That surprises me, though. Which position do you find untenable?
What's untenable is your attempt to assign some kind of rationale or justification for the gunman's selection of his victims. Because there is none.
The guy is insane, and I'm sure this will come out at trial. He had no reason to choose to kill a politician, judge, or little girl, he just wanted to kill someone.
From what I've read, he seemed pretty intent on getting to Giffords specifically. If he really didn't care whom he killed, why would he have been so discriminating at the beginning?
Sounds to me like he didn't mind creating a generalized mess, but he wanted to get Giffords first.
Saying "It wasn't Giffords, it couldn't have been Giffords, nothing she said or did could possibly have had anything to do with it, he was just insane" seems to prematurely eliminate a lot of possibilities.
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain--that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." --Lysander Spooner, 1867
