The talking heads (and those that speak from another, lower, portion of their anatomy) will offer up their typically half-baked theories on this, each one more half-baked than the last. Some will point to Virginia's fairly lax gun laws and blame them, even though he could have made his purchases in any state in the Union. Then there will be the candidate's for President making what they believe to be perfectly sensible remarks, no matter how off-base those remarks might be.

What no one with political aspirations will do, however, is call for stricter gun control measures at the Federal level. This is because they all want the votes of the NRA membership. Backing gun control at the Federal level is political suicide, unless your last name is Kennedy.

What all these candidates will do, though, is jump on the violence bandwagon and start blaming violent media in all its forms, television, movies and video games. They will do this because it is easy, not because there is any scientific evidence that links violent media, in any form, to causing violent behavior.

The mainstream media will jump on this as well, for the same reason. They have no end of sound bite producing 'experts' ready and willing to espouse the same tired arguments to anyone and everyone, whether they are willing to listen or not. Given mainstream media's dislike for actual debate, anyone willing and able to refute the barrage of blather will be left standing in silence, unheard and unwated by the media powers-that-be.

The saddest part of this terrible tragedy will be in the zero-sum effect it has on politics, gun laws, and sensationalized media. Six months from now, this will be something you can ony read about if you do some pretty diligent searching on the Internet for archived articles and video clips. This is my fear and I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.