Actually Obama was misquoting a line from the movie, The Untouchables , which was set in Chicago. He could have said “If they use irony, we will use sarcasm”, but that would have been “elitest” and required the media to find a dictionary. That is a standard statement of deterrence. There is nothing inflammatory about it, but I can see why the right is reaching back over two years to find anything that might be distorted given the amount of eliminationist rhetoric they have been spewing on a daily basis.

You do have to wonder, Badtux, if he wants to put up with the crap that is going to flow around him. I know that my reaction to my first serious death threat from someone I arrested was to buy a new license plate with my name on it, and hope he tried something, but I wasn’t dealing with my anger issues very well at the time. I think the Sheriff is a bit more low-keyed and older than I was.

Kryten, I haven’t seen anything that rises to the level of a medical certification, either. He was disruptive, but he didn’t do anything violent, and there are indications that he might have a drug problem, but no actual hard evidence of that. If he had ADHD as a child he may be in the area where the controlling drugs no longer work properly, and they haven’t determined the proper balance. ADHD wouldn’t show up in the gun registry.

Lax Gun Control Laws Allowed Mentally Ill Shooter To Buy Previously-Banned Magazine Clip

…
Current federal laws prohibit selling weapons to the mentally ill but, as forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz notes, current gun control laws allow “no way to determine [someone] is a mentally ill person.” “The only thing the existing law does about that is quite absurd,” Dietz said, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms form which only asks the applicant whether “they had been adjudicated dangerously mentally ill.” What’s more, there is no waiting period in Arizona unless someone is flagged by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). A measure even more unlikely to work in Arizona as the state is woefully behind in entering the 121,700 records of disqualifying mental illness into NICS, having entered only 4, 465 between 2008 and 2010.

But even with Loughner slipping through the system, the magazine clip he purchased with his gun wouldn’t have existed had gun laws been up to date. The now-expired assault weapons ban that existed from 1994 to 2004 prohibited gun manufacturers from marketing handguns with the high-capacity magazines Loughner used. Under the assault weapons ban, it was illegal to make or sell clips holding more than 10 rounds. The magazine used by Loughner held 31 rounds. The Brady Campaign said that, had he used a traditional magazine, “it would have drastically reduced the number of shots he got off” before reloading. While President Bush backed renewing the ban, it never passed Congress in 2004.
…

Ummm, as far as I have been able to tell from available info, Loughner has never been medically certified as ‘mentally ill’. *shrug*

‘Political Radicalization in US Unworthy of a Democratic State’

(I find that rather ironic BTW).

It seems Der Spiegel agree with your views re: Palin (and I must say that I don’t wholly agree with this editorial, but I do agree with the principal and your views. However, we all know that a few of us ignoring her (and others of her ilk) will not make them go away, unfortunately. It will just allow them to spout their message of fear and hatred unchallenged).

America’s Misguided Debate: Blaming Sarah Palin for Arizona Shooting Is Wrong

My 2c is that while I do agree that blaming Palin solely or even the Tea Party in toto does not address the whole problem, they are still nonetheless responsible for their roles for the growing confusion and anger, and are at the forefront as advocates of violence. They have been fanning the embers of discontent that have been growing for quite some time, especially the past decade. They have been, and are being, completely irresponsible, regardless of whether they are a direct cause of this, and other, acts of violence.

Regarding Pima County, that’s regarded as a “liberal” county in Arizona, which would be a conservative county in the Northeast but so it goes. Tucson is turning into somewhat of an artist’s colony despite the presence of a significant military retiree contingent (due to Davis-Monthan). It’s not surprising that Rep. Giffords was elected from Tucson, and my guess is that Sheriff Dupnik is not going to have any trouble getting re-elected despite the Teabagger hate and vitriol which is so intense that even as obscure a blogger as 618 gets death threats from teabaggers for pointing out that teabagger hate speech had something to do with this. Thereby proving the point, but the teabaggers can’t figure that out — I mean, we’re talking about folks who shout “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!”, after all. Not exactly the brightest candles in the chandelier, yo…

– Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Sarah Never Does Anything Wrong

And this, from MotherJones:

Exclusive: Loughner Friend Explains Alleged Gunman’s Grudge Against Giffords

And… Paul Krugman posted on his blog that despite the fact that he dislikes doing it, he will blog about the goings on in Arizona (should be interesting)! 🙂

Column meta: I hated, hated, hated writing tomorrow’s column. Whatever people may imagine, I really dislike weighing in on purely political matters, and am far and away at my happiest translating economic analysis into hopefully understandable English. But nobody would read a piece about health-care accounting or eurozone adjustment problems if I put it out tomorrow, and there are some things I fear won’t be said if I don’t do it (just as there were during the runup to the Iraq War); so Arizona it is.