Re: letters about the Arizona shooting (TNT, 1-11).

After gagging with revulsion in reaction to the scurrilous, reprehensible letters, I decided to respond with some sanity and truth.

Many of the children who take a gun to school do so because they have deep-seated anger and fear; low self-esteem; and feelings of being marginalized by teachers, principals and their peers. To blame the whole country for their problems is wrong and grossly unfair.

Blaming Sarah Palin’s use of so-called cross hairs is wrong. That symbol is used on topographical maps. It is not from a telescopic rifle. Bob Beckel, a …

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Re: “People, not implements, are responsible for tragedy” (online letter, 1-11).

The writer’s statement that the shooter alone is responsible for the killings in Arizona is too simplistic a response to this tragedy. Certainly, the depraved mind of the shooter is a necessary component. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. But to quote the comedian Eddie Izzard, the gun helps.

Would anyone deny that Jared Loughner’s semiautomatic Glock had some part to play in this tragedy? Could anyone imagine such a high death count with a knife, a Founding Fathers-era musket or even my 30-30 Marlin?

Of course, if …

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The News Tribune’s Hot Button question – “Do you think vitriolic political rhetoric is to blame for the shootings in Arizona?” – is an obvious effort to paint Sarah Palin or other members of the right as providing the “rhetoric” which motivated the Arizona shooter to kill innocent people and severely injure a member of Congress.

As to this issue, my answer, “Not at all,” holds with the majority opinion at 49 percent.

The left is playing its usual games, right out of the Alinsky playbook: “Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It.” For years they tried …

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If Sarah Palin must accept blame for the tragic shooting in Arizona, as some would have us believe, then it is only fair that Elmer Fudd is equally to blame. How many years has he had that cwazy wabbit in his gun sights?

I hear they found a Lipton tea bag at the shooter’s residence. If that is not proof of his associations, then I don’t know what is.

I just read the latest left-wing tirades in The News Tribune letters to the editor (1-11). I must admit I was astonished at the number of people on the left who believe that conservatives have some sort of mind control over everyone on this planet. Otherwise how else could conservatives have implanted this supposed conservative ideology of hatred into this horrific murderer’s head?

My only suggestion to this left hate group is to immediately check into Western State Hospital, as they themselves are in real need of help.

The debate on the effects of political speech is at one level disingenuous. Of course the type of speech that is used matters; many individuals are employed to influence us by combining words and images to get us to think and act a certain way. To say that political speech has no impact on behavior is ridiculous.

We obsess about the book and movies that our children are allowed to see. Some churches routinely attempt to ban their members from viewing certain films or reading certain books. Who has not been in a conversation that got out of control because …

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I have tried very hard to not assign blame for the terrible tragedy in Tuscon. I believe the shooter was deeply disturbed and his mental illness, not politics was responsible for his violence.

But, I am really getting annoyed with columnists like George Will (TNT, 1-11). Conservatives are now playing the “victim.” Their outrage over the discussion of tempering our political language is inappropriate on every level of decency.

This situation is not about the conservative agenda. Not once did Will talk about the true victims in Tuscon. It’s all about people picking on conservatives. A 9-year-old child is being …

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After reading the rants by a few clueless progressives (letters, 1-11), I am amazed at how short their memories can be.

Wasn’t it just a few years ago that some of these far lefties were making signs that suggested that we “hang” President Bush. Wasn’t it the far left that made a movie about the assassination of then President George W. Bush? I also remember the far left calling our troops, the ones who give them their freedom to make such ignorant statements, killers of more than 400,000 innocent Iraqi civilians. That was proven wrong.

Let me give a little …

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