Sarah Palin crosshairs 'never intended to be gun sights,' says aide

By Felicia Sonmez and Rachel Weiner

An aide to Sarah Palin is defending the former Alaska governor's controversial campaign target map, saying the circles over certain districts were never meant to be gun sights. However, Palin herself described the symbol as a "bullseye."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a friend of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' (D-Ariz.) since she was elected to the House, said Sunday she told him just a week and a half ago that she was worried about the potential for violence back home. Giffords is currently in intensive care after a shooting that left six dead and 14 injured.

"Gabby did tell me that she was concerned," Moran said. "She did say it's really bad out there, particularly in a district like [hers]. She was very much troubled that Sarah Palin put her in the crosshairs."

Moran said Giffords explained that, unlike in his Northern Virginia district, "a substantial percentage" of her district was "anti-government and pro-gun" --- a potentially dangerous mix.

Palin's "Take Back the 20" campaign came under renewed fire after Saturday's deadly shooting. The 2010 midterm election campaign featured a map with crosshairs over Giffords' district, along with the districts of 19 other Democratic lawmakers who voted for the health-care bill.

After posting the map on her Facebook page, Palin told her Twitter followers to go there with the message "Don't Retreat -- Instead RELOAD!" At the time, Palin was accused of using unnecessarily violent rhetoric. (This weekend, the map was taken offline.)

"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," said Rebecca Mansour, who works for Palin's political action committee, in a interview with conservative radio host Tammy Bruce.

"It's a surveyor's symbol," Bruce suggested. Mansour agreed, adding that the graphic was contracted out to a professional and approved without much thought. "We never imagined, it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent," she said. It was simply "crosshairs that you would see on a map."

There is "nothing irresponsible about our graphic," Mansour added.

Giffords herself criticized the target map when her office was vandalized last year.

"For example, we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action," Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.

There is a surveyor's symbol that resembles the circle used on Palin's map. (You can see it on the lower right-hand side of this U.S. Geological Survey guide to topographical map symbols). However, Palin herself referred to the targets as a "'bullseye' icon" in a post-election tweet.