Alex says "Bob is not a nice guy", Bob says "You could get me shot.", Bob is sitting somewhere months later and gets shot. It is now necessary to show that 1) Alex's comment was in anyway heard by the shooter and influenced them. At this point you will have established causation, this by no means indicates the person is legally or morally responsible for those acts, but without even that much, accusing Alex of being in anyway culpable for the shooter's acts is irresponsible and immoral.



Giffords has not repeated the claim, and her comment was "We're in Sarah Palin's 'targeted' list, but the thing is that the way she has it depicted, we're in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize that there are consequences to that action."

That is not libel or slander, but she also never predicted a shooting, just consequences, had she actually said "She is intentionally encouraging people to kill me" then yes, that could be cause for a defamation suit. Absent that its merely empty political rhetoric from a congress person who was shot a good while later. Public figures are often shot, threatened, or attacked, and they often make reckless or nasty remarks about their opposition. I am not accusing Giffords of libel, I'm accusing you of it, your comments are reckless and contemptible Joel.