On Saturday we witnessed the latest bloody skirmish in American's uncivil war.

Using a 9mm Glock semiautomatic weapon, a 22-year-old gun man shot Gabrielle Giffords in the head at close range. Miraculously, the Congresswoman survived but six others were killed, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. A dozen others were injured.

The shooter had obtained the semiautomatic weapon, capable of firing over 30 bullets at a time, perfectly legally, despite previous arrests and indications of mental instability.

This is just the latest lethal outrage by people with chips on their shoulders, hate in their hearts and guns in their hands. Think Columbine High School in 1999, where two students killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before killing themselves. Think Virginia Tech in 2007, when a student shot 32 people dead before killing himself.

While the FBI and the local police search for possible accomplices, I have my own list.

When we were younger, we had a saying that "stick and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me." Saturday's incident proves how wrong we were: Words can kill!

Whether it's this shooter, the angry guy who smashed his plane into the IRS tax office in Texas on February 18, 2010, or so many others, words and thoughts via the Internet, television and other media have created a climate of hatred in my country. I think the moment political discourse lost its civility and politics became personal so that "opponents" became "enemies" and the dream was lost.

In my opinion, one of the chief culprits is Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, run by the brilliant yet biased Roger Ailes, with polarizing hate-spewing hosts like Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. They are joined by an army of far-right wing ideologues in print, on AM radio and online.

Another is Tea Party darling Sarah Palin and other politicians who don't consider that inflaming the public may have tragic consequences such as last Saturday's, and ones yet uncommitted by people who are mad as hell and not going to take it any more.

Last year Palin instructed her supporters: "Don't retreat. Reload."