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.

Meanwhile, you can get your own “You Lie!” assault rifle.

What do shooting sprees and massive oil rig blowouts have in common?

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.

A more obvious conclusion is that Rep. Pete King (R-NY) isn’t all that serious about gun control at all; he wants to propose something with no chance of becoming law to counteract the legislation, from Carolyn McCarthy (who’s from his neighboring district on Long Island), that would ban high-capacity magazine clips. I suspect this has more to do with local New York politics than anyone thinks. And of course, “independent” Mike Bloomberg is giving King a high-profile assist.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, who lost her husband to gun violence before coming to Congress, and who has since become one of the leading pro-gun control politicians in the country, plans to introduce legislation in response to the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona that claimed the life of six and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a medically induced coma.