Arizona Violence from European Point of View

EUROPEANS ARE EATING IT UP -- They’ve always been fascinated with American gun violence. Throw in the West, plus a good-looking congresswoman, and the story got huge, immediate play in the Brit papers:

--The Sunday Telegraph, “US Democrat is shot in head as 'loner' kills six”: “The attack immediately focused attention on the shrill political climate in the US. Miss Giffords had narrowly beaten off a tough challenge in November’s congressional elections by a Tea Party-backed Republican candidate, she had previously received death threats and her offices had been shot at. … Another chilling twist was the presence of John Roll, a district judge, among the dead. … The Congresswoman, who is Jewish, is a gun-owner and supporter of the right to bear arms. … It is believed to be the first time that a woman politician has been the object of an assassination attempt in America, a country where elected leaders have often been the subject of attacks.”

--The (London) Sunday Times, top of page, with half-page-wide photo of Giffords: “Congresswoman shot as gunman goes on rampage.”

--The tabloid Mail on Sunday: “18 SHOT IN SAFEWAY MASSACRE.”

Gun Control and The States

The columnist Dionne wrote this today in the Washington Post:

"Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush?
How would our friends on the right have reacted to someone at a Reagan or a Bush speech carrying a sign that read: "It is time to water the tree of liberty"? That would be a reference to Thomas Jefferson's declaration that the tree "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."