Tucson Survivor Blames Shooting On Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sharron Angle (VIDEO)

Eric Fuller, 63, who was struck by a bullet in the hail of gunfire in Tucson that killed six and wounded 13 on Saturday, claimed Thursday that conservative figureheads such as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Sharron Angle were to blame for the violence in Arizona.

"How many more demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target," Fuller, a former campaigner for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), told Democracy Now.

"Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled -- senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic-fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls," he added, reading from comments he said he had written down while being treated for his wounds.

Fuller was taking part in Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" meet-and-greet when he was shot in the back of the knee and grazed in the back.

In the wake of Saturday's shooting, the debate over the need for possible self- or legally-imposed limits on political rhetoric has largely revolved around criticism of language used by Palin, Beck, Angle and other conservatives, a contention that some on both sides of the aisle have vehemently rejected.

WATCH (comments begin at 13:30):

Comments

[dotscorp]

09:43 PM on 01/26/2011

Way to go Eric Fuller! How refreshing to hear from an unimpeachable source, someone who was shot by the alleged assassin, speaking out and endorsing a view that I, and possibly many others, share and not being cowed into submission. The man is calling a spade a spade, being blunt, and having the courage of his convictions. To the folks who criticize the man for not being more severely injured, have you no shame? Even if he wasn't hit by 2 bullets, he witnessed his Congresswoman take a bullet to the head and watched a nine year old girl die among other horrors that day. You cannot take that away from him. To disagree with his statement is one thing, but to criticize his injuries and memory of that day is tasteless, crass, and has no place in a mature and sensitive forum such as this.

[Joyanco42]

01:38 PM on 01/22/2011

Arizona survivor must not be listening to MSNBC news, they Keith, Rachael and Larry do not
set a good Public Relations atmosphere for USA --ever. They whine, complain and set a
dark shadow on life in general--hopelessness.

[Easy420forMe]

05:31 PM on 01/24/2011

wrong

[huffpostsucks04654]

11:15 PM on 01/21/2011

he was shot in the back of the knee and grazed in the back? IS THAT ALL??? what a whiner.

[Jehda]

02:34 AM on 01/18/2011

There is so much hate here as well. /sigh

[CTtransplant]

10:29 PM on 01/17/2011

Another great article... http://www.newdeal20.org/2011/01/17/connecting-the-dots-tucson-violence-and-pundit-reality-32764/

[oldetripreal]

04:36 PM on 01/17/2011

Sarah Palin’s policy against her opponents

http://olderime.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/sarah-palins-policy-against-her-opponents/

[JohnBryansFontaine]

02:01 PM on 01/17/2011

"...Glenn Beck, of course, is the master of the Big Lie. That each lie Beck tells is more outrageous than the next does nothing to impede his success: in fact, his outrageousness fuels his success. Just last month, marking Big Lie number three for our purposes, Beck falsely accused the liberal financier George Soros of being a Nazi collaborator during World War II, when in fact, the Jewish Soros is a Holocaust survivor. In a three-part series on Soros, Beck framed his attack in language drawn from Hitler's Mein Kampf, calling his series "The Puppet Master," and referring to Soros as a "bloodsucker." While this caused great consternation in the progressive media world, protests in the world of mainstream media were not sustained enough to force Beck from his perch at Fox News, where he serves as community organizer for Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, Fox's parent company..."

http://www.truth-out.org/the-year-big-lie-6-outrageous-falsehoods-that-took-flight-201066454

[tj101]

02:55 PM on 01/17/2011

That kind of rhetoric is stomach churning to thinking people.

[peterlisbon]

02:00 PM on 01/17/2011

What is truly lost in this whole sideshow about Palin, Angle, Beck and ight wing figures of “fun” is the fact that gun violence will be a serious problem in this country unless we think of practical ways of addressing it. No that does not mean taking away your right to bear arms or taking away your hunting rifles – Relax! Approximately 30,000 US murders are committed with firearms. The NRA reports that between 1991 and 2009, violent crime in this country went down 43% and tries to draw a nexus between that and a sharp rise in gun ownership – a 90 million increase over the same period . The fact that we have seen a drop in violent crime is false comfort because we are allowing more guns to proliferate with right to carry laws in 40 states, as well as allowing more powerful weapons in the market (i.e assault weapon ban expiration). Loughner is a very disturbed person and whether he was motivated by right wing or left wing diatribes is irrelevant (though progressive talk and print is not exactly replete with gun images, bullseye bravado, and rifle scopes) – the fact is that there was a significant opportunity for him to purchase a Glock with a 31 round magazine to inflict incalculable damage. Were the 2004 ban in place, he still would have injured and perhaps killed a few people, but perhaps not nearly to this extent.

[Bandofotters]

08:10 PM on 01/18/2011

Please read the now defunct assault weapons ban. It's sunset did not put more powerful weapons into the market. It would have been physically impossible to do so.

[Thomas Brown Woodwright]

01:48 PM on 01/17/2011

If the Tea Party practiced what they preach, they would say "Mr. Fuller, being an American, and further, a victim of this atrocity, is free to think what he wants, and say what he thinks, although we disagree with him." In other words, civil discourse.

But they show who they really are by demonizing him, like they do everyone else who dares disagree with them. It isn't enough to say he's wrong; they must say he's un-American, a partisan extremist, a Democrat operative, etc. etc.

They claim to love America and our Constitution, but act and talk in a way that is opposite to her ideals, and plainly still have not the slightest interest in civil discourse.

[Bandofotters]

08:11 PM on 01/18/2011

This post gets my vote for best attempt at deflection!

[KevinFitzz]

01:06 PM on 01/17/2011

His thoughts and words are powerful but powerful enough to stop these mad men? I don't know...

[Thomas Brown Woodwright]

01:04 PM on 01/17/2011

If the Tea Party practiced what they preach, they would say "Mr. Fuller, being an American, and further, a victim of this atrocity, is free to think what he wants, and say what he thinks, although we disagree with him." That would be civil discourse.

But they show who they really are by demonizing him, like they do everyone else who dares disagree with them. It isn't enough to say he's wrong; they must say he's un-American, a partisan extremist, a Democrat operative, etc. etc.

They claim to love America and our Constitution, but act and talk in a way that is opposite to her ideals, and plainly still have not the slightest interest in civil discourse.

[MmeFlutterbye]

12:55 PM on 01/17/2011

"Eric Fuller, 63, who was struck by a bullet in the hail of gunfire in Tucson that killed six and wounded 13 on Saturday, claimed Thursday that conservative figureheads such as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Sharron Angle were to blame for the violence in Arizona."

This is the elephant in the living room that the MSM is encouraging us to ignore. The psychotic murderer had no political affiliation, it's true. But the climate and the venue for his action has been building ever since the Tpublicans destroyed discussions at the town hall meetings last summer and furthered when "YOU LIE!" was shouted at the last SOTU speech of the president. Ann Coulter's "...liberals can be killed" didn't prevent the killing either. Those mentioned by Eric Fuller should not be regarded as innocent in regards to this tragedy. Psychotics are apt to listen to them as well as to the voices in their heads that can resonate with the words of the figureheads.

[CTtransplant]

12:54 PM on 01/17/2011

George Packer from the New Yorker last Monday said it well:

"In fact, there is no balance -- none whatsoever­. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidati­on, not-so-coy­ly conflating rights with threats. Only one side's activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings­. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrina­te viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitari­an menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods­. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can't stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuo­us."
 
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2011/01/tucson-revisited.html

[Inkeesgirl]

10:23 PM on 01/17/2011

Fanned, thank you for the quote. Even during the height of the Bush years, I don't remember reading this type of violent rhetoric from the left. And anyone who disagreed with Republicans wasn't allowed to get within a thousand feet of one of their "town hall" meetings.

[curby 13]

11:54 AM on 01/17/2011

Where's the story here on HuffPo that Mr.Fuller was arrested and placed in a psych unit involuntary because he threatened on of the Tea Party co-founders in Tucson over the weekend? This man is as unhinged as the Jared Loughner himself. He responds to the supposed violence of the right with threats of violence himself.

[nfatt1]

11:45 AM on 01/17/2011

No your wrong, the media tells us its one crazy person ! Why would they try to mislead us ?