Moments before Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli took the stage to speak to a monthly gathering of political activists in Richmond on January 11, he reflected on the tragic events last Saturday in Tucson, Arizona, where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded by a gunman, six people were killed, and several others were injured.
‘Theme we’ve seen before’
Calling it a “national incident” with “national implications” in an exclusive interview with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner, Cuccinelli noted that, with “any tragedy like this, you try to learn from it, so you can try to prevent it in the future.”
Citing “a theme that we’ve seen before,” Cuccinelli pointed to the “mental illness or the mental instability of the shooter,” alleged to be 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner.
Loughner, he said, was “someone who had obviously been paying close attention to the congresswoman for years -- at least four years that we know of -- and it’s that kind of security situation that those who protect us worry about the most,” the unexpected, apparently random attack in which “the only way to respond from a tactical standpoint is literally at the scene.”
Parallels to Virginia Tech
Cuccinelli said that he has “been watching the information that’s rolled out about” Saturday’s events and that it is natural to ask, “What else could we have done?”
That question, he continued, “walks me right into a lot of the mental health work that I’ve done over the years. I’m still looking at Loughner’s history to see what sort of parallels there are to experiences we’ve had in Virginia, tragically” – referring to the Virginia Tech shootings of April 2007 – “and what sort of systems that, if in place, might have caught and treated this guy.”
‘Incoherent rantings’
In this, his first interview with the news media on the Tucson shootings, Cuccinelli explained:
“Let’s face it. Nobody does what he did and has the incoherent rantings he has if they’re in their right mind. I don’t mean that in the sense of not knowing right from wrong but from pursuing a clearly violent and irrational course.”
Noting that full information about this event is not yet available, Cuccinelli added that he is “still assessing it but my focus at this point is on the mental health side and what opportunities might have existed prior to this past weekend: where he might have been brought into a system that might have helped” Loughner and all of the other people directly and indirectly affected by the shooter’s actions.
“I hope everybody will do two things,” Cuccinelli said.
‘Take a deep breath’
“One, pray for the victims and their families and, two, take a deep breath as we gather what information becomes available before we start to draw policy conclusions. Then let’s move forward with some.”
Offering some specific ideas, Cuccinelli suggested that, “if there are changes that we can make that can make this less likely in the future,” which would include “treat[ing] a lot more Americans and get[ting] them the help they need [to] make their lives better, make them more productive citizens.”
That, the Virginia Attorney General concluded, is “a focus that I hope we take from this.”
Do you like this article? Do you want to see more like it? Be sure to click on the "subscribe" button at the top of the page.
If you would like to become an Examiner on Examiner.com, click on the "write for us" button on the upper right corner of this page.
Comments