STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Here's NPR's Andrea Seabrook.
ANDREA SEABROOK: It was a normal Saturday for members of Congress. Some met with local business leaders; others sat with constituents, listening to concerns. And for many, it was a day off after a packed week of ceremony at the beginning of the new Congress.
INSKEEP: Arizona Republican David Schweikert couldn't believe it.
SEABROOK: It was hard to know, is it real? Is this someone doing a scam on the Internet? And then as the information got more and more serious, you very quickly understood the gravity and the horror of what just happened.
SEABROOK: Speaker Boehner went before cameras yesterday, to express the feeling of many lawmakers.
SEABROOK: An attack on one who serves, is an attack on all who serve. Such acts of violence have no place in our society.
SEABROOK: Most lawmakers regularly interact with constituents in public places, and have now begun to question their own security.
SEABROOK: We must, in a democracy, have access to our constituents.
SEABROOK: Emanuel Cleaver is a Democrat from Missouri, and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus. He spoke on NBC.
SEABROOK: The public is being riled up to the point where those kinds of events and opportunities for people to express their opinions to us, are becoming a little volatile.
SEABROOK: Toxic, dark, hostile, bitter - these are the words people use to describe the state of politics these days. And they are the complete antithesis of what congresswoman Giffords stands for.
H: And there were calls for turning down the heat of political discourse and renewing a sense of camaraderie and mutual patriotism among lawmakers because, as Speaker Boehner said yesterday...
SEABROOK: Public service is a high honor. But these tragic events remind us that all of us, in our roles in service to our fellow citizens - comes with a risk.
SEABROOK: Andrea Seabrook, NPR News, the Capitol.