THE PARENTS of the 22-year-old charged with the attempted murder of US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords have said they “don’t understand” why their son may have carried out the crimes.

In a brief statement signed by his family, the parents of Jared Lee Loughner said there were “no words that could possibly express how we feel… we wish that there were, so we could make you feel better.

“We care very deeply about the victims and their families. We are so very sorry for their loss,” the statement read, saying the family wished they could change the “heinous events” of Saturday’s shooting.

The Washington Post reports that FBI agents searching Loughner’s house recovered a letter sent by Giffords to him in 2007, thanking him for attending a local event.

On it, he had scribbled the words ‘die, b***h’ and ‘die, cops’, officers said.

Loughner yesterday appeared in court charged with two offences of murdering a federal government employee, two offences of attempting to murder a federal employee, and the attempted murder of congresswoman Giffords, who remains in hospital.

The judge in the US District Court in Phoenix, Arizona ordered that he be held without bond.

On his talk show last night, conservative pundit Glenn Beck insisted that right-wing political forces were not the sole source of hateful rhetoric, citing the band name ‘The Killers’, the naming of flu ‘shots’ or vaccines, the Roman god Cupid (who Beck cited as “God’s minion”), shot glasses, swordfish, and the chain store ‘Target’.