Don't Rush to Politicize Arizona Shooting

A monstrous act was committed in Tucson this morning. This is what we know from news reports: Someone with a gun opened fire at a constituent event which Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was holding at a grocery store. Giffords was among those shot. This remains uncertain or entirely unknown: How many victims this tragedy will claim, whether the congresswoman will pull through, the identity of the shooter—reportedly taken into custody—and their motivation. This last is an especially important point right now. People are pointing out that Giffords’s 2010 opponent had an M-16 rifle shooting event to rally supporters against her over the summer; and that the congresswoman was on Sarah Palin’s famous congressional target list, illustrated with cross-hairs aimed at congressional districts on a map of the United States. Speculation has already begun that this murderer must be a right-winger, a gun nut, a Tea Partyer. And they very well may be. Or their twisted reasons for this act could be unrelated to politics or come from a different political view. But right now we just don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough. But leaping immediately to assign political blame to this tragedy distracts from and cheapens this morning’s events by making them yet another act in a political process that seems ready to spin out of control at the margins...more