Friday‘s horrific mass-murders in the Aurora Cinemas in Colorado, resulted in the loss of 12 lives, and over 59 injured. The cause? A Neuroscience Honours student, heavily armed, who entered the midnight premier of The Dark Knight Rises and shot dead innocent movie-goers after breaking in through an emergency exit, and making his way up the aisles of the dark theatre.
The film, which was enduring its premier release at the theatre, was an hour into its screening when a confused audience watched as a man, dressed in battle gear, threw long canisters into the seating of Theatre 9. As tear gas flooded the theatre, the unsuspecting spectators believed they were enjoying a special effects scene from the film. What they didn’t expect, however, was the raining of bullets as those next to them were shot dead or injured, in the middle of one of the film’s fight scenes.
Audiences in the theatre next door, who were also seated for the screening of The Dark Knight Rises, began to hear explosive noises before smoke leaked through the crevices of the doors and vents. When screams were heard, the emotion quickly changed and panic set in.
The 24-year old gunman, James Holmes, had recently graduated in his Honours degree, enrolling in PhD Neuroscienes at Colorado University, but quit his course abruptly in June 2011. Neighbours say Holmes had kept to himself a majority of the time and stayed relatively quiet in-between their sightings of him.
But on the night of his shooting rampage, Holmes constructed a lethal trap of explosives in his apartment, connecting the fatal contraption to a timer. In the early hours after midnight, loud techno music was reported from neighbours, who claimed it had been coming from Holme’s apartment. Police stated that Holmes had been expecting someone to approach his household about the music, but on their approach, would have been met with a timely attack, while Holmes himself reaped havoc at the local cinemas. Police are yet to be able to enter the home to detonate the explosives.
Victims of the theatre shootings were immediately evacuated, with bodies being carried out of the scene; the youngest being a 3-month old who remains in a critical state, and a 9-year old who was shot dead during the attacks.
Investigators have questioned local gun shops, discovering Holmes had recently purchased 6,000 rounds of ammunition, including a drum tool to carry out 50 to 60 shots per minute.
The police later released a statement from his family, who confessed their current distress and anxiety over the the unexpected events.
“Our hearts go out to those who were involved in this tragedy and to the families and friends of those involved.”
The parents have expressed they are completely unaware of any emotional of psychological reasoning for their son’s devastating attacks, claiming him to be a sensible, shy and intelligent individual.
Holmes was immediately arrested on scene, but questioning over his motives related to the movie are currently underway, after the mass-murderer told police that he was “The Joker” — a character known for deploying chaos in the Batman saga as the antagonist.
Reblogged this on The Foreverthings and commented:
12 dead, 59 injured in the Aurora shootings.
It’s interesting that the often cited defense of “the right to bear arms” by the NRA is to return fire against such perpertrators… why didn’t anyone shoot back?
I suppose it was a busy cinema, but does that mean that the argument hence is moot, because the “good guys” care about collateral damage?
What I would find interesting to know is whether anyone in the theatre, at the time, had weapons on them. If so, like you have asked in your comment, why didn’t they defend themselves? Not many of us would stop to think to bring weapons to see Batman, but then again, we also don’t live in a country that means we need to.
So it would seem that “the good guys should also carry guns” crowd in the United States agrees with my friend.
In a follow up, I covered this here http://wp.me/p1wn2e-sT
I was talking to a friend visiting from the US (ex airforce) from DC.
He explained to me that the theatres have signs that say “no weapons”, so all the “good guys” respect the signs and don’t bring weapons.
The funny thing about massacres like Columbine is that… they happen at places where weapons aren’t allowed. That’s why shooters choose such places as targets… because no-one will shoot back. The solution, my friend concluded, was to allow guns into all places (those are his views, not mine).
Otherwise you get the really stupid ones who decide to rob gun shops… and get a Darwin Award for it…
Well written article on such a senseless event.
Thanks, Penelope. Much appreciated.
I cannot think of anywhere outside a war zone where the words ‘latest’ and ‘massacre’ come together so often, the US badly needs to overhaul their gun laws
The right to bear arms may be one thing, the right to bear 6000 rounds of ammo and a semi automatic is quite another. The USA are gun companies’ little Bitches until they roll back the rights to something that doesn’t reek of mass murder capabilities. How come if you make a phone call and say the word ‘bombing’ you can immediately be investigated as a person of interest, how come you can’t buy beyond a certain amount of manure without being suspect, yet they freely sell you enough bullets to kill a whole room full of people? The laws are crazy and I challenge any gun enthusiasts to defend their rights to this extent now. This is the big remaining hole in US security. If they are serious about fighting terrorism… It starts at home.
Agreed with both you and Stu. Whether protected by the constitution or not, fact is, 21,000 people have been murdered in the last year in the USA. 32 here. Saying something.
The absolute numbers you don’t give a complete picture. The best way is to look at the official homicide rate for a common time period, say 2006-2007. America is 14 times bigger than Australia, but has roughly 65 times the homicide rate.