How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame — from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave — while provoking others to try to make their mark? A dozen more killers? A hundred? More? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?

When absolutes are abandoned for principles, the U.S. Constitution becomes a blank slate for anyone’s graffiti.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. I call on Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school - and to do it now, to make sure that blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January.

I think every school needs a protection plan with a either police officer or certified armed security.

I think the president's comfortable with a certain level of violence.

If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our school to protect our children, then call me crazy.

If [the shooting of Gabby Giffords in] Tucson tells us anything at all, it tells us this: Government has failed.