12 Dead In Colorado Shooting
Via ABC:
A lone gunman dressed in riot gear burst into a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., at a midnight showing of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises” and methodically began shooting patrons, killing at least 12 people and injuring at least 50.
The suspect, James Holmes, 24, of Aurora, was caught by police in the parking lot of the Century 16 Movie Theaters, nine miles outside Denver, after police began receiving dozens of 911 calls at 12:39 a.m. MT. Police said the man appeared to have acted alone.
Witnesses in the movie theater said Holmes crashed into the auditorium through an emergency exit about 30 minutes into the film, set off a smoke bomb, and began shooting. Holmes stalked the aisles of the theater, shooting people at random, as panicked movie-watchers in the packed auditorium tried to escape, witnesses said.
My heart just breaks.
Tags: Colorado Shooting, guns
My outrage over these predictably recurring tragedies is always tempered by disgust over the fact that this is a path we’ve chosen as a society. Because one legitimate gun purchase could possibly be denied, everyone can have any type of gun they want for any purpose.
In many countries they’ve made better choices.
You mean like Norway?
maybe give the tragedy 24 hours before the political comentary starts eh?
We should call this kind of thing what it is — terrorism.
The first article I read said that it was two people wearing body armor.
we have no idea what this is, cassandra. this could be some sick dude who dressed up as Bane with no political agenda.
Yes, it terrorized and killed people, which is what terrorism does, but we dont know motive, we dont know anything about this person other than that he killed people at a movie in which a masked killer kills people.
It doesn’t matter if it has a political agenda — it is still terrorism.
ok.. Ive personally always understood (capital T) terrorism to be violence against a civilian population backed by and in order to advance, an extreme political or religious agenda.
agree to disagree.
How long do you think it will be before the NRA decides to hold a rally in Aurora? I give them 2 days. They’ll go to Aurora just like they did after Columbine.
I for one wouldn’t object to prying the guns out of the cold, dead hands of those enablers.
Mayor Bloomberg on the shooting and asking the Presidential candidates to step up and tell us where they stand on guns and gun violence.
I wonder if Rmoney is going to baptize the victims after they’re buried.
“You mean like Norway?”
Yeah, because even kids at a summer camp should be armed to the teeth.
It didn’t take long over at Delaware Politics to lament “if only a hero was there with a gun…..”
I don’t know about the laws in Norway, but I think a lot of the people in that theater were too young to legally carry a concealed firearm.
SA, if that’s what you thought i was saying, you are mistaken. What im saying is, a nations gun policy can help cut down on shootings in armed robberies, accidental deaths, road rage incidents, Trayvon type murders….. but a crazy person on a mission will get a hold of fire arms of they want to…. like in Norway. The fact that the political posturing and soap boxing started before an official death toll was released is disgusting.
MJ, that last comment was the most poor-taste thing ive ever seen out of you. those people died not 24 hours ago.
Fuck you. This gun rampage started a long time ago you twit. The problem is access to guns. I isn’t political posturing to say so. It is stating a fact.
My kids went to the local showing last night. Every time I send them out the door I consider such an attack a possibility.
That’s wrong. It’s just wrong.
Maybe so, SB, but Rmoney and his cultists are set on baptizing my family, especially the one’s I lost in the Holocaust. He’s part of the gun-loving enablers that lead to these mass murders.
Can anyone provide a reason why a person would need access to buy an assault rifle? Can we not find common ground on banning the sale of such weapons?
Assault weapons (machine guns) have been illegal since 1934. Explaining the fine points of this would require more gun porn than I have the stomach to write.
What bothers me is that all we get is an occasional sensational and trivialized debate on gun ownership in the US. The real American tragedy of the gun culture is almost wholly overlooked.
So there in Colorado we have a dozen or so deaths. Yes. Sad. Very sad.
But everyday about 100 or so people in America lose their lives to guns. And 90% of those are family and friends getting killed.
The #1 gun murder is spousal murder (thousands per year)
The #1 maternal death risk factor for pregnant women in America is getting shot by redneck boyfriend/husband.
There really is a war on women, and it’s really offensive. Yet we do nothing.
There are also many suicides, many unplanned. The suicide rates across America are highly correlated with gun ownership rates. Other than the aged, the primary risk group are young men in their 30s. Many of these have families left destitute by their impulsive act.
The bottom line is that this is a major heath issue that the rest of the 1st world has figured out. But here in America we’re used to having expensive and crappy healthcare. Sad and simple… simple to fix.
All true. The NRA has carried the day and this is the path we’ve chosen. The alternative is that one legitimate gun purchase could one day be possibly denied or delayed and the risk of that happening is too high to accept.
The NRA carried the day because they were effective in shaping the message by casting the “gun control” debate as a “gun ownership” debate. The other side supported the NRA’s messaging by agreeing with the NRA that it was about gun ownership in their attempts to ban guns.
The debate should have been about the first part of the 2nd Ammendment “a well regulated militia…” (emphasis on “regulation”), instead of the second part, “…right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The result is that every debate devolves into whether people have arms, not whether those arms are regulated.
It’s not much different than the abortion debate. There is probably no one who would not like to eliminate the need for abortion (before everyone gets their hackles up, note that I said “need”). Yet, the debate is never centered around the “need” which is a direct result of unwanted pregnancy.
Shaping the message is important but so is focusing the argument. If I were in charge of the gun debate, I would focus on regulation. If I were in charge of the abortion debate I would focus on eliminating unwanted pregnancy. Head to head battles are utlimately fruitless and I am adverse to playing Don Quixote.
@LE: Worth reminding people that the No. 1 form of gun death is suicide.
Perhaps we should be asking what it is about our society that sets off a certain type of person to gun violence. You didn’t need metal detectors in airports or even schools 50 years ago. What has changed and what can we do about it?
You can ban all guns if you like and maybe it would result in fewer deaths. Look how banning certain types of drugs has cleaned up our streets. Unknown is what things would be like if we all of a sudden legalized all currently illegal drugs.
@j “The alternative is that one legitimate gun purchase could one day be possibly denied or delayed and the risk of that happening is too high to accept.”
Huh? Risk? Oh… We certainly wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.