We don’t yet know the motives of Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old charged with one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee in the attack that wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Most accounts paint him as an unhinged loner — a young man obsessed with government mind control, with a history of disciplinary problems and a tendency to display “nonsensical, disconnected thinking.” He registered as an independent in 2006, and it’s unclear whether he subscribed to any particular political ideology.

But regardless of whether this attack was politically motivated, this story has brought to light a number of chilling examples of the rhetoric that was used against Giffords prior to Saturday’s tragic shooting.

Rhetoric. It’s not just something you learn in your introductory-level English classes. Used effectively, rhetoric can be very persuasive. Used recklessly, rhetoric can have far-reaching implications beyond its original intentions.

It’s no secret that political campaigns contain plenty of unpleasant interactions. But there is a point at which “unpleasant” crosses a line — and Sarah Palin is that point.

Take Palin’s “Take Back the 20” campaign. The phrase “We’ve diagnosed the problem … Help us prescribe the solution,” accompanies a map with gun sight targets pinned to House Democrats who were up for re-election after voting for health care reform. One of the three bullseyes depicted on the state of Arizona was for Gabrielle Giffords. Was it supposed to be clever? Cute? Surely, Palin pushed the map as a call to arms — but did she intend for the “solution” to be so literal?

Now, it’s entirely possible that Jared Loughner never saw Palin’s “Take Back the 20” efforts — or her plea on Twitter to “Don’t Retreat, Instead — RELOAD!”

It’s also entirely possible that Loughner was unaware of the event Jesse Kelly, Gifford’s 2010 congressional opponent, held, promoted as such: “Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

And maybe he never read the Sierra Vista Herald’s article with the headline, “Kelly places the crosshairs squarely on Rep. Giffords,” promoted on Kelly’s website until late Saturday afternoon.

But whether or not Loughner saw these campaigns, for us to ignore the presence of so much gun-related rhetoric directed against Gifford, in light of Saturday’s horrific events, would be foolish.

Palin and Kelly are certainly aware of the importance of their rhetoric. Kelly removed the story from his website, although he neglected to change the URL. Palin’s takebackthe20.com no longer exists, and the only evidence of the gun sight map comes from screenshots and previous stories about the campaign.

It’s time to take ownership of our mistakes, as a society. It’s not enough for people like Palin and Kelly to quietly erase their misdeeds and sweep them under the rug. Apologies are in order, much like the kind issued by the oft abrasive Keith Olbermann on his Saturday special edition of “Countdown.”

“Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our Democracy, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence,” Olbermann said. “Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are Americans.”

The fact that we as a society are not outraged by the violent rhetoric issued by politicians and pundits until we face the aftermath of a bloodbath, is a frightening reflection on each and every one of us. Those in power must be responsible with the rhetoric they use — but we all must make the choice to take our debates to a higher plane of reason.

“Sarah Palin … has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district, and when people do that, they’ve got to realize there are consequences to that action,” Giffords said on MSNBC in a March 25, 2010 interview about the threats and vandalism she was subjected to after voting for health care reform.

Dangerous rhetoric, whether a directly issued threat or a politically driven gun sight graphic, has consequences. Let us take this tragedy as an opportunity to check ourselves, before we completely lose our ability to engage in spirited debate.