Thoughts on the recent tragedy in Arizona

I'm a little late to the party.  By now, thousands of bloggers have already weighed in on this issue, but I am going to comment anyway.  If you have paid any attention to the news, then you are aware now that a nut shot several people outside a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Judge John Roll.  Roll was killed in the attack, and Giffords is expected to make a recovery. 

Predictably, some commentators immediately suggested that a member of the TEA party is responsible for the attacks.  Sarah Palin was also implicated because of her infamous map of targeted Democrats.  Some lawmakers, including Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) are taking advantage of the occasion to talk about gun control.

Here are my thoughts on the passing scene...

• The attacks are a tragedy.  This news does not make me happy.  I do not wish for any harm to come to my ideological opponents in the Democrat party.  All I want is for them to be defeated at the polls by large margins.
• The attacker, Jared Loughner, is not a conservative.  He's not a liberal.  He's a nut.  He shot all those people because he's a nut, and that's what nuts do sometimes.  Among his favorite books listed on his blog are Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, and Atlas Shrugged.  (Essentially, the free market manifesto.  A rather odd juxtaposition, don't you think?)  His acquaintances also think that he has a few screws loose. 
• Gun control?  Seriously?  Do we really have to pass a new law every time something bad happens?  And isn't it rather tacky to use a tragedy like this to push your pet cause?
• As for blaming Sarah Palin for the attacks...good...grief.  Seriously?  Some crosshairs on a map made a guy flip out and kill a bunch of people?