President Barack Obama mourned victims of an Arizona shooting spree today and urged Americans not to let a political debate over the tragedy be used as "one more occasion to turn on one another."
In an emotional address to thousands of people who packed a Tucson memorial service, Mr Obama said no one knew what prompted a gunman to go on a rampage that killed six people and critically wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords. He warned against seeking "simple explanations" and cautioned Americans not to place blame.
"None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind," Mr Obama said.
Jared Lee Loughner (22) has been charged with firing at Ms Giffords and others gathered in a Tucson shopping centre parking lot last Saturday where the Democrat (40) was hosting a meet-and-greet for constituents. Among those killed were a federal judge and an aide of Ms Giffords.
Mr Obama, who as president has sometimes had difficulty making an emotional connection with Americans, faced the challenge of comforting Americans, helping the community heal and bringing people together.
He may have succeeded best by citing the example of nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, who was born on September 11th, 2001, the day of the hijacked plane attacks on the United States. Interested in government, she attended the Giffords event where she was shot and killed.
"I want us to live up to her expectations," Mr Obama said. "I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it."
The president leaped firmly into the political debate that broke out shortly after the gunfire ended last Saturday - whether harsh political rhetoric from last year's acrimonious congressional elections had anything to do with inspiring the gunman to shoot.
"What we can't do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another," Mr Obama said.
The president began his visit to Arizona by stopping at University Medical Centre to see Ms Giffords, who survived a gunshot to the head that travelled the length of her brain on the left side. He also visited four other patients wounded in the attack.
Mr Obama brought roars of approval from the estimated crowd of 14,000 people inside a University of Arizona arena by saying he had been told that, shortly after he and his wife, Michelle, saw her, Ms Giffords opened her eyes for the first time since the shooting.
"Gabby opened her eyes," Mr Obama said. "So I can tell you she knows we are here, she knows we love her and she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey."
Later as they travelled back to Washington with Mr Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York - three friends who also visited Ms Giffords in hospital - spoke about her condition.
Ms Gillibrand said: “We knew she could hear and understand what we were saying.” Ms Giffords’s husband told her to give him a thumbs-up if she could hear him. Instead, she slowly raised her left arm.
“The doctor said this is amazing what she’s doing right now and beyond our greatest hopes,” she said.
“It felt like we were watching a miracle,” Wasserman Schultz said. “The strength that you could see flowing out of her, it was like she was trying to will her eyes open.”
Reuters