Source:
The GuardianShock turns to anger as mourners blame vitriolic rightwing rhetoric for creating climate of violence in US politics
Chris McGreal in Tucson | Sunday January 09 2011 20.56 GMT
![](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/1/9/1294604796794/Mourners-leave-flowers-du-007.jpg)
Paul Wellman laid his handwritten sign among the collection of candles, flowers and messages keeping vigil outside congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords's office. Then he stepped back and surveyed the scene.
To the right, another sign said: "Hate speech = murder". But Wellman went further with his angry declaration in large black letters on white cardboard: "Blame Palin. Blame the Tea Party".
The 60-something former miner did not wait to explain why. "They're trying to say that a lone nut was responsible for this, but Sarah Palin and the Tea Party might as well have put the gun in his hand. They are the ones who painted Giffords as some kind of traitor," he said.
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None of that mattered to a nine-year-old boy called Sammy who arrived at the memorial carrying flowers with his father. He was there, he said, because the young girl who died, Christina-Taylor Green, had been the same age as him. Sammy said he didn't know what to call the circumstances of her death. "It's just very sad that anyone would shoot anyone," he said.
Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/09/arizona-shootings-giffords-tea-party