As a rule of thumb, people don’t have their political affiliations carved on their tombstones. Parties don’t matter in the face of tragedy and grief, but the memories of the deceased and the pain of the survivors do.
Word that U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had been shot Saturday morning was followed shortly by reports that many others were wounded outside the grocery store where she was holding an event. Before news outlets could confirm the numbers of dead and wounded, and before they even knew whether Giffords was still alive, a spark ignited in the minds of conspirators and those who wanted to turn a crime against democracy into ammunition in a partisan battle.
“It must have been a right-wing, Tea Party nutjob because he killed a Democrat,” they began musing.
Then the spark caught and burned its way back to half-remembered campaign phrases and motifs.
“Didn’t Sarah Palin use crosshairs and other gun imagery while campaigning? Wasn’t Giffords’ district in one of those crosshairs?”
Yes, she did and it was, but when were metaphors outlawed? Palin was building on the image America has of her. She’s known to most as the woman shooting a moose while sitting in a helicopter. Her selection of campaign materials doesn’t mean she is responsible for the tragedy on Saturday, nor does it mean someone with her views was behind it.
But political sharks smelled blood in the water, and it has sent them into a tizzy of what-ifs and maybes.
However, try as they might to pin this shooting on a fanatical conservative, “The Communist Manifesto” sits nestled among the suspect’s favorite books on his MySpace page.
As humans, everyone from police to reporters to everyday people want a reason for senseless murder. They want someone to blame. They want closure.
As of yet, they don’t have that.
Instead of jumping to conclusions or making the deaths of six people and injuries of others into a political topic, the country needs to come together and mourn.
This wasn’t a matter of mere partisanship. The gunman didn’t stop to ask the party affiliation of the 9-year-old girl he killed. Such a terrible action offends nearly everyone on the grounds of human decency, regardless of their views on health care or the economy.
In the coming days, Americans will question the reasoning of the gunman, his motivation and his morals. As long as the suspect stays tight-lipped, however, questions will remain unanswered. Until he tells the FBI about his thought process, no one can be sure what he was thinking.
So let’s stop assuming we know. We don’t.
All we have are casualties and memories of shots ringing out. We have candlelight vigils outside a Tucson hospital. We have a palpable fear that may further disconnect us from our political representatives.
But more than anything else, we have hope that our country can overlook all our differences and that the victims and their families can find peace.
