Remember when Sarah Palin was blamed for the insane shooter who killed a federal judge and severely wounded Gabby Giffords?  Crosshairs on a map were blamed for inciting that violence.  As Paula Bolyard of  PJ Media reminds us:

ABC News wrote at the time:

Facebook executive Randi Zuckerberg said many people on the social networking site are asking whether Sarah Palin is to blame.

According to Zuckerberg that is the #1 question on the social network behemoth following the Tucson shooting.

Like so much with Palin, the roots are on Facebook. On her Facebook page last year when she posted the a map of 20 congressional districts targeted by SarahPac, the headline of the map: “It’s time to take a stand.”

At the time Giffords reacted to the map in an interview on a cable news program.

“When people do that, they’ve got to realize there are consequences to that action,” Giffords said.

So what do those lefties have to say about AP photographer Charlie Neibergall positioning himself so as to have a gun poster in the background pointing directly at Ted Cruz’s head?

It required some care to get the photo he wanted: putting the camera at just the right height and from just the right side angle.  Using a telephoto lens.  And, of course, cropping it.  Cruz was speaking at a rally in support of the Second Amendment at CrossRoads Shooting Sports in Johnston, Iowa.  It doesn’t require much imagination to wonder if the photographer intended some irony in his careful arrangement of the shot.

The AP has not offered an apology, only a response:

The AP responded with a statement late Sunday night.

“Presidential candidate Ted Cruz,” Paul Colford, vice president & director of media relations, said, “was shown in a series of 14 photos taken by an Associated Press photographer at a ‘Celebrate the 2nd Amendment’ event Saturday afternoon, held at a shooting range in Johnston, Iowa. Five of the photos published by AP included images of guns seen on a wall in the background so that it appeared a pistol was pointed at Sen. Cruz’s head.

“The images were not intended to portray Sen. Cruz in a negative light,” Colford said.

Big Fur Hat of iOTW Report has offered some examples of photos you will never see on AP, for example: