Commonplace

Common sense says that when enough targeted political vitriol mixes with enough guns, bad things will eventually happen.

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Gabby Giffords and an Ominous Development in Missouri
Mark Follman

h/t mgolladwyne

There was overwhelming bipartisan agreement on Tuesday night that Gabrielle Giffords’ arrival for President Obama’s State of the Union address was the most compelling moment of the evening. 

Watch the footage and there’s simply no arguing with that—the Arizona congresswoman looked terrific. Her incredible comeback from a near-fatal shooting one year ago seems all the more remarkable each time she appears in public. (Not that she doesn’t face challenges ahead; a video she releasedover the weekend, in which she announced that she’s stepping down from her congressional seat to focus on her further recovery, is equally moving.)

Her story is as potent a mix of painful and inspirational as there is, and you’d hope that it could stand as something of an antidote to the poisonous politics of the era.

Which is why some news out of Missouri on Tuesday was particularly stomach-churning: Just hours before Giffords made her way into the nation’s Capitol, an unknown provocateur was stalking the halls of the Missouri Capitol, tagging the doors of lawmakers—most of them Democratic women—with images of rifle crosshairs. […]

(via manicchill)

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