Jared Lee Loughner, the deranged 24-year-old the man who opened fire on a crowd outside a Tucson grocery store will will die behind bars. He was sentenced to seven consecutive life terms, followed by 140 years in prison.
“You remind us of the failure of our society to provide adequate mental health care,” victim Pam Simon said to Loughner. She was among the victims who commented before U.S. District Judge Larry Burns sentenced Loughner for killing six people and wounding 13.
Loughner pleaded guilty three months ago to federal charges in the January 2011 attack.
While survivor Bill Badger said the people who were wounded, and the families of those killed all “bonded like one big family.” Unfortunately Congresswoman Giffords’s husband, Mark Kelly, an aspiring politician, took the opportunity to get political and condemned the Arizona Governor and Legislature.
Kelly then seemed to perpetuate the myth that Loughner was politically motivated in his shooting spree, and told Loughner that his mission of darkness failed. Loughner is a young apolitical schizophrenic who is now taking psychotropic drugs.
Victim Randy Gardner, a therapist said of the shooting, “Loughner was never forced to take medication. He took it. He was treatable. This is sad, tragic.”
Despite this, Kelly complained about the lack of stricter gun laws following shooting rampages and called political leadership on the issue “lacking.”
According to the prosecutor, it took months of medication to convince Loughner he had failed to kill Giffords by shooting pointblank in the head.
Congressman Ron Barber, who was also wounded during Loughner’s shooting spree, addressed the real issue at the core of the crime and offered solutions. “We must renew our efforts to increase community awareness and knowledge of the symptoms, prevention and treatment of mental illness. We know for a fact that 90 percent of people with a mental illness never commit a violent act.
In your case, Mr. Loughner, I believe that your behaviors preceding the shooting should have alerted others that you needed mental health treatment. Had this happened, the violent acts you committed might never have taken place.
Now you must pay the price for the terror, injuries and deaths you caused.”
“We don’t have to blame gun laws or the system failing them, lets take a look at who could have prevented this sad chain of events from unfolding, his parents, relatives and others around him that noticed the signs. When the school administrators called his parents in to say that he needed a mental health care evaluation in order to return to school, they just let the person drop out of school and did nothing else to address the matter. Perhaps if he had received that mental health treatment when he was supposed to then we can and should closely examine our current mental health system and its lack of effectiveness,” said Sergio Arellano, a Republican wounded warrior who had worked with the Congresswoman in the past. “Gabby has earned the love and respect of all Arizonans for her spirit and strength, and in these trying times we can all learn a lot from her.”