Gabby Giffords released a statement 

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/14/frmer-arizona-rep-gabby-giffords-...

On the gun regulation issue. The new Washington Post article on the shooter, from which I have excerpted on his angry politics upthread, is also very good on the gun topic. A picture is clearly drawn of someone who can't control their anger, how that does not mix with guns. (The Gabbie Giffords shooting was not the same, that was with a known mental illness history, should be easier to deny registration.) This guy clearly just had an anger management problem,  and also happened to be a passionist progressive. But a history of uncontrolled anger is the clear problem; from the second half of the article

Law enforcement officials arrived at his home in a rural community southeast of St. Louis shortly after 11:30 a.m. The modest, rectangular clapboard farm house sits amid fields of young corn and budding soy.

Neighbors said Wednesday that Hodgkinson put his motorcycle up for sale in recent months. One neighbor, a man in jeans and a straw cowboy hat who declined to give his name, said Hodgkinson has not lived at the house for “quite a while.”

His wife, a receptionist at a local accounting office in Belleville, told neighbors in April that he was planning to retire from his home inspection business, they said. Employees at the accounting office declined to comment Wednesday, and said that his wife was gone for the day.

Over the years, Hodgkinson has had multiple scrapes with local police and disputes with neighbors and his daughter, records show.

Police most recently encountered Hodgkinson on March 24, records from the St. Clair County Sheriff show. The sheriff received a phone call reporting about 50 shots “in the pine trees” in a lightly populated area near Belleville.

A deputy responded shortly after 3:05 p.m. and found that Hodgkinson “did have in his possession a valid Illinois FOID [firearms owner identification] card,” and that the deputy advised Hodgkinson “to not discharge his weapon in the area.”

Hodgkinson apparently complied and the deputy left without taking any further action.

Karman and Bill Schaumleffel, neighbors across a small cornfield on the back edge of the Hodgkinson property, recalled seeing a man shooting a rifle out into the field about two or three months ago. The shots followed in a rapid, steady staccato as if, they said, from a semiautomatic rifle. The Schaumleffels said Hodgkinson kept to himself.

Earlier, in April 2006, police records show Hodgkinson went to a neighbor’s house looking for his daughter and “used bodily force to damage” a wooden door upstairs. Witnesses said Hodgkinson forced his way into the home looking for his daughter and grabbed her by the hair when he found her upstairs, according to a police narrative on file with St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department.

His daughter escaped and got into the neighbor’s car, but Hodgkinson opened the door of the car, pulled out a pocket knife and cut off the seat belt she was wearing, records show. Hodgkinson’s wife joined him, struggling to pull their daughter out of the car, as Hodgkinson punched the neighbor who was in the driver’s seat of the car in the face, witnesses told police.

Later, Joel Fernandez, the boyfriend of the woman who was punched, went to Hodgkinson’s home to confront him. He said Hodgkinson “walked outside with a shotgun and aimed it at Fernandez face,” a complaint states. Hodgkinson struck Fernandez on the side of his face with the wooden stock of the shotgun and fired off one round as Fernandez ran away.

Police arrested Hodgkinson and his wife and charged them with domestic battery and aggravated discharge of a firearm, according to a narrative obtained by The Post. Police also recovered a 12-guage shotgun. The county clerk’s online database shows the charges were later dismissed.

A few months later, police were called to an argument with a neighbor after Hodgkinson “accidentally struck her dog while it was sleeping in the roadway,” record show. Hodgkinson made multiple complaints about neighbors damaging his lawn by driving through it.

The local newspaper in Belleville featured a 2012 picture of Hodgkinson protesting outside the U.S. Post Office building and holding a sign with the message “Tax the Rich.” The Belleville News-Democrat described Hodgkinson as part of a “99 percent” team that was bringing attention to the financial and political power of the top 1 percent of Americans.

For gun control advocates, the problem is: how could one deny such people guns? You'd have to leave that decision up to police records. And that is also the problem. While few get upset when a person who has a bad police record as to driving automobiles is refused a license to drive, when it comes to guns, first amendment people don't exactly cotton to the idea that the law is the one who is saying who is too angry to have a gun and who is not. It all hinges on whether we have faith that our law is always going to be the people's law of the common good and not of a dictator.

I would like to thank some anonymous grownups at the White House for small favors, that Trump has not said anything inflammatory yet. (Could be the Secret Service has had some input?) Things could be much worse. Gingrich types would do different and already have.