It just boils down to fanaticism. Religion, politics, crime, anything. That fear of shit permeates everything in our society. Whether it's fear of the gov't, brown people, rising tides, hell, corporations, meat, rich people, child molesters, video games, guns, bird flu, etc, etc... ad infinitum. Most nutjobs with guns (and I'm not saying everyone with guns is a nutjob, I own plenty of em... although that's probably a bad example) would have loved to have been there and shot the bad guy and saved the day. When we let relatively isolated tragedy curtail speech, permit emergency legislation, and alter how we view each other as humans we lose the best pieces or our own society.
With that said I hate Sarah Palin and hope she is devoured alive by her youngest child. When that happens I will delete this post and not explain myself.