12 months ago a horrific event happened in America when a man came into a public meeting being held by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and shot the place up. He killed 6 people and injured 12 one of which was Giffords whom he shot through the head.

At the time Sarah Palin caught some heat as she had a map on her homepage with rifle ‘crosshairs’ on Giffords electorate. Some accussed Palin of flaming the fire and influencing this event. If it was as simple to get rid of ‘crazy’ by simply removing an image here, or not have a pundit ‘blame the opposing political view’ there, then ‘crazy’ would be gone very quickly, however no matter how careful we are, crazy always find a way.

The reports of the last few days though have saddened me, demonstrating the ‘eye for an eye’ mentality coming out of America.

Jared Loughner is the man who fired the shots, Jared Loughner murdered 6 people in cold blood, Jared Loughner is a drop out from society and a loner. Jared Loughner is also a sick man, he is schizophrenic.

Loughner has been found by two medical experts to be ‘mentally incompetent to stand trial.’ He is schizophrenic now, and was in a schizophrenic episode at the time of the shooting.

There is debate  around Loughner about forcing him to take his meds. He is currently in a mental health facility and American law does not allow the doctors there to force meds onto him. Therefore he is still in a pretty bad way. As a general rule, if someone is impaired to a point where they cannot make healthy decisions for themselves, I think it’s usually okay for medical intervention, with family consultation, to help that person. So initially I thought these medical professionals should intervene to help this man get better. But that is not the reason that people wanted Jared Loughner to ‘get better’.

They wanted him to ‘get better’ so they could kill him.

They call ‘getting better’ from schizophrenia ‘being restored’ and some are waiting for him to be ‘restored’ to some level of acceptable mental state to then fry him.

Legal experts say it is quite common for defendants suffering from schizophrenia to be restored to competency and proceed to trial. That is just a matter of time.

“The level of competency is not very high,” said Lynda Frost, planning and programs director for the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas-Austin. “It’s a minimal level of functioning and most people can be restored.”

This ‘eye-for-an-eye’ mentality is the worst of America. The society who helps the world when it’s in trouble, at the same time as invading a country that did them no harm. The country that won’t elect a president unless they ‘love Israel and God’, but happily put to death hundreds a year. America is a series of juxtapositions, saying one thing and doing another.

My one hope is the example in this sad story of the parents of 9 year old Christina-Talor, one of the people killed one year ago. John Green is a ‘believer in the death penalty’ and whose wife Roxanna has just written a book called ‘It’s not going to bring my girl back’, was asked if the death penalty here would bring him comfort. His response was “Not really.”

Just two little words that for me, bring some kind of hope to the reality that the tragic death of someone, is not fixed, solved, or closed…by killing another…even if they deserve it