"Don't Retreat; Instead RELOAD"

Today, Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot point blank in the head outside of a Safeway grocery store in northern Tuscon, Arizona. There are no details about why the man opened fire on Giffords, and then got off another 15-20 shots which killed at least five people, including a Giffords aide and a nine year-old child. But one might look at Sarah Palin's Map of America to see why this might have happened.

The darling of the Republicans and Tea Partiers produced this map as a way of "targeting" those who voted for Obama's health care bill. SarahPAC.com has removed this since the shooting today.

Palin's Twitter quote at the time: "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” Pls see my Facebook page."

I have said for a long time that when people in positions of power and influence say things that fan hatred and violence, the result will be hatred and violence. Putting gun sights on a map (and one of the ones in Arizona was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) is an invitation to the violent nutjobs with guns in this country to go kill a "liberal" for Sarah.

Giffords had already faced violence in her district. Someone else tried to bring a gun to one of her rallies but was arrested by authorities. And her district office in Tuscon was vandalized after the health care vote.

Some have suggested this might have been a random act of violence committed by a guy strung out on drugs. And that is possible. Just as likely is that it was a person running on the rants and ravings of right-wingers such as Palin who decided to take matters into his own hands. We won't know for sure until police have time to question him and then let us in on the answers.

Prayers ascending for all who were shot, and for the people of District 8 in Arizona.

God help us all.

***** updated at 6:20pm

Police have identified the alleged shooter as a 22 year-old from Tuscon named Jared Lee Loughner. He had a MySpace account which has been taken down, and also a YouTube channel with three videos which you can see HERE. His "My Final Thoughts" talks about government control over grammar and our minds and is just bizarre.