The "Right" in America

In Arizona any law-abiding person can carry a handgun, either concealed or visibly.  Assault weapons with large ammunition clips are allowed, (in most if not all states), and Arizona will very soon vote on a measure to allow guns on college campuses which are currently prohibiting it.  About the only weapons illegal are machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. 

After each presidential assassination attempt, there is a law or two tightening gun ownership and then it expires; as in the Brady Law after President Reagan was shot.  Then we go back to "normal". 

The weapons industry is probably the most politically powerful organization in America.  The Democrats have dropped any attempt to pass gun laws many yeasrs ago.  It was a political loser and would have made them extinct in all but a handful of states.  Apparently, it's what we are.

This link is to something called Bloomberg News. It has an article on a fascinating result of the Arizona shooting...more people are buying guns...Yep...http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-11/glock-pistol-sales-surge-in-aftermath-of-shooting-of-arizona-s-giffords.html

so one crazy moron with a gun shooting people= a lot of people carrying guns, which are used to shoot things....

The theory is that if a reasonably sane person in the vicinity had been carrying, the nutcase would have been disabled/killed before he could have gotten so many rounds off.  From what little I've read about the case, it seems that he was only stopped when someone intervened while he was busy reloading.

Another motivator for the buying spree is the "buy it while it's still legal" point of view.  An incident like this could easily lead to more restrictions (Fed, State, or local), be they temporary or permanent.  Some will buy before there's time to enact any new rules.

It's just an arms race on smaller scale.  It's MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)