It is I who should apologize.  I should not have spoken out until I had more facts.  As of now, as far as I know, Mr. Gwatney and the shooter, identified as Timothy Dale Johnson, did not know each other.  Mr. Johnson had been terminated from employment earlier that day from his job at Target in Conway (about 30 miles north of Little Rock) after writing grafitti on a wall at the store.  I do not know the nature of the grafitti at this time.  And I do not know that this terrible crime had no political engenderings.

Mr.Gwatney was a close ally and friend to present Arkansas Gov. Mike Bebee.  They sat next to each other when they served in the Arkansas Senate.  Mr. Gwatney was known to be rather brash and outspoken.  He was highly critical of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, especially Huckabee’s proclivity for accepting gifts.

Again my profound apologies to all of you readers.  I should not have been so hasty.  Also I express once more condolences to both families.

According to the latest report on yahoo, authorities have not been able to establish any connection between the shooter and Gwatney.  Nor was the shooter exactly fired from Target - he was caught scribbling on a wall and his supervisor asked him if he “needed to talk” and he walked.

I’m still betting our initial gut reactions turn out to be pretty close to the mark.

It is I who should apologize.  I should not have spoken out until I had more facts.  As of now, as far as I know, Mr. Gwatney

Reubenesque,

Thanks very much for the update, since I for one, actually *do* appreciate knowing the facts of whatever the events are.

Still, it says quite a great deal to see that we all jumped to other conclusions, eh?

That is a sad testament to where we are, and it’s not getting any better.

I logged a similar comment while not yet registered.  It will appear after site adm. approves.

I wanted to comment on this before too many of you jumped to conclusions.

Through members of my family that personally know Mr. Gwatney the homocide was apparently not politically motivated.  Mr. Gwatney owns several auto dealerships in Arkansas.  The shooter used to work for Gwatney in some capacity and apparently was terminated for some reason.  This is why he told the other man at Baptist Convention Center “I lost my job”.  My condolences to his family.

Murder, I agree.

But how does that differ from the Democrat version of a late-term abortion?  Living and breathing = murder in my book.

Obama argues otherwise.

this man was just exercising his second amendment rights. use a gun to kill anyone you disagree with. hell, here in fla. you can shoot anyone you please, all you have to do is say you were defending yourself from a verbal offense.

Let’s see, in Tennessee, a man shot up a Unitarian church, killing two and leaving three more in critical condition (last time I checked) because he hated liberals and gays:

“Police: Man shot churchgoers over liberal views”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080728/ap_on_re_us/church _shooting

And now this in Arkansas.

It’s not surprising. After all, we know that surrogates for the McCain campaign are virally spreading, via the internet, a video ad that depicts Obama as the ANTICHRIST, using language, graphics, and other cues plainly taken from the “Left Behind” books. All this stuff is taken very seriously by a hell of a lot of people in places like Tennessee and Arkansas.

We have millions of bible-belt idiots, at a time of high national anxiety about war and desperation about the economy, being indoctrinated that the “liberals” are trying to promote the “Antichrist” to the Presidency. It was always very likely, under such circumstances, that a few of the weakest of these millions of weak minds would decide to do things like this.

The killer has been identified as a 50 year old white man driving a pickup truck with multiple weapons. Somebody who probably listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who are always telling their listeners how evil “liberals” are and how they are responsible for everything bad that happens to their listeners. It will be interesting to see if this is borne out when they dig into this idiots background.

Happened in Arkansas, and it was the DEMOCRATIC Party Chair who was murdered. That says it all in my opinion.

What a horror. Condolences to the family and community of Bill Gwatney.