Who know what would have happened if someone shot in his general direction, but it is a bit disconcerting to me when things like this happen, that the first reaction is to take rights away. Not just guns, but search Google news and look at all the "movies are to blame", "video games are to blame", "TV is to blame", etc type stories. It is not the fault of anyone but this individual, in his apartment, they found bomb making materials, so if he did not have a gun, maybe it would be a Molotov cocktail, a bomb, etc.
If someone is determined to do somehting horrible like this, they will find a way. When it is a gun, it gets more publicity, there is a semi-recent case in Austin, TX, where a guy angry at the IRS flew a single engine plane into the building. Unfortunatly, where there is a will, there usually is a way in things like this.
I generaly agree that no one really "needs" an assult gun, but is some guys want to go out in the desert and shot up a bunch of tagets with one, I am not really sure it is my call to stop them. Again, it is not my cup of tea, I went shooting once and did not dislike it, but it did not do enough to make me want to do it.
This type of thing generaly gets more publicity, but there is a statistic I saw on Canadian TV last week when I was in Vancouver that there have been more far more murders in Chicago (guns, knifes, etc) than there have been US casualties in Afghanistan. Those do not get the same publicity because it is an occasional dive by victim and a bunch of gang bangers that I guess we care less about than a group of people in a theater. I would tend to guess most of those were with hand guns illegally obtained versus an assualt rifle.