Right now, the public isn’t ready to believe an argument that Jared Loughner was motivated by right-wing rhetoric. Fortunately, nobody has said that, because it’s the wrong claim to make. Nobody has claimed that crosshairs on a map or talk of “Second Amendment remedies” is specifically to blame (some on the right have blamed heavy metal music and a skull in his backyard, and that’s just as silly). The main claim is that the toxic stew of noxious rhetoric, particularly in Loughner’s home district and home state of Arizona, creates an environment that amps up a lunatic fringe. Loughner couldn’t help but trip over that, and indeed his writings do have a cockeyed resonance to some of the really far-right groups like Posse Comitatus and the Patriot movement. That doesn’t make those practitioners of angry rhetoric culpable, but it sure doesn’t mean what they’re doing helped, either.

Arizona is one of the worst states in the nation at delivering mental health services, and cut back significantly on its mental health programs during the Great Recession in order to balance their budget.

Jared Loughner is due to appear at a hearing today before a magistrate in Phoenix at 4pm ET.

Whether Loughner was merely a deranged kid who would latch onto whatever philosophy he could find, or whether he actively sought out far-right conspiracy theories, I don’t think you can deny the general milieu of anti-government rhetoric that just so happened to nestle in the very state where Loughner lived.

Sarah Palin’s handling of the whole Tucson shooting situation has been so utterly self-involved and reckless from start to finish that it should disqualify her from ever occupying a position of political leadership in this country again.

You can credibly characterize Loughner as an unstable individual, but the zeitgeist seems to have played a role.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, who lost her husband to gun violence before coming to Congress, and who has since become one of the leading pro-gun control politicians in the country, plans to introduce legislation in response to the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona that claimed the life of six and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a medically induced coma.

Thank you so much for all you’ve done to create motive and opportunity for this endless rolling tragedy of violence against liberals and Democrats. But why do you refuse to take any credit for your achievement?

What we know is that Jared Loughner, who was rejected from the military and kicked out of a community college, and who had various minor run-ins with the law, was able to purchase a semi-automatic 9MM Glock with an extended magazine.

COMPLAINT United States District Court DISTRICT OF ARIZONA United States of America v JARED LEE LOUGHNER DOB: xx/xx/1988; United States Citizen DOCKET NO. MAGISTRATE’S CASE NO. 11-0035M Complaint for violation of Title 18 United States Code 351(c); Title 18 United States Code 1114 and 1111; and Title 18 United States Code 1114 and 1113 COMPLAINTANT’S [...]