Arizona is in the news again, for all the wrong reasons. The shooting in Tucson was horrible. But contrary to what you're thinking, everyone who lives in Arizona doesn't carry a gun. I don't carry a gun. I don't even own a gun.
Moreover, I've never seen anyone shot. (Except in Tombstone, where they reenact the Wyatt Earp thing several times a day.)
However, during the five years I lived in Tucson, there were several incidents concerning young men using dogs for target practice, and then leaving them to die -- in agony -- in the desert. To my dismay, this didn't really upset many people. Boys would be boys. Besides, the victims were "only" dogs.

This time, the victims were people. Six of them died. (Of course, we're not hearing as much about the dead as about Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was one of 14 people who were wounded) There has been much talk blaming this tragedy on the "inflammatory language" that characterizes so much American political debate.

Yet thus far, there's no evidence that the shooter was influenced by the ravings of either the far left or the far right. He seems to have been just another angry young man with a gun, not all that different from the young men who shot those helpless dogs.