My thoughts on the recent Arizona shooting

Those that know me or have been following this blog for awhile know I'm not really all that into politics.

Honestly, they kinda bore me and the way things are now between the 2 parties, it seems a bit childish at time with all the back and forth arguing over stuff and nothing getting done...

When it comes to politics and political stuff I guess I would say I'm more middle of the road, or moderate with a little bit of a conservative influence due to my background and religious beliefs. For example, when it comes to censorship, I'm more liberal, however certain issues I'm a lot more conservative on (the topic of abortion being a big one). When it comes to guns, I'm all for conceal and carry (which we currently don't have in Illinois) as it's a constitutional right to bear arms, but I do agree there need to be tighter gun laws as I don't think it should be quite so simple for just anyone to purchase a gun and license for it. Those are just some examples. I got nothing wrong with "normal" liberals/Democrats or "normal" conservatives/Republicans, but the far right and far left extremists on both sides I think are a bit ridiculous and tend to get out of control and take things to, well, the extreme.

I also don't watch the news a lot because of that reason - when I do watch the news it's usually a localized format telling me what's going on in my area or like CNN Headline News where it's just the headlines and story. Having worked with newspapers, there is a definite bias in the media and because of that I can't stand to watch most of the other news channels - either they're too liberal biased or too conservative biased and that annoys me - just tell me the basic gist of the news already without a slant, spin or bias to it!

That being said, since the shooting in Arizona over the weekend I have gotten soooo sick and tired of my newsfeed on Facebook being spammed by links and articles that people on both sides of the political spectrum have been posting the last few days. It's getting annoying and I'm almost to the point of "hiding" a few peoples posts for awhile so I don't have to see all the constant spam of links and articles - the conservative ones counteract the liberal ones and vice versa.

For those that have been living under a rock the past few days or don't pay attention to the news (and in this day and age so many people post the same news stuff on Facebook and Twitter you can easily get the gist of something without needing to watch the news), over the weekend a deranged shooter opened fire in Tuscon, Arizona and injured some, including a representative, and killing others, including a 9 year old girl who was born on 9/11.

The big controversy here is that months ago Sarah Palin posted some image online of several representatives and their districts being within gun cross-hairs (this particular Arizona representative that was injured in the shooting being one of them) to illustrate a point that these districts were targets to be won in the upcoming election or something like that. I'll admit, it was a bit stupid of her as the image could easily be taken out of context (which it now has), but then again she's never come off as the brightest crayon in the box either. The problem is now, a lot of people, including many liberals, are saying that this shooting is her fault as the shooter was just taking her gun cross-hairs image literally, and it doesn't help that soon after the shooting the image was promptly removed from her website.

The problem I have is that no, the shooting isn't her fault.

Was it a stupid thing to post online? Yes.
Are some of her followers/supporters a bit extreme? Yes.

But regardless, it's not like she told people to go get their guns and shoot up politicians. She didn't pull the trigger - some deranged guy did that, acting on his own (no one even knows for sure if he was a Palin supporter or not, as there's been conflicting reports that he was a liberal as well as reports that he was involved in right-wing hate groups, so who knows at this point).

Basically, the way I see it, if you're going to blame Palin for this shooting, then you HAVE to admit that you feel Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor are both responsible for the tragic Columbine shooting, as the shooters were big fans of their music. Remember that controversy back then? And if you want to go even further then you have to support the claim that "violent" video games, movies and comics cause people who like them to mimic what they see, play and read.

Honestly, not everyone who plays Call of Duty is going to start opening fire on random people in public - sure, there are some crazies out there who will go that far, but you can't blame a video game that millions play for the action of a handful of deranged people who have psychological problems. Same with D&D - I remember speakers coming to our school in the mid-late 90s, preaching of the dangers of said game and how evil it was, sucking people in and making them go crazy and get too into character where they started living out the fantasy in real-life. Sure, there were SOME people that took D&D to that extreme, but having playing World of Warcraft for over 5 years, which I hear is somewhat similar to D&D, I don't have any urge to go beating on nasty civilians or pickpocket people, or cast spells on bad guys in real life and I'm fully aware that I'm not a paladin, a night elf druid or rogue, or a blood elf huntress. Yes, some people tend to blur the line between fantasy and reality, but not the masses - the ones that do are few and far between.

To clarify, no, I'm not a Palin supporter - other than what I've seen and heard on TV, I don't know too much about how she *really* is, however she comes across in the media as not being the brightest crayon in the box, like I said earlier. Also, I can't take someone serious who has their own reality show and seems to have an addiction to being on TV as badly as Kate Gosslin no matter at what the cost. Yes, I voted for McCain in the past Presidential election, but that was solely because I had liked McCain and a lot of his stances on some issues for years - I was pretty excited when I first heard he was running. Honestly though, I really feel that having her as his running mate attributed quite a bit to him losing the election as frankly she came off as stupid near the end of the campaign. As far as a woman running mate, I think it would have been a lot smarter for the GOP to have him select someone like Condelezza Rice - at least Condi always seemed to have a good, sound head on her shoulders and seemed like a strong, smart woman.

So while I'm not much of a Palin fan (I think the GOP would be nuts at this point to give her the bid for the next Presidential election as she only seems to keep digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole), I do feel that if you're going to blame her for this shooting then really you have to admit that you believe every other "celeb" (or video game, movie and comic) out there that's been blamed for a shooting is also at fault. And I find that a bit ridiculous.