Mass Shooting At Denver Batman Movie Premiere

How do the bereaved make any sense of this?
Surely the most stupid, mindless, reason for the death of loved ones?
My heart goes out to those who are now grappling with the reasons why ....
There are no comforting reasons. No sense to be made of what occurred at all.
An unstable person who (apparently) believed he was some character in a movie killed all those people?
How can such a person legally get his hands on the firearms he used to kill those innocent people?
Didn't someone who knew him well (his family?) figure out that he was dangerous? If so, why didn't those people act, before something so dreadful occurred?
How many other equally unstable people have firearms in their possession?
When will the next such "incident" be?
This is too depressing to even contemplate ... but what is being done to prevent another incident, by another unhinged person in possession of firearms, from happening?
Can anyone at all buy a gun in the US?
Who is keeping tabs on gun ownership?

Quote:

When Holmes was arrested outside the cinema, he told police: "I'm the Joker." Ray Kelly, the commissioner of New York police, who was kept updated by his colleagues in Colorado, said: "It clearly looks like a deranged individual. He had his hair painted red, he said he was the Joker, obviously the enemy of Batman."

Police are trying to ascertain whether Holmes was acting out one of the anarchic, bloody attacks carried out by the Joker in Batman films and comics.
A SWAT team officer stands watch near an apartment where the shooting suspect lived in Aurora, Colorado.

A SWAT team officer stands watch near an apartment where the shooting suspect lived in Aurora, Colorado. Photo: AP

In one Dark Knight comic, the Joker kills an entire late-night television audience with gas. In the same comic, a deranged loner carries out a mass shooting in an adult movie cinema and the Batman video game, Arkham City, is set in an abandoned cinema.

'I'm the Joker': shooting suspect tells police:
http://www.theage.com.au/world/im-the-joker-shooting-suspect-tells-police-20120721-22gdl.html

3 Replies

@jcboy,

jcboy wrote:

Why didn't the perpetrators' family warn anyone that he was unstable and should not have arms?

There can be a discrimination problem with that, Morgan;
e.g., if a guy has some unusual or unpopular beliefs,
can he then be deemed to be nuts and have his defensive guns stolen from him? Is that what the Bill of Rights says?
The Bill of Rights deprives government of jurisdiction of designated issues.

If, by a history of violence, a man proves himself to be
an intolerable threat, then he shud be isolated
and removed from contact with society, in my opinion.
For many years, I have advocated BANISHMENT
for criminally violent recidivists. Forget their tools.
Pens are not responsible for forgery, nor spoons for obesity.

jcboy wrote:

When the authorities called his mother, she said you have the right man.

While I questioned why babies were there at a midnight showing,
the real tragedy is the fact that there is no real gun control in this country
and we continue to have a Wild West mentality about guns.

America is supposed to be based on personal liberty.
Its the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
No freedom is more fundamental than the right to defend
your life from the predatory violence of man or beast.

Government has NO JURISDICTION over a citizen's possession of defensive guns.
Gun control is like the War on Drugs. In both cases, people decided
that problems (addictions & crime) can be solved by pretending,
faking, that government has jurisdiction over the matter,
when actually no such power was ever granted to government.
The Founders knew that personal freedom and government jurisdiction are INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL.

jcboy wrote:

I mean that stupid quote about "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead hands " Really ?

Yes; the gun stands for Individual freedom, as distinct from reliance upon the collective and its henchman, government,
as Kitty Genovese did 2 miles from me in NY City and as Reginald Denny did in Los Angeles. No police came to help.
In Mr. Denny 's case, police were WATCHING him get stomped for the best part of an hour, refusing all assistance.

I have donated $$ to the Pink Pistols; ever hear of them, Morgan ?

David

0 Replies

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

How do the bereaved make any sense of this?

I think its best to look upon it as being attributable
to feral nature, like a rabid dog's bite, or a hurricane.
Remember when Steve Irwin, the Austrailian, got stabbed
in the heart by an unprovoked sting ray, in the ocean ?
The killer's brain became defective.
Making "sense" of this is the same as making sense
of such events as those.

msolga wrote:

Surely the most stupid, mindless, reason for the death of loved ones?

Yes; mindless is accurate. The guy lost his mind.

msolga wrote:

My heart goes out to those who are now grappling with the reasons why ....
There are no comforting reasons. No sense to be made of what occurred at all.
An unstable person who (apparently) believed he was some character in a movie killed all those people?

Sometimes people lose their minds; maybe bad chemistry in the brain.
As to "comforting reasons": I lost my mom to cancer, long ago.
That lasted 2 years. In my opinion, she 'd have been HAPPIER
if she 'd lived those last 2 years in good health
and then perished from something abrupt (like what happened in the theater).

Olga, if it were me, and I had to choose my last Earthly moments,
I 'd rather spend my life in perfect health and perish from
something sudden & short like my getting shot in a theater, instead of languishing in a hospital.
I had an uncle who simply dropped dead while walking down the street.
That was a good death.

msolga wrote:

How can such a person legally get his hands on the firearms he used to kill those innocent people?

Putting aside the question of absence of jurisdiction, for the moment,
anyone can get guns on the black market, the same as marijuana.
Even before Christopher Columbus was born, people made their own guns, by hand.
Its much faster & easier now with electric tools
and abundant engineering plans on the Internet & in public libraries.
Prohibitions never work; thay are a joke. We shud have learned that in the 1920s.

msolga wrote:

Didn't someone who knew him well (his family?) figure out that he was dangerous?

I dunno.

msolga wrote:

If so, why didn't those people act, before something so dreadful occurred?
How many other equally unstable people have firearms in their possession?

We have not counted.

msolga wrote:

When will the next such "incident" be?

In my opinion, that 's unpredictable,
like asking when the Moslems will attack us next.

msolga wrote:

This is too depressing to even contemplate ... but what is being done to prevent another incident,
by another unhinged person in possession of firearms, from happening?

Nothing; that's unpreventable, like traffic accidents.

msolga wrote:

Can anyone at all buy a gun in the US?

Of course, legally or not, the same as marijuana.
The real Supreme Law of the Land is the Law of Supply & Demand.
That is human freedom and human ingenuity.

msolga wrote:

Who is keeping tabs on gun ownership?

The same guy who is keeping tabs on how ofen we go to Church
and how many books we own.

There r also some registration schemes in some jurisdictions,
but that can be easily circumvented. I know some fellows,
hobbyists, who like to MAKE their own guns (real beauties; works of art!),
as private gunsmiths. Of course, anyone can buy or trade guns
from private owners, the same as stamps or gold coins.

U know, as I consider the matter,
it seems to me that if that murderer had any decency,
he 'd have waited until thay 'd all seen the movie
(whose tickets thay 'd purchased) before proceeding with his assassinations.
He had a nasty turn of mind.

David

0 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

Im sick of the whole gun nut scene here in our country.

Me too.

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people"

But nuts can easily buy guns, over there.

3 Replies

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Quote:
Im sick of the whole gun nut scene here in our country.

Me too.

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people"

But nuts can easily buy guns, over there.

Thay can, or MAKE them.
I 'm not 1OO% sure of all the private gunsmiths that I know.
A lot of guys have always preferred to make their own ammunition, too.
Its better than the factory stuff; exactly what thay want.

I wish that the victims had been better armed,
in their own defense. If someone shot ME,
I 'd wanna take him out.

David

0 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

If the audiences in those theaters are better armed than the other one, then thay 'll be a lot safer.
That 's what guns are FOR.

The guy had full body armor and for an example of how useful handguns are against a modern set of body armor see the shoot out at the bank where two bank robbers could not be stop by an army of cops until they got heavy weapons themselves.

I question if I had been in that theater if my 357 would had done a lot of good even those I would had given it a try.

1 Reply

@msolga,

Once more would it had make more sense if he could not had gotten his hands on high power firearms and used bombs or a home make weapon such as a flame thrower to do the killings?

The means of his doing the killings is beside the point as unless we are willing to give up all our technology and go back to being hunters/gathers we will alway be in the position where one sick individual can do mass killings if the desire exist to do so.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people"

But nuts can easily buy guns, over there.

Or get his or her hands on bomb making materials or a thousand of others means of doing mass murder.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Once more would it had make more sense if he could not had gotten his hands on high power firearms and used bombs or a home make weapon such as a flame thrower to do the killings?

The means of his doing the killings is beside the point as unless we are willing to give up all our technology and go back to being hunters/gathers we will alway be in the position where one sick individual can do mass killings if the desire exist to do so.

I agree. I think this is just going to be another example to anti-gun supporters on why guns should be taken away from lawabiding citizens and left to criminals who will get them anyways.

We can't un-invent the gun and even where there are places where carry permits are not allowed there is still violent crimes and murders. I think people who are inclined to cause harm will find ways to do it even without high powered assult rifles or bombs.

2 Replies

@Krumple,

7 pages in just a short time, I didn't read everything, Farmer... Glad your family chose not to go, strange how that happens.

I heard they (bomb squad) are having difficulty entering as it seems this guy had trips, extra amo, all sorts of things..How can that be? Ex-employee?

Sad, makes none of us want to go to the Movies where someone can re-create the scene..

1 Reply

@McTag,

It's a mentality that I can't get my head round. We took action after Dunblane, but I don't think things will ever change in America, even if something like this happened every day.

2 Replies

@izzythepush,

It won't change as long as people there imagine themselves a living back in the time of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.

They need arms...why? To be part of a well-ordered militia? To turn a darkened cinema into something resembling the OK Corrall? To play the lead in their own version of Taxi Driver?

I'm not offering a solution, at least not the radical one that is needed, but it's very sick, and it's not going to stop.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

"Bomb making supplies" are fairly well regulated, so if he would have used bombs his "rights" wouldnt be whined over

Very few IED's can be made without fuel and detonator equipt
even something as simple as potassium chlorate has rules of purchase.
Even McVeigh had to go through hoops to get PETN detonators and accelerants . The news made it sound like gettig an ANFO bomb is so easy. Its not so easy tht you ould not leave a trail with sufficient time to followup before the event.

Explosives arent point kill, they are an area kill and I dont think youd be allowed into the theater free-passage befre a show so you could "Set up"

ANYWAY, many would be terrorists have a penchant for blowing their own asses up while in transit or in preparation so Id almost he d rather tried using explsoives (unless the cops in CO are idiots)

PS, discussing anything with Dave will just lead to an interminable line of goofy logic and silly beliefs.
I like to make my point with him and let it lie. I dont have the patience (or some ego driven need) to engage in silly back and forth .

As llong as we have the 2nd amendment which basically makes us all eat brocolli (Im making a comparison) , we are gonna reap bloodshed as a continuing legacy.

When you think about it, the second amendment merely establishes and reinforces a specific industry to unlimited distribution of death. Therefore, there is no "FREEDOM". We are actually being held prisoner to a criminal conspiracy that is blessed by sacred charter.

Then all these shills for gun lobbies come on tv talking head shows to talk up how gun laws never work. My response to that is that real gun control has never been tried. Even if one state bans ownership by some moral concern, the state next door is an open-for-business "GUN MART"
Even DC or NY, they had gun control. You couldnt buy a gun in those cities. In DC, youd just go out to the end of Connesticut avenue into the MAryland bonies and there are guns shops in barns

3 Replies

@izzythepush,

Quote:

Quote:

It's a mentality that I can't get my head round

Me neither. I can understand how advertising and well financed lobbying does keep the Congressional "Ducks" in line.

If you just read into many of our gun nut proponents, they favor an anarchy based system of law and order.
The only difference between us and SOmalia is that we have waay better roads

0 Replies

@panzade,

panzade wrote:

Oralloy wrote:
An assault weapon is just a gun with certain harmless cosmetic features that the anti-gun crowd likes to demonize.

You call a clip that holds 100 rounds a "certain harmless cosmetic feature"?

Not necessarily. But that is a completely separate issue from the issue you raised, assault weapons, which is a term that refers only to harmless cosmetic features that it would violate the Constitution to prohibit.

Incidentally, in my first reply, after I addressed your comment about assault weapons, I also briefly addressed large clips.

0 Replies

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

Can anyone at all buy a gun in the US?

Convicted felons can be prohibited. As can those who are have been involuntarily committed to an asylum by a court.

Otherwise, the Constitutional right to carry guns for self defense applies.

0 Replies

@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

and even where there are places where carry permits are not allowed there is still violent crimes and murders.

Not going to be such places for much longer (at least in the US).

The Supreme Court is only a couple years away from ruling that the right to carry guns in public applies to everyone nation-wide.

1 Reply

@McTag,

McTag wrote:

It won't change as long as people there imagine themselves a living back in the time of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.

I've never imagined such a thing.

McTag wrote:

They need arms...why?

Need is not a relevant question. As free people, if we choose to have guns, we have the right to have them.

McTag wrote:

To be part of a well-ordered militia?

Well-regulated militia.

I for one would very much like to bring back the militia as the Constitution dictates. It would allow the widespread private ownership of much heavier weaponry than is justified by self defense.

(But the right to have guns for self defense would still apply to those who chose not to join the militia.)

1 Reply

@FOUND SOUL,

.

Quote:

Sad, makes none of us want to go to the Movies where someone can re-create the scene..

Life is full of risks and as risks go this is so tiny as not to be found.

Driving to a movie theater will always be thousands of times more of a risk then anything likely to happen in the theater.

We need to give a course in public schools on how to figure the risks of doing normal everyday things.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

Quote:

"Bomb making supplies" are fairly well regulated, so if he would have used bombs his "rights" wouldnt be whined over

Nonsense home type chemicals can be turn into bomb making materials to say nothing of industrial chemicals that there is little or no oversight over.

This 'gentleman was a Phd candidate in science and unless the safe guards had been greatly increase since my college days getting your hands on fair amount of dangerous chemicals from the chem labs would not be too hard to do either.

1 Reply

Mass Shooting At Denver Batman Movie Premiere

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