Spokesman for Giffords' Opponent says, "I just don't see the connection."

[Sparkly]

The shooting comes amid a highly charged political environment that has seen several dangerous threats against lawmakers but nothing that reached the point of actual violence.

A San Francisco man upset with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's support of health care reform pleaded guilty to threatening the Democratic congresswoman and her family, calling her directly on March 25 and threatening to destroy her Northern California home if she voted for health care reform.

In July, a California man known for his anger over left-leaning politics engaged in a shootout with highway patrol officers after planning an attack on the ACLU and another nonprofit group. The man said he wanted to "start a revolution" by killing people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation.

During the his campaign effort to unseat Giffords in November, Republican challenger Jesse Kelly held fundraisers where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle. Kelly is a former Marine who served in Iraq and was pictured on his website in military gear holding his automatic weapon and promoting the event.

"I don't see the connection," between the fundraisers featuring weapons and Saturday's shooting, said John Ellinwood, Kelly's spokesman. "I don't know this person, we cannot find any records that he was associated with the campaign in any way. I just don't see the connection.

"Arizona is a state where people are firearms owners — this was just a deranged individual," Ellinwood said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congresswoman_shot

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Do they really think that line will fly?

[MichiganVote]

2. 6 people dead, a nine year old little girl....for shame.

[toddaa]

3. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take his word for it

After all, he's a fucking moron.

[malaise]

4. Then he has no understanding of the loonies

who listen to their violent rhetoric.

[Sparkly]

7. Total coincidence.

:sarcasm:

[somone]

5. Like there is no connection between the tides and the moon

[kestrel91316]

8. [phone] 000. These things are random and unforseeable.

[Cleita]

6. Of course he doesn't see a connection because he

was living in a cave throughout the whole campaign. :sarcasm: There is some evidence this Kelly guy has ties to neo-Nazi groups that are notoriously anti-semetic.

http://wonkette.com/426957/another-republican-young-gun-might-be-a-nazi