Rep. Allen West's 'Well-Armed' Remark Recalled After Deadly Arizona Shooting

News analyses of the shooting of U.S. Rep. Garbrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. at a congressional event Saturday in Arizona -- including a Politico story headlined "Lawmakers consider their safety after Gabrielle Giffords shooting" -- connect a campaign statement by Allen West hinting at a resort to violence if citizens are unhappy with their government.

The Politico story reads, "The rhetoric of the last campaign certainly had its controversial flourishes.

"During her challenge to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Republican nominee Sharron Angle raised the prospect of 'Second Amendment remedies.' And freshman Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., once said that citizens should be 'well-armed' because the government can be tyrannical."

West, however, ignored his often-repeated advice in the statement of sympathy he issued Saturday after Giffords' shooting. And he did not mention the post-election hiring of his first top aide, South Florida radio host Joyce Kaufman, who immediately grabbed headlines for statements that included referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as "garbage," calling for illegal immigrants to be hanged and saying that "if ballots don't work, bullets will." Kaufman ultimately resigned; West did not fire her.

The Plantation congressman said this in his statement:

It is with great sorrow that I have learned of the incident which led to the critical injury of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several members of her staff. Today, the prayers of myself, my family, and my staff go out to the family of Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, and the constituents of the 8th Congressional District of Arizona. The United State House of Representatives and all Americans are praying for these faithful servants to our Republic.

Giffords, 40, is out of surgery but still fighting for her life after she was shot in the head by a gunman who opened fire on a public meeting in Tucson, Ariz., killing six people, including a federal judge.

According to reports, the shooting took place in a parking lot outside a grocery store in a Tucson shopping mall as Giffords was talking to constituents at a "Congress on your Corner" event that she had advertised an hour previously on her Twitter account.

Her husband, Mark Kelly, is no stranger to Florida. On Saturday night he was flying from the Space Coast to Tucson, with his daughter by a previous marriage. A veteran of three space flights, a member of NASA's astronaut corps, he is due to command the last scheduled flight of the space shuttle program in April. His twin brother, Scott, is also a NASA astronaut, currently in orbit in the International Space Station.

In custody is the suspected gunman, Jared Loughner, 22, also from Tucson, who was tackled by bystanders as he tried to flee the scene.

In a story reported in The Telegraph of London, New York-based Philip Sherwell wrote that federal investigators are "studying bizarre and rambling video and social networking postings by someone in the name of Jared Loughner in which he apparently railed against the U.S. government."