Arizona Blues, Part 3

One last bit of Pharyngula cross-posting in response to the Arizona shooting (actually, these have been responses to the responses to the shooting):

This just in: Rand Paul is still a jerk!

Actually, I recall from his appearances on the Rachel Maddow Show during the campaign that he's a pleasant, polite fellow... but his ideology is jerkish, and his comments on this shooting are no exception. First a perfunctory expression of concern for the victims, then an immediate pivot to right-wing anti-regulatory talking points:

Paul was quick to condemn the act of violence and to offer his prayers and thoughts for the shooting victims during a "Fox News Sunday" interview. That said, he argued, the shooting was an outlier that does not necessarily reflect systemic regulatory problems. [emphasis added]

...followed by a bit of remote diagnosis (and as a physician, shouldn't Paul know better?)...

"It's probably about a very sick individual and what should have been done for that person," he said.

[and later]

Paul, an ophthalmologist, went on to offer a psychological analysis of the suspect. "I looked at some of the writings of this young man," he said. "And from a medical point of view, there is a lot to suggest paranoid schizophrenia, that this man was a really sick individual." [again, my emphasis]

SRSLY? Frist much??

And, of course, what would a right-wing response to a shooting be without that hoariest of anti-gun-control cliches?

"But the weapons don't kill people. It's the individual that killed these people."

Say, edit that just a bit, and it'd make a great bumper sticker, wouldn't it? <sigh>