カナダde日本語アリゾナで米民主党の下院議員らが銃撃される

2011.01.08 (Sat)

アリゾナで米民主党の下院議員らが銃撃される

帰りのフライトはかなり揺れたので、もしかしたら落ちるかもなんて不安を抱きながら乗っていたんだけど、無事カナダに到着した。とても暖かかった東京に比べ、飛行機から見るトロント空港はうっすらと雪が地上を覆っており、見るからに寒そうだった。

カナダに帰ってきてさっそく米国のアリゾナ、トゥーソンで民主党の下院議員らが銃撃されるという今から50年前のケネディ大統領の暗殺を思い出させるような悲惨な事件が起こった。アリゾナのセイフウェイ・ストアというスーパーマーケット前で市民との集会を行っていた民主党女性議員のガブリエル・ギフォーズ氏が頭部を打たれ重体となった。その場に居合わせた9歳の女児ら6名が死亡、12名が負傷した。容疑者のうちの1人、22歳のジェアード・リー・ラフナー（Jared Lee Loughner）（写真）は、その場で逮捕されたが、あとの2人は逃亡した。拳銃の所持規制がほとんどなく、野放し状態になっている米国では当然起こっても不思議ではない事件だと思う。

米国では去年オバマ大統領が、国民健康保険制度案の米議会下院通過を果たし、米国で初めて国民保険制度が確立された。今回の銃撃事件は国民健康保険に不満を持った者たちの犯行であると言われている。恐らく、オバマ政権に反対し、共和党を支持するものたちの犯行だろう。

アリゾナで銃撃事件　死者６人、下院議員らが重体
2011.01.09 Sun posted at: 09:44 JST

（ＣＮＮ）　警察と政府当局者らによると、米アリゾナ州トゥーソンの食品スーパー前で８日、男が銃を乱射し、連邦地裁判事ら６人が死亡、連邦下院の民主党女性議員、ガブリエル・ギフォーズさん（４０）ら１２人が負傷した。現場では当時、ギフォーズ議員が支持者らと集会を開いていた。

オバマ米大統領によると、死者の中には同州の連邦地裁のジョン・ロール判事が含まれている。また当局によると、９歳の少女も病院で死亡が確認された。

病院の担当医によると、ギフォーズ議員は弾丸１発が頭部を貫通して重傷を負い、手術を受けた。

容疑者は２２歳の男とされ、連邦議会警察によればすでに拘束された。

警察は警戒措置として、一部の連邦当局者らの自宅、事務所の安全を確保し、下院議員らに注意を呼び掛けた。オバマ大統領の指示により、米連邦捜査局（ＦＢＩ）のチームが現場へ向かっている。

ギフォーズ議員は２００６年に初当選。昨年の中間選挙では、保守派の草の根市民運動、ティーパーティー（茶会）の候補者と激しく争った。

【More・・・】

アリゾナのティーパーティーで戦争や銃などの武器、暴力を肯定し、米国を正しい位置に戻さなければならないと強調するサラ・ペイリン。彼女のこのような主張が、アリゾナで銃などの武器を使う人を勇気づけ、今回のような事件を引き起こしてしまったのではないかと個人的には思う。

MSNBCのニュース・キャスター、キース・オルバーマンがアリゾナでの連邦下院の民主党女性議員、ガブリエル・ギフォーズさんらが銃撃された事件についてコメントをしている。暴力や銃など武器を米国からなくすべきであると述べ、同時に、もし、サラ・ペイリンがそれらを米国から葬り去ることに反対するなら、今すぐ政治の世界から追放されるべきだと主張している。

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. We need to put the guns down. Just as importantly we need to put the gun metaphors away and permanently.
Left, right, middle - politicians and citizens - sane and insane. This morning in Arizona, this age in which this country would accept "targeting" of political opponents and putting bullseyes over their faces and of the dangerous blurring between political rallies and gun shows, ended.

This morning in Arizona, this time of the ever-escalating, borderline-ecstatic invocation of violence in fact or in fantasy in our political discourse, closed. It is essential tonight not to demand revenge, but to demand justice; to insist not upon payback against those politicians and commentators who have so irresponsibly brought us to this time of domestic terrorism, but to work to change the minds of them and their supporters - or if those minds tonight are too closed, or if those minds tonight are too unmoved, or if those minds tonight are too triumphant, to make sure by peaceful means that those politicians and commentators and supporters have no further place in our system of government.

If Sarah Palin, whose website put and today scrubbed bullseye targets on 20 Representatives including Gabby Giffords, does not repudiate her own part in amplifying violence and violent imagery in politics, she must be dismissed from politics - she must be repudiated by the members of her own party, and if they fail to do so, each one of them must be judged to have silently defended this tactic that today proved so awfully foretelling, and they must in turn be dismissed by the responsible members of their own party.

If Jesse Kelly, whose campaign against Congresswoman Giffords included an event in which he encouraged his supporters to join him firing machine guns, does not repudiate this, and does not admit that even if it was solely indirectly, or solely coincidentally, it contributed to the black cloud of violence that has envellopped our politics, he must be repudiated by Arizona's Republican Party.

If Congressman Allen West, who during his successful campaign told his supporters that they should make his opponent afraid to come out of his home, does not repudiate those remarks and all other suggestions of violence and forced fear, he should be repudiated by his constituents and the Republican Congressional Caucus.

If Sharron Angle, who spoke of "Second Amendment solutions," does not repudiate that remark and urge her supporters to think anew of the terrible reality of what her words implied, she must be repudiated by her supporters in Nevada.

If the Tea Party leaders who took out of context a Jefferson quote about blood and tyranny and the tree of liberty do not understand - do not understand tonight, now what that really means, and these leaders do not tell their followers to abhor violence and all threat of violence, then those Tea Party leaders must be repudiated by the Republican Party.

If Glenn Beck, who obsesses nearly as strangely as Mr. Loughner did about gold and debt and who wistfully joked about killing Michael Moore, and Bill O'Reilly, who blithely repeated "Tiller the Killer" until the phrase was burned into the minds of his viewers, do not begin their next broadcasts with solemn apologies for ever turning to the death-fantasies and the dreams of bloodlust, for ever having provided just the oxygen to those deep in madness to whom violence is an acceptable solution, then those commentators and the others must be repudiated by their viewers, and by all politicians, and by sponsors, and by the networks that employ them.

And if those of us considered to be "on the left" do not re-dedicate ourselves to our vigilance to eliminate all our own suggestions of violence - how ever inadvertent they might have been then we too deserve the repudiation of the more sober and peaceful of our politicians and our viewers and our networks.
Advertise | AdChoices

Here, once, in a clumsy metaphor, I made such an unintended statement about the candidacy of then-Senator Clinton. It sounded as if it was a call to physical violence. It was wrong, then. It is even more wrong tonight. I apologize for it again, and I urge politicians and commentators and citizens of every political conviction to use my comment as a means to recognize the insidiousness of violent imagery, that if it can go so easily slip into the comments of one as opposed to violence as me, how easily, how pervasively, how disastrously can it slip into the already-violent or deranged mind?

For tonight we stand at one of the clichéd crossroads of American history. Even if the alleged terrorist Jared Lee Loughner was merely shooting into a political crowd because he wanted to shoot into a political crowd, even if he somehow was unaware who was in the crowd, we have nevertheless for years been building up to a moment like this.
Assume the details are coincidence. The violence is not. The rhetoric has devolved and descended, past the ugly and past the threatening and past the fantastic and into the imminently murderous.

We will not return to the 1850s, when a pro-slavery Congressman nearly beat to death an anti-slavery Senator; when an anti-slavery madman cut to death with broadswords pro-slavery advocates.

We will not return to the 1960s, when with rationalizations of an insane desire for fame, or of hatred, or of political opposition, a President was assassinated and an ultra-Conservative would-be president was paralyzed, and a leader of peace was murdered on a balcony.

We will not.
Because tonight, what Mrs. Palin, and what Mr. Kelly, and what Congressman West, and what Ms. Angle, and what Mr. Beck, and what Mr. O'Reilly, and what you and I must understand, was that the man who fired today did not fire at a Democratic Congresswoman and her supporters.

He was not just a mad-man incited by a thousand daily temptations by slightly less-mad-men to do things they would not rationally condone.
He fired today into our liberty and our rights to live and to agree or disagree in safety and in freedom from fear that our support or opposition will cost us our lives or our health or our sense of safety. The bullseye might just as well have been on Mrs. Palin, or Mr. Kelly, or you, or me. The wrong, the horror, would have been - could still be just as real and just as unacceptable.

At a time of such urgency and impact, we as Americans - conservative or liberal - should pour our hearts and souls into politics. We should not - none of us, not Gabby Giffords and not any Conservative - ever have to pour our blood. And every politician and commentator who hints otherwise, or worse still stays silent now, should have no place in our political system, and should be denied that place, not by violence, but by being shunned and ignored.

It is a simple pledge, it is to the point, and it is essential that every American politician and commentator and activist and partisan take it and take it now, I say it first, and freely:

Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our Democracy, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence. Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are Americans.