Political & Elections

Bullet and I discussed the shooter this morning.

Bullet at first thought he would be locked away in a jail for life.

I OTOH said, NO, he will be Hinkley.

Any attorney will take the "guilty, but mentally insane" defense

His HS kicked him out because of mental issues.

His CC kicked him out because of mental issues.

The Army would not accept him because of mental issues.

Find me a jury of 12 peers with those facts that would find him mentally competent?
You can't!

The person I am curious about is the 2nd person of interest. Did he take someone that was unstable to begin with and hand them the loaded gun?

The surgeon said that responding to simple commands is speech recognition and involves the left side of the brain. The fact that she can do this is particularly good news in light of damage to the left side.

More regarding the surgeons' press conference held today.  It can be found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Scroll down to the 2:18 pm blog entry for the video.

Here are some things I remember:

They were very clear about refusing to speculate about her degree of recovery, beyond saying that they were "cautiously optimistic." They said that recovery in this situation is a matter of months and sometimes years, and it's impossible to know what kind of deficits she'll have. Assuming things go well, she's likely to be in the hospital for several weeks, and then to go somewhere for rehabilitation.

She is being kept in a medically induced pharmaceutical coma, but they wake her up periodically to examine her, and she is in fact able to respond to simple commands like holding up two fingers or squeezing someone's hand. Contrary to the false rumors about her having recognized her husband, she can neither speak nor open her eyes. They emphasized that the commands and responses may be simple, but are nonetheless indicative of a very high level of brain functioning.

But they did caution that her condition is still very precarious, that things can go either way, and that some further degeneration of brain tissue surrounding the path of the bullet is still likely to happen.

Half of her skull (on the left side) has been entirely removed, to facilitate treatment and allow the brain room to swell if that happens. It can be replaced at a later date. If swelling does happen, there are ways to treat it, which they described. They emphasized that the ability to treat this kind of injury has advanced considerably over time. They gave details about everything else that was done during the surgery itself, including stopping the bleeding (which was fortunately not severe) and removing all the bone fragments caused by the bullet.

They said, in effect, that she's already beaten the odds and been very lucky, because only a small percentage of people shot in the brain survive the moment of shooting, and only a small percentage of those even make it through the initial surgery. It was a significant good sign that she was responsive going into the surgery.

When asked how they explain her survival to this point, they gave two basic reasons. First, the speed with which she got to the operating table: they kept saying "38 minutes." I think they meant 38 minutes from the time the emergency people got to her on scene, not 38 minutes from the actual shooting, since I believe I read somewhere that it took the ambulance almost half an hour to get to the scene. Also, the fact that it's a "first level trauma center," where they're completely prepared for an event like this (they also talked about all the other people they treated. Of the survivors, Congresswoman Gifford is the only one still in critical condition).

Second, the path of the bullet. The worst kind of injury would be if the bullet had passed through the center of the brain, from one hemisphere to the other. That would almost certainly have been instantaneously fatal. (Which is why people were wondering yesterday how she could have survived, given that the initial reports seemed to indicate that she was shot in the temple and it went all the way through.) Instead, it appears that the bullet was confined to one hemisphere, the left, and that the right hemisphere remains intact (which explains her ability to respond to simple commands). They think the bullet went into her head in the back of the left side, travelled the length of the brain on that side, and exited on the left side of her forehead. When asked, they said that the left hemisphere, as a general rule, controls movement on the right side of the body, and also involves speech and the ability to understand speech.

That's all I can remember right now.

From his rantings online, the shooter seems, literally, crazy. Sadly, the schizophrenia kind of crazy develops at just about the age he is. So it could be that he was a normal kid, but recently developed a severe mental illness.

Daniel Hernandez had been U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' intern for five days when she was shot Saturday outside Tucson.The junior at the University of Arizona was helping check people in at the "Congress on Your Corner" event when he heard gunfire. He was about 30 feet from the congresswoman. When the shots began, he ran toward them.

^sure have our tax dollars pay for this monster and try to "figure him out"....

A sheriff's deputy in Wisconsin killed his ex-girlfriend and five others at a house party on Sunday, then fled. When he was caught hours later, he used his .40-caliber Glock pistol to commit suicide—shooting himself twice from under the chin, and then once through the right side of his head. How'd he manage to shoot himself in the head three times?

He kept missing the brain. A gunshot to the head isn't always fatal;

Wow! Three times in the head and still alive.

CC closed down their thread. 

if crosshairs on districts made people shoot the representatives in those districts, obviously there would be a lot more shooters, and a lot more people getting shot... don't you think?

The left told their followers to "get in people's faces"... neither side has a monopoly on retarded political rhetoric. If more politicians were about doing what is good for the country and not bashing/humiliating/attacking the people with the opposite letter by their name, we would be a lot better off.

But, we should remember... moderation does not win you elections. We, as the voting public, are to blame for this.

IMO - not terrorism... but the US government doesn't have a terrorism definition, so obviously this would fall under some people's definition.

I do think this can qualify under terrorism. If it is true that he attacked as a way to terrorize politicians and tried to cause government/country turmoil- then that is terrorism in my book. How else would you qualify terrorism?

-- Edited by romanigypsyeyes on Saturday 8th of January 2011 08:43:43 PM

Quote:"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC."/Quote

Oh, but our fair Ms. Sarah has issued a statement, expressing how very sad (uh-huh) she is that his happened to the Congresswoman, and that Rep. Giffords and the other victims are in her and Todd's "thoughts and prayers". So of course, Palins perennially overheated rhetoric ("We don't retreat, we reload!") couldn't possibly inspire nutjobs to violence.

According to the story I read of what the surgeon said, the bullet went straight through her brain and (I believe) out the other side.  I'm not a doctor, but I don't see how it's possible that there wasn't extensive damage.   At best, she probably faces a very long recovery.  So sad:

Peter Rhee of the University of Arizona Medical Center just gave a press conference saying that Rep. Gabriel Giffords is in critical condition, but he is "very optimistic" about her recovery.

Rhee said that they have ten patients, five are in critical condition, five are still in surgery. One patient has died, a "young child" that is "about nine," he said.

He continued that Giffords was shot once, "in the head, through and through," and that the bullet went through her brain.

Rhee said Giffords is out of surgery and will now go to the Intensive Care Unit, and that he is "as optimistic as you can get in this situation."

-- Edited by DonnaL on Saturday 8th of January 2011 07:29:09 PM

Speculations;

A skull shot can be a near miss and not be fatal. A shallow angle hit might not penetrate deeply.

Point blank(actually 4 or 5 feet in this case) is a range, not an indication of accuracy.
Ballistically  this refers to a shot at a distance that requires no elevation correction.
Forensically point blank usually means a few feet.

A glancing hit to the temple, or other, area of the skull can be non-fatal.

One circumstance would be like a bad concussion. Let's hope for that.

=======================================================
The weapon was a 9 mm Glock. I think this has a 17 round magazine. The guy had to have reloaded, had two weapons, or been an excellent shot. 19 hits by the initial report, corrected to 18 hits later.  My wife suggests one  bullet might have hit two victims. This is plausible.

Update; There is an "aftermarket" 30 round magazine available. Perhaps he had one of these.




-- Edited by BigG on Saturday 8th of January 2011 05:52:08 PM

-- Edited by BigG on Saturday 8th of January 2011 05:55:21 PM

-- Edited by BigG on Saturday 8th of January 2011 06:06:44 PM

-- Edited by BigG on Saturday 8th of January 2011 06:07:48 PM

-- Edited by BigG on Saturday 8th of January 2011 06:21:14 PM

-- Edited by BigG on Saturday 8th of January 2011 06:57:47 PM

How does one survive a shot to the head point blank?

She was the first one shot.  Point blank, in the head.  It was her event.  How would the shooter have known that the judge was going to be there?

And she was, after all, one of the targets on a certain politician's "crosshairs" list.

From the Congresswoman herself:

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC."

-- Edited by DonnaL on Saturday 8th of January 2011 04:29:27 PM

From the mind of the shooter:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/u/1/nHoaZaLbqB4

I am not sure what to make of the videos by him. I have watched them all- rewatched most of them in fact, just to try to make heads or tails of them. Can't do it.