This comes as not much of a surprise:
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Jared L. Loughner was not mentally competent to stand trial on charges of opening fire at a constituent event for an Arizona congresswoman in January, killing 6 and injuring 13.
The ruling by Judge Larry A. Burns of Federal District Court means Mr. Loughner will be sent to a federal psychiatric facility until Sept. 21, when a hearing will be held to determine whether he understands the 49 federal charges against him and can help in his defense.
“At the present time, Mr. Loughner does not have a rational understanding of these proceedings,” the judge said.
The ruling came just minutes after Mr. Loughner was dragged from the courtroom screaming.
“Thank you for the freak show,” he shouted. “She died in front of me. You’re treasonous.”
In his own world.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m not so sure it’s his own world, given some of the bizarre conspiracy theories surrounding this case. As in “it was a government setup”.
There is a lot of batshit insane crazy on the right.
General Stuck
Crazy, sure as fuck sounds like it. Besides, us semi sane folk know the Republican National Convention is at least a year off. Duh
West of the Cascades
Actually seems fairly gutsy of one of Judge Roll’s colleagues to declare Loughner incompetent at this point – even though he obviously seems to be incompetent and in his own little world — knowing that a 5-4 majority on the US Supreme Court would have ultimately backed a declaration that even a psychotic turnip would be competent to stand trial. And Judge Burns is a GWB appointee. Nice to see the system seem to approximate working right in the lower courts.
Professor
What will the NRA say? We have nutjobs having access to lethal weapons, because it is their right to own and bear arms. What about the rights of the victims? What a mess!
Poopyman
OT (Again), but I’ve got the Saint Louis weather radar up on another screen and there’s over a dozen tornado warnings plastered on top of one another across Missouri.
Sigh. Another day in paradise.
geg6
Can’t remember where I read it, but some crazy bunch in Texas are convinced the whole shooting was a fake and that Homeland Security was just practicing or something. They are sending people who call themselves “investigators” to the homes of victims and first responders and demanding photos or other evidence that it actually happened. These poor people are frightened, I’d guess.
Sick fuckers.
eemom
Recently I was watching an episode of the old 1970s classic All In The Family where Archie goes on a teevee news show to give his opinion against a gun control law. Know what his argument was with respect to shootings by crazy people in schools, etc? That if EVERYBODY had a gun they wouldn’t happen.
You see, back then it was COMEDY when people said things like that.
PeakVT
@Poopyman: The radar layer at St.L. doesn’t appear for me, but the watches are still there. Here’s the Springfield radar.
Martin
When does he get his Fox News call-in show?
MonkeyBoy
@eemom:
Actually, Archie was supposed to be a supporting character and Meathead the main character. However it turned out that many people identified with the racist right wing Archie and he became the main character. Sort of like how some right-wing watchers of Colbert can’t tell its satire.
Chris
@eemom:
I can also remember Groucho Marx from the late 1920s:
“Do you want to be wage slaves? No, of course not. But what do you think makes wage slaves? Wages! I don’t want you to be slaves. I want you to be free!”
I thought it was simple comedy when I first saw it. In retrospect, I suspect he was word-for-word quoting his era’s version of the “tax cuts increase revenue” type of lunatics.
JD Rhoades
@MonkeyBoy:
To be fair, this may have had as much to do with the fact that Carroll O’Connor acted rings around Rob Reiner as it did with anything else.
Professor
@eemom: These gullible idiotic gun nutjobs, don’t they realise that the one with intent to kill and shoots first always kills the unprepared? Think about the American policemen who are always armed but they get shot and killed! What a bunch of unmitigated idiots!
pragmatism
over at the GOS i saw a diary on topic. we’re going to need more tin foil. dailykos.com/story/2011/05/25/979097/-Wingnuts-Harrass-Tucson-Victims:-Claim-it-was-False-Flag-Homel…
eemom
@MonkeyBoy:
unless you have some inside Hollywood scoop that I don’t know, I think you’re wrong about that. There wasn’t really a main character; the genius of the show was the dynamic amongst all 4 of them.
David Brooks (not that one) is a dickhead.
Archie Bunker was a paragon of thoughful insightfulness and wit compared with his British model Alf Garnett. The Rob Reiner role was created by Tony Booth, who was Cherie Blair’s (alcoholic) father.
Where were we? Oh yes,
Lee Harvey OswaldJared Loughner never standing trial is further proof of the conspiracy’s power to remain hidden. The judge was in on it, duh.daize
@eemom:
eemom, wasn’t Archie held up at gunpoint later on in that episode? Or am I thinking of another?
celticdragonchick
@Professor:
The NRA may be for a lot things, but they are not wild about certifiably insane people carrying guns.
Delia
In Eugene, OR a few weeks ago a local cop was shot and killed by a 56-year-old woman he was trying to ticket for reckless driving. She has a long history of paranoid schizophrenia and developmental disabilities and was able to legally purchase a handgun the previous year. During her arraignment she kept insisting the cop had shot up the door of her car even though nothing like that had happened and he had drawn no weapon.
And yes, she was driving recklessly and had been ticketed before for doing so.
bobbo
Maybe Loughner saw “Primal Fear,” where Ed Norton only pretends to be insane in order to get away with murder. Would it be irresponsible to speculate?
aimai
@geg6:
I just saw this too. The crazy is so widespread I think we’re going to have to think of a new way to handle these people since its pretty clear you can be ordinarily functional, like these Texas guys, and extremely dangerous as well.
aimai
aimai
@celticdragonchick:
Really? Can you point towards any attempt by the NRA to enable the state to collect and store information that would prevent mentally ill people from buying and using handguns? Because I’ve never seen it.
aimai
MonkeyBoy
@eemom:
From Nixonland, p. 446
eemom
@daize:
I think that was a different one.
There’s also an absolutely hilarious episode where two unarmed black burglars — played by Cleavon Little and the guy who played Lamont on Sanford And Son whose name I can’t recall — break into the house and use Archie’s gun to hold the family hostage while they hide from the police.
eemom
@MonkeyBoy:
hmm. All due respect to Perlstein, but I still think that’s totally wrong. People liked Archie’s character because underneath it all he was really a good guy. Also, Lear wasn’t that simple-minded. The Meathead character was also the butt of jokes.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: You know who else was the butt of jokes, don’t you?
Fred
They should force him to be interviewed by the conspiracy nuts who are now saying it was all a Gov’t sponsored event. Maybe leave him alone unsupervised with them.
Failure, Inc.
And Judge Burns is a GWB appointee.
@West of the Cascades: This is called “protecting your own”.
Loughner is no more insane than you or I.
Tom
If it’s not a surprise, it also wasn’t necessarily expected. via an NPR story this morning, the bar for competency is pretty low. Basically, if they don’t think the defendant will hinder his legal team’s defense, they declare the defendant competent and allow he or she be tried with a defense of insanity.
Rincon Blue
John, he wasn’t declared insane. He was declared incompetent to stand trial. He can’t be declared “insane” until there is a trial, if that’s the defense strategy he and his attorney’s go for.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank You. Just. Thank You.
Mnemosyne
Reading the whole story, it sounds like sending crazy letters to the judge is a pretty good way to get yourself deemed incompetent to stand trial:
Triassic Sands
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, but it’s not like that’s the only evidence Loughner isn’t competent. From what I’ve seen and read about the guy, I would have been disgusted if they had ruled him competent to stand trial.
Mr Stagger Lee
Talk show host Norman Goldman has an excellent analysis on the Loughner proceedings. Loughner will be sent to a facility to see if he can ever stand trial, from Goldman the SC said that the state can force Loughner to take medication if it helps him regain competency.
opie jeanne
@MonkeyBoy: You just described my father-in-law. We would visit them and hear all sorts of delightful Archie-isms come out of his mouth. It was difficult for me to be civil, and sometimes I wasn’t. And we had small impressionable children which made it even better.
Lurker
@Chris:
Thanks for posting this Groucho Marx quote. I just looked up the clip on YouTube and it’s terrific: youtube.com/watch?v=Lad5bc6Gpb4
mclaren
One down…an entire political party to go. Loughner’s deranged gibberings will probably become the keynote speech for the Republican national convention in 2016.
eemom
@Ruckus:
joke’s on you, loser.
worn
@bobbo: It would take me some time to find the links, but right after the Giffords shooting, it surfaced that Loughner had been an active participant on several gaming forums. Reading his voluminous, nonsensical, logic-obsessed writings, it was clear something wasn’t right. In fact, the 2 refrains of pretty much everyone else commenting was along the lines of “Dude, I literally have no idea what you are trying to say” and “you really oughta think about getting some help.” And the writings truly were utterly bizarre.
So if Jared’s a faker, it sure seems like he was playing the long con.
worn
Ah, here’s one of the more bizarre Loughner threads regarding the Space Shuttle and to a lesser extent “logic” (he’s erad3)
Sixers
One of the more delicate front pagers here was pinning blame on people who it turns out deserved zero of it mere hours after the shooting. I’m sure there will be an apologetic and reasoned retraction coming. Comment section off of course.
Jay Schiavone
@Sixers: The usual law-and-order reactionaries are unexpectedly quiet about the judge’s decision. Could it be that the right-wing would just as soon not have guns and hate radio get scrutinized in the context of an emotionally charged court room drama?
Paul in KY
@JD Rhoades: I never liked Rob Reiner’s character myself. Always whining about something.
Archie was a trip.