Gabrielle Giffords shooting has major meaning for America

A mass shooting occurred on Saturday January 8 2011, where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded in an apparent targeted assassination attempt in Tucson, Arizona, and several innocent bystanders at a constituency meeting, were killed, including a young girl years of age (14 wounded, 6 persons killed) The arrested offender, aged 22, used an automatic weapon.

This event has major meaning in the process of healing the American psyche.

Bitter politics are said to be in play in Arizona;

"...after an acrimonious election in November that followed months of bitter exchanges, politics looms large in the wake of the shooting and a local sheriff pointedly blamed hateful political rhetoric for inciting violence.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told a news conference.

"The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital.

 We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

The spark in Arizona's political firestorm was the border state's move to crack down on illegal immigration last summer, a bill proposed by conservative lawmakers and signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer."

What stands out in this commentary (by David Schwartz, through Reuters) is the level of discord amongst people and the type of manifest violence that is an obvious outcome when the level of anger erupts.

The astrological pointers to this situation come firstly  from the proximity to the solar eclipse of January 4 2011. Eclipses cast their influence through to the next eclipse event in the sequence. This eclipse targeted the nationhood of America deeply (Astrologically, the USA Sun is 13 Cancer and the eclipse exactly opposed this, at 13 Capricorn; Saturn transiting at 16 Libra 49 in the eclipse chart is conjunct America's natal Saturn 15LIB43) - so this is a Saturn Return or Coming of Age event for the American psyche.

The level of gun-related violence and hatred that permeates America is under scrutiny now more than ever. This is not the enemy abroad, or "the other", this is the enemy within - the nature of an aspect of American culture which needs deep analysis, resolution and healing. Americans' treasured right to bear arms is even further under the spotlight now.

The hallmark of Saturn in Libra is responsible relating. This is a civilized, measured, adult and ultimately caring, paternal and guiding model of dealing with others. This is where Americans are being led to - but firstly through through the fire of pain and loss and aggression - Libra's shadow counterpart is Aries the god of war and this is the primal rage stage that Americans, as a culture, have to pass through in order to become refined, renewed.