Republicans should really agree on what they believe in. I thought they were down with quoting the bible in any discussion but it seems gun love now trumps bible love.

His second sentence has a point, though.

If Kyle, who had made treating PTSD his calling, was trying to help by perhaps transferring the man's rage to sport target shooting, .... well, I'm reluctant to second guess that.

@3 I'm not. I've seen a PTSD guy freak the fuck out over nothing. I wouldn't trust one with with live ammo while guns are firing around him. Yay triggers.

I had a friend in a terrible car wreck who acted quite rash at cinematic depictions of car accidents. PTSD is a fucked up thing.

And, as I've said before, I'm really happy he didn't shoot anybody else.

Well, if Paul decides he needs to make nice with Republicans again he can always just say someone else puts out tweets with his name on them.

That said, he is a vet and a physician, so I might give his thoughts on PTSD a bit more weight than that of the average commenter at the Daily Caller.

yeah, tear yourself apart in internal squabbles, GOP!

Jiminy crickets. That man freaks me out.

he says the best things over and over, then out of nowhere says something completely offensive and insane. The Rebug debates with him were interesting that way.

Obviously this calls for the House Republicans to double down and pass a bill requiring all veterans with PTSD to spend a minimum of 6 hours per week at a firing range. America, fuck yeah.

My thoughts always go to veterans and the VA hospital when the Blue Angels scream overhead for 4 straight days every year.

As always, Ron Paul is about 80% crazy and 20% correct.

It is tasteless and crass as hell to tweet something like this when the guy's family is still getting over the shock of his death. But it is nevertheless true that letting a guy with PTSD on a firing range is a terrible, terrible idea.

On the plus side, I figured we'd heard the end of Ron Paul, now that he's retired, so I'm glad to hear that he's still out there making with the crazy. Welcome to the Twitterverse, Ron Paul!!

I thought he'd been trolling the party for years.

You know what slog needs? More random tweets from assholes.

I love conservative outrage. They've been cultivating their role as the angry self-righteous victims for so long that it's like a fine vintage wine. That last post is pure Conservative maudlin self-pity.

If it's legitimate PTSD, the human brain has a way of dealing with that.

For career cynics, the news of Chris Kyle's death is nothing but win: hired serial killer from Texas gunned down at a shooting range by a veteran suffering from combat-related PTSD. Anyone care to count the stupid in that? Imagine a case worker raped by a molestation PTSD case after some torture porn "therapy," and you're in the ballpark. (And, yeah, I don't support the troops or the $1trillion/year we spend on war.)

America has become the boulevard of crazy that David Cross once quipped about Hollywood: "Bring a folding chair, put it on the sidewalk, and just watch the parade."

"The right guy at the wrong time" should be the GOP slogan in '16. And '20. And '24...

Just six months ago the GOP was paying homage to this man, and now they'd like to roast him on a spit.

Ron Paul is indeed an asshole, but he has at least remained a consistent asshole over the decades. The GOP's schizo behavior is indicative of their lack of a core identity. The "puist" tendency is really just borne out of a fear that the GOP itself doesn't know what it stands for anymore, and may actually stand for nothing at all. Romney certainly typifies this, attacked by his own kind for his shallow flip-flop on everything, and yet somehow made their leader.

The irony is that they have the reputation of being so much more organized and united on everything than we are. But look at how they eat their own kind, how random and chaotic their process of choosing their leaders and icons is. Newt's a hero one minute, then an asshole the next. Romney's horrible, no wait, he's wonderful, now he's horrible again. We adore Ron Paul-now wait, now we hate him! We love background checks-no, no, no, we will not have background checks!

It's like watching a crazy person arguing with himself in broad daylight. I know it's rude to stare at the GOP when it's going through it's mental difficulties, but it's just so hard not to.

I am not sure what everyone is harping about for once that Paul says anything relevant to the reality of 21st century America. 'Live by the gun, die by the gun' is fitting for someone who made shooting guns at people the core of his identity. The evidence is clear, proximity to guns is first order in determining whether one could be shot.

By all means, let's blame the guy who was really good at doing what we asked him to do, not the guy who got us into these wars or the other guy who could have ended these wars but hasn't.

@4: The issue is, how many freedoms are we willing to take from people who have mental illnesses? Because once you start down that road, it has some pretty horrid connotations and end results.

Should depressed people be forced by the government to avoid alcohol and marijuana, which are shown to make the symptoms worse?

And should the government disallow your friend to drive in a car because they may have an episode if they see an accident or something?

I am not trying to say that there should be no limits on the right to bear arms based upon mental stability, and think it is an option that should be on the table, but restricting people's freedoms based upon their physical and mental health is very sticky territory, to say the least.

" Romney was the right guy at the wrong time."

That's right. He TOTALLY would have won in 1896!

@19 Big Sven

" the other guy who could have ended these wars but hasn't."

Do you mean president Obama? I mean, there are no US troops in Iraq and the NATO mission in Afghanistan is ending in 2014, so that at least "one war ended and the second war ending." At least he's not kicking the can out beyond his term in office like Bush did.

@19, that would a engender lot more sympathy from most people if not for the following. Kyle chose to become a very public figure - book tour, appearances on Conan, Kimmel, the gun show celebrity tour etc. He also started a very public campaign for his security company - bodyguards, gun training for teachers, celebrity endorsements from the gun industry, etc. So to expect that no public comments on his violent death is naive, especially in the context of the gun controversy.

In the interviews i saw, he always seemed to have a glimpse of the truth...that vets and soldiers are pawns in the global security/military/empire business. They are often discarded and/or forgotten by society and their govt when they are no longer useful or the cost of their rehab or treatment of their injuries are 'too much' .

He seemed to have some decent goals of helping vets, but was obviously not equipped to diagnose/treat his fellow vets with PTSD. He trained for many years to do a dangerous job, but didnt seem to realize he needed to train and study just as hard to do a different job.

@17,

Exactly. How did they overlook his racist newsletters?

@24 By not giving a shit about being racists? I mean, this is the party supports its candidates saying crazy things like "Slavery wasn't so bad".