What was that dazed look in everyone's eyes this week?

It seems like the New Year is having a serious hangover. Struggling to get on footing this week after being off work more than on over the holidays. Sure there are a couple new multi-millionaires in the Pacific Northwest, but the rest of us are wondering where the next sucker punch is coming from.

When you watch more sports than news, sometimes you don't get the bad news as quickly as everyone else. So it wasn't until this morning that I read about the shooting in Tempe. Very short stories with little information (other than the number killed and wounded, and that it was at a political gathering) were at the top of the Yahoo! page. I was only checking my email, and I almost missed the story entirely.

Throughout the Chiefs loss to the Ravens, I would flip to CNN or MSNBC or even FOX News because, inevitably, I flipped to a commercial or (in the case of CNN) the freakin' weather. Three times I went to CNN and got the weather instead of the biggest story of the new year.

And there isn't a ton of information. I did notice on FOX News a ticker that warned people not to connect the shooting to political parties. Damage control kicks in quick.

In other words, even though the shooting was directed at a Democratic congresswoman, it certainly wasn't because of anything anyone on the right has been shrieking about over the last few years. Even though, you know, they have been talking about armed revolution and taking out the opposition in an aggressive physical manner.

Oh, now I'm reading too much into this, aren't I?

Maybe. Maybe not.

There are so many unanswered questions. One has to imagine, though, since the shooter was eventually subdued relatively unharmed (without a chance at taking himself out) that there will be some answers eventually.

But six dead, many more wounded and a congresswoman fighting for her life in intensive care after being shot in the head. That's the news.

And, yes, the shooter is probably mentally unbalanced. But he also had access to high powered weaponry. And a personal ideology that made this massacre somehow acceptable in his head. Someone made impressions on this impressionable young man. It's not the same as pulling the trigger, but maybe we need to take some of shrillness down a notch.

Matt Worley flies off the handle sometimes. But that's precisely why he doesn't own a gun.