach for Giffords; Christina Taylor Green, 9, granddaughter of one-time Philadelphia Phillies manager, Dallas Green, and newly-elected member of her elementary school student council; Dorwin Stoddard, 76, a Pastor from an area Church of Christ who died while protecting his wife from Loughner’s bullets; Dorthy Morris, 76, retired homemaker and secretary; and Phyllis Scheck,79, a widow, great-grandmother and winter resident of Tucson.



Had he not been tackled when trying to reload, there might have been many more victims.



The bullet meant to kill Giffords went through the left side of her brain from the rear of her head to the front, but followed a miraculous path that left her alive. Despite massive damage done to Gifford’s brain, she is expected to recover, even if the road ahead is going to be rough.



Now that we have established that Loughner is not in his right mind, can we now say that he alone is responsible for the carnage he unleashed? That may not be quite so cut and dried. It’s impossible to say what drives such individuals when they do go completely mad; like children almost anything can reach them and compel them to act in completely unpredictable ways.



If the rhetoric of some political movement did reach him and act as a catalyst, there are any number of such statements one might cite that on their face seem to be a call to arms against members of our government. Sarah Palin, for instance, is now under fire for at least one statement that might have inflamed Loughner. She once said that, instead of retreating, her followers should “reload”. And in another action actually cited by Rep. Giffords as irresponsible, Palin highlighted 20 Democratic Congressional districts, including Giffords’; with the crosshairs of a rifle to indicate they were vulnerable to takeover.



Sharon Angle, in her race for the U. S. Senate in Nevada against Harry Reid conceived of a 2nd Amendment remedy to counter Members of Congress with whom one disagreed, and then called for her opponent to “be taken out”. A more recent and unmistakable call for violence against politicians was made by a conservative radio host who said very explicitly, “If ballots don’t work, bullets will.”



Even if it’s impossible to say that these statements were the driving force behind Loughner’s murderous acts, it’s just as impossible to say they had no effect. Words such as these are meant to incite the listener to action and the speakers can then only hope that when any actions are taken, they are kept within the bounds of reason.