Arizona shooting draws outrage

The killing of six people and wounding of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside a grocery store is horrifying ["Loner charged in assassination bid," News, Jan. 11].

Sarah Palin had a website with a map with districts marked by crosshairs where the representatives support President Barack Obama's health care program. This map is inflammatory, as is the crosshair symbol. This may be the undoing of Palin's presidential ambitions. Mainstream America usually rejects violent rhetoric and extremism.

In Arizona there is considerable anger toward illegal immigrants and their receiving medical care and education that taxpayers are responsible for. The anger of paranoid people can be reinforced by inflammatory rhetoric from politicians and political analysts in the media. Paranoid people can be supersensitive about anyone representing significant power.

The 22-year-old shooter had shown obvious signs of paranoia. The tragedy is that the signs of mental illness were obvious, but he was not hospitalized and treated with medication.

Carol Swenson

Lake Grove

I am concerned at how quickly Newsday equates the conservatives and tea party activists to this disturbed person who shot Arizona Congresswoman Giffords and the other persons ["The safety question: LIers among pols warned," News, Jan. 9].

John Malesko

Shirley

Make no mistake about it, blood is on the hands of the tea party and the right wing of the Republican Party today. These pseudo-patriots spent the last six months demonizing the Democratic Party and President Obama for trying to provide affordable health care for all Americans just so that they could take back control of Congress.

They lied about death panels and the government takeover of health care to frighten ordinary citizens into voting for them. And then they react with shock when someone, unstable to begin with, picks up a gun and shoots a true American hero.

Steven G. Berner

Shoreham

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killings of six others in Tucson over the weekend may have been unpreventable unless we provide our elected officials with the same security we afford our president. However, we can be more diligent in allowing people to lawfully purchase guns.

The shooter, Jared Loughner, was described as a mentally unstable young man who was rejected by the military and frequently disrupted his college classes. Without stepping on our Second Amendment rights, why not require an applicant to be cleared by a psychologist or psychiatrist before being allowed to buy a gun?

Roberto Deciassette

Centre Island

The sheriff of Tucson is correct. The real culprits behind the senseless shootings in Arizona may be the talk radio and television hosts who day in and day out push an endless stream of vitriol, hatred and bigotry on listeners. These stars of the talk and television airwaves have high ratings when they spew hatred against government officials who represent viewpoints that are different from theirs.

It's time to put a muzzle on these people and realize that free speech does not allow someone to shout "fire" in a movie theater or, as in Tucson, shout things that may prod mentally challenged individuals to buy readily available firearms and use them to kill people.

The FCC and Congress need to take a hard look at what these people are saying to their audiences and create legislation or rulings to control the kind of rhetoric that has taken over the airwaves in recent years.

Elliot Udell

Hicksville