A tragedy occurred Jan. 8 when representative Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head while meeting with ordinary citizens outside a Safeway grocery store. Miraculously she wasn’t killed and remained in critical condition at the time of this writing. Her doctors said in a CNN report that they were “cautiously optimistic” about her recovery. She wasn’t the only one shot; six people happened to die that day; 19 people were injured.

No doubt this will rekindle the national gun debate, but that’s something I would like to set aside for another day. What I would like to draw attention to is media sensationalism and outright stupidity of some people claiming Sarah Palin orchestrated the attack.

The story behind this is that Republican dominated districts that voted for Democrats were plotted on a map of the United States with crosshairs on the districts by Palin and her cronies, according to a Huffington Post article. This map was published on a website, and appropriately taken down after the shooting. Because one district they plotted happened to be the district of representative Giffords. The liberal media outlet didn’t go far as to directly blame Palin, but you could get a sense of how badly they wanted to connect the attack to her map by reading their article.

Problem number one for this connection is that it creates a logical paradox for liberals. It assumes Palin is somehow smart enough to pull off a heartless massacre of citizens including the death of a 9-year-old girl without leaving a trace back to her. When most liberals don’t regard her to be one of the sharper knives in the drawer.

Perhaps the conspiracy theorists believe that maybe she’s pretending to appear stupid to create a facade so she won’t draw attention to herself and starting with this event will take over the United States with her gun crazed Republicans.

Well unfortunately for those who believe in this, the fantasy is a far cry from reality.

After digging a little bit into what really happened, the shooter happened to be a mentally deranged 22-year-old male. A megalomaniac of sorts, stating in his YouTube videos that he would form a new currency in which everyone would be “their own treasurers.” It’s quite full of logical fallacies and nothing more than a fantasy of sorts.

Authorities have charged the 22-year-old, according to a BBC article. The BBC states that Jared Loughner could face the death penalty for what he has done. So that’s the reality of the story. An unfortunate shooting that wasn’t masterminded by anyone. Just a shooting planned out by a 22-year-old.

It’s sort of strange to see the things people will do when something terrifying takes place. They wet their pants and start to play the blame game without looking at the facts first. In the end, the true victims of unfortunate disasters are often lost amidst the hyperbole of the blame game perpetuated by National News Media.

Could I ask you why would a highly respected official like Palin would do something unthinkable that goes against the very foundation of this country? The answer is that they wouldn’t think of it in the first place because this is a country for the people, by the people.

So let us join together in our hopes that Giffords will recover quickly from her wounds and those responsible will be punished appropriately. Let us respect those who were personally affected by the tragedy and not believe in wild stories that make no sense and only seek to empower those who want to take advantage of the situation. Because that’s exactly what they’re doing, and it disgusts me greatly.