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Shooting victim says Beck, Palin, Angle ‘got their first target’

Laura Donovan Contributor
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A survivor of Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson blamed Fox’s Glenn Beck, former Alaska gov. Sarah Palin, and former senatorial candidate Sharron Angle for the actions of alleged schizophrenic Jared Loughner.

“It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target,” Eric Fuller, a former campaigner for Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, told Democracy Now. “Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled.”

Fuller, a 63-year-old disabled veteran, was at Giffords’s “Congress on Your Corner” event on Saturday when 22-year-old accused gunman Loughner opened fire. Fuller was shot in the knee and his back was wounded.

Since the massacre, Beck, Palin, and Angle have received ample criticism for instilling violence into American culture with “vitriolic rhetoric” and possibly influencing Loughner to carry out the shooting.

Palin has been condemned for creating a midterms 2010 elections map depicting rifle crosshairs over vulnerable districts, including Giffords’. Palin instructed followers, “Don’t retreat, reload.”

In a Fox News interview that aired over the weekend, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik suggested Angle and Palin were partially to blame for the nation’s current state of violence.

“When you have people like Sharron Angle, in Las Vegas, running against Harry Reid, making outrageous statements such as ‘We may need to resort to taking the second amendment into certain cases,’ and for people like Sarah Palin to say ‘We have people like Gabby Giffords in our cross-hairs,’ I think those statements are totally irresponsible and they’re not without consequences,” Dupnik said. “And we are seeing them here.”

Angle said in a statement Wednesday that she condemns all violence. Palin wrote in email read by Glenn Beck Monday that she hates violence and war.