On the Tucson shootings

In Arizona on Saturday, a man got out of a taxi in a supermarket parking lot, drew a Glock 9mm pistol, and fired 31 shots into the surrounding crowd. Six people were killed, including a federal judge and a nine-year old girl. Fourteen more were injured, including US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who is currently in hospital with a bullet in her brain.

The gunman was trying to reload when a woman grabbed his magazine. As he tried to pull it from her grip, two men tackled him to the ground and another held down his legs. He was arrested shortly thereafter, and has been described by the authorities as “uncooperative” and “unstable”.

People are saying that Sarah Palin and the tea party movement are to blame for this catastrophe. Their websites both featured a “hit list” of twenty Democrats who voted for the government’s health care bill. Congresswoman Giffords was on it. The sites also displayed a map of the USA, with targets superimposed over the electorates the Democrats lived in. “Don’t retreat,” Palin advised Republicans in these districts. “Reload.”

This sort of inflammatory language is irresponsible, but it’s not fair to say that it caused the massacre. There is no evidence that the gunman visited the websites, or that he heard the slogan - and even if there were, it was still his decision, and his finger on the trigger.

Just the same, this tragedy can be linked the several of the things Sarah Palin and the tea party stand for. When you oppose healthcare funding, mental illnesses go undiagnosed. When you oppose taxation, the police force doesn’t have as many rescources with which to prevent crime. And when you oppose gun control, people shoot each other.

These six deaths may not have been caused by the tea party’s rhetoric; but they might be the result of their policies.