Michael Cooper

The portrait investigators have begun to piece together of the two brothers suspected of the Boston Marathon bombings suggests that they were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs but were not acting with known terrorist groups.

The reason for the disparity lies not just in the complicated, emotional politics of guns in the United States -- there was fierce lobbying in opposition to Colorado's new gun laws, and threats were even reported against some lawmakers who supported it -- but also in the way that the Senate's arcane rules make it so much harder to pass bills there than in the nation's statehouses.

In a society sharply divided over efforts to curb violence and the right to bear arms, both sides of the gun debate seem to agree on at least one thing: a bigger role for the insurance industry to play in a heavily armed society.