Obama avoids the discussion of high-capacity magazine clips like the one Jared Loughner used, or the broken American mental health system that never gave Loughner care he clearly needed. Once again we have a cautious middle course. But even on those terms, I’m not sure what he’s endorsing here. Does he want to close the gun show loophole? Does he need legislation to carry out his vision of responsible and consistent background checks? Is it all just a matter of enforcement?

Less remarked-upon is the kinds of systemic issues with public policy that led to the shooting in the first place: the breakdown of the US mental health system, and the ease with which people with intent to kill large numbers of people can get the weapons they need for that purpose. This has become the dog that didn’t bark in this tragedy. One of the victims of the shooting in Tucson was Gabe Zimmerman, a staffer for Giffords. His fiancee is one of the few to actually identify a problem related to the attack, and propose a solution.

The White House has been very tight-lipped about whether President Obama will even mention gun control in his speech. Daniel Hernandez, who will sit in the First Lady’s box, has already made his preference known.

I really hope this video of the shooting doesn’t get leaked, but just the retelling of it reinforces what Cheney leaned toward today. Jared Loughner, a determined individual, ran up and shot dozens of people at close range, and only ended his rampage when he had to reload, providing a moment of opportunity for the victims. Nobody had any chance of stopping him at any other point; the only heroic acts available to them were to shield other bystanders and sacrifice themselves. Loughner’s victims never knew what hit them. “More guns” in this case would have amounted to nothing; in fact, the one person with a gun who came running out to aid in the situation almost wound up shooting an innocent man.

A few commentators, including Rachel Maddow, have taken pessimists to task for suggesting that the chances of actual meaningful gun safety legislation in the wake of the Tucson assassination attempt are quite low. I think it’s more accurate to describe those pessimists as realists. And joining them is one of the most ardent gun safety supporters in the Congress, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL).

This will call for some leadership. So far in the President’s two years, despite campaigning on renewing the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole, the only gun legislation he’s signed expanded concealed carry rights to national parks.

I don’t really care that Boehner won’t support the King bill, which I find pretty ridiculous. But if legislation that comes from the Republican side can’t even get past the introductory stage, I don’t see what hope there is for Democratic bills.

It turned out that Zamudio actually pushed the holder of the gun into a wall, and thus came much closer to doing violence on an innocent man who had just taken the gun from Jared Loughner than even this description suggests. The potential for yet another innocent death was pretty high here. And a Wild West show with alternating bouts of gunfire seems like an extremely dangerous environment for bystanders.

Frank Lautenberg said it very clearly on MSNBC: the difference between this country and practically every other industrialized nation, which has a tiny fraction of the gun violence as we have in the US, is that “we don’t have more madmen, we have more guns.” And increasing the amount of armed people out there won’t help this ratio, either.