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(CNN) -- The one question we all desperately want answered may have gone to the grave with Aaron Alexis: Why? Why did he park at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, walk into Building 197, perch himself on an overlook above the atrium and open fire? The bullets that rained down killed 12 people and wounded eight others. Why?

Last spring, as networks like MSNBC launched five months of saturation coverage intended to force gun control on the American people, we said, over and over and over and over again, that there was (tragically) “another Adam Lanza” sitting out there, glued to his TV screen, and planning his own five months of fame.” As it became clear that Congress was not going to pass gun control in April, MSNBC commentators said, almost wistfully, that it would take another mass shooting to reinvigorate their cause. Well, they got the mass shooting they were looking for. On Monday, a discharged Navy...

For American presidents, moments of great tragedy are often also moments of great opportunity. Ronald Reagan and the Challenger explosion, George W. Bush and 9/11 — these are powerful events that presidents can use to unify and inspire the American people. And then there’s Barack Obama. While his fellow Washington, D.C., residents were still “sheltering in place” on Monday morning, as police sought a potential second and third shooter from the Navy Yard shooting, President Obama took the podium to give a speech attacking “extremist” Republicans for not supporting Obamacare. People were bleeding and dying literally within walking distance, but...

The government system that provided Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis a “secret” security clearance has been beset by problems. A “secret” clearance requires a far less intrusive investigation into a person’s background than that for a “top secret” or higher security designation. The Government Accountability Office notes that it costs the government $4,000 to conduct a background check for a top-secret clearance, but only $260 for a secret clearance. In 2012, the GAO reported that the Defense Department and other agencies “will continue to risk making security clearance determinations that are inconsistent or at improper levels” because of there...

It turns out an AR-15 was used after all in the Navy Yard shooting....by police to stop Aaron Alexis from continuing his rampage. From the New York Times: On Monday, Mr. Alexis entered the Navy Yard, a secure military facility near the Capitol, killing at least 12 people before he was fatally shot by the authorities. The police say Mr. Alexis, 34, acted alone. On Tuesday, the authorities said it had taken only two minutes for officers armed with AR-15s to arrive at the navy yard once they received the first of many 911 emergency calls. In case you're wondering,...

In the military, after an engagement with the enemy, it used to be customary to compile an “after-action report.” It was an assessment of how things went. What the enemy did, what we did, what were the outcomes, and what could we have done better. In the wake of the attack at the Washington Navy Yard, there will no doubt be an after-action report. Probably there will be several. One of them should look at the actions of uniformed military personnel during the attack. I got thinking of that the night of the murders when a Navy captain – the...

In the aftermath of the Navy Yard shootings, gunman Aaron Alexis’s interest in Buddhism seemed at odds with conventional Western stereotypes of blissed-out meditators. Buddhism scholars and bloggers were quick to note that Alexis’ spiritual profile didn’t fit with the image of someone unloading a gun and killing 12 innocents in a crowded military office building. Yet some saw a chance to challenge the peaceful stereotype and unveil some topics Buddhists discuss amongst themselves. Is the peaceful Buddhist an illusion? Do Buddhists and Buddhist temples deal directly enough with the topic of mental illness? And in fact might Buddhism in...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel intends to order a security review at all U.S. military bases worldwide, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday, a day after a contract worker — who had obtained a security clearance despite a history of violent behavior — killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard. Full article here ====================================================================== Have gun, will hear voices As soon as news broke that a deadly attack had taken place at the Washington Navy Yard, Democrats were deeply saddened -- that the mass shooting occurred on a military installation and not at an elementary school....

Miller: New York Times gets it wrong, media obsessed with linking AR-15 with Navy Yard shooter The liberal media is so obsessed with linking the Navy Yard shooter with the AR-15 rifle that it is making up false tales of Aaron Alexis trying to obtain one. The New York Times attempts to give the impression that a so-called assault-weapon law stopped Alexis from buying a rifle in Virginia, but that is not true.

[UPDATED BELOW] Three times on Tuesday morning, CNN mentioned sequester cuts as a possible culprit behind the security breach at the Navy Yard that led to Monday's shooting there. A CNN headline actually read "Did Government Cuts Put Lives at Risk?" This came AFTER a former Navy commander warned on CNN that blaming the sequester was "very premature." And just before noon, correspondent Dana Bash reported that "what I've been told is the answer is absolutely not" as to the sequester having a role in the security breach.

WASHINGTON — The gunman who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday test-fired an AR-15 assault rifle at a Virginia gun store last week but was stopped from buying one because state law there prohibits the sale of such weapons to out-of-state buyers, according to two senior law enforcement officials. Instead, the gunman, Aaron Alexis of Texas, bought a law-enforcement-style shotgun — an 870 Remington pump — and used it on Monday as he rampaged through the navy yard, said the officials, who requested anonymity b

Unaware of what is going to happen on return to duty after merry weekend, it came as a total surprise. The security was at the lowest in and around Naval Headquarters, while everyone failed to apply the drills rehearsed over time and again. It is a usual practice in all the military and sensitive installation that false alarms are sounded in case of terrorist attacks or disaster, however, on Monday, 16 September 2013, no one followed the drills and displayed a complete scene of disarray and panic. Navy Admiral Bill French was reportedly helplessly discussing deaths and injuries in dozens...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, for all of you Democrats who are back on your gun control high horse, I have one word for you: Colorado. You remember what happened in Colorado. Two Democrats thought to be in safe districts were recalled in Colorado over their efforts at renewed gun control on the innocent and the law-abiding. Greetings, my friends, and welcome. Here we are, back at it as promised yesterday, another three hours of broadcast excellence, Rush Limbaugh, behind the Golden EIB Microphone here at the distinguished and prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. The shooting in Washington is...

Security: As the usual suspects call for stricter gun control, the fact remains that a gunman with two prior gun-crime arrests entered a secure military facility with a stolen ID and found no one able to shoot back. It was Fort Hood all over again. Aaron Alexis, a gunman whose prior behavioral warning signs were ignored, opens fire in an installation belonging to the most powerful military on Earth and those who protect our nation and design our weapons are not allowed to have a weapon to defend themselves. He was more equipped than the 12 people he killed on...

Longing for blood and death. "Jihadists Hope D.C. Shootings a Response to Zawahiri's Call for Attacks," from the SITE Monitoring Service, September 16: After the shootings at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., on September 16, 2013, jihadists expressed their joy and their hope that the attack came in response to the recent speech by Ayman al-Zawahiri in which the al-Qaeda leader called for strikes in America. Users on the top-tier jihadi forums Shumukh al-Islam and al-Fida' wrote, for example, "O blessings, your prayer O Sheikh Ayman [has been answered]... Here are the lone-wolves working from within the headquarters...

Paraphrasing: "Alexis was a liberal. He was not happy at all with the former administration and was upset about it [Bush]. I on the other hand am Conservative and we agreed to disagree on politics. He was very much for this [Obama] Administration and was very gung-ho for his agenda."

<p>More blood, more tears, more knee-jerk rhetoric about finding a solution for a bunch of different problems.</p> <p>Those who knew Aaron Alexis -- the shooter who killed 12 and injured eight more at the Washington Navy Yard this week -- said he was a quiet, shy man.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP/WJLA) - The deadly attack at the Washington Navy Yard was carried out by one of the military's own: a defense contract employee and former Navy reservist who used a valid pass to get onto the installation and started firing inside a building, killing 12 people before he was slain in a gun battle with police. Sources also told the Associated Press that Alexis had received treatment for serious mental illness, including "hearing voices." The motive for the mass shooting - the deadliest on a military installation in the U.S. since the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009...

The former Navy reservist who killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday had exhibited signs of mental illness dating back more than a decade, including a recent episode in which he complained about hearing voices and of people sending “vibrations to his body” to prevent him from sleeping, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. Only a month ago, the gunman, Aaron Alexis, 34, was suffering from hallucinations so severe that he called the Newport Police Department in Rhode Island where he told officers he was on business. When officers came to his hotel room...

Aaron Alexis: Washington navy yard gunman 'obsessed with violent video games' Exclusive: The Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis played violent video games including Call of Duty for up to 16 hours at a time and friends believe it could have pushed him towards becoming a mass murderer.