I just read that story elsewhere myself. A tragic twist linking two already tragic stories. What concerns about the Colorado shooting is that it seems to be extremely well-planned. Early reports said that the guy had teargas,  a gas mask to protect himself from it, body armour (aka a bullet-proof vest), and multiple firearms. Not saying it's terrorism but it's not just a guy going off spontaneously, either. This guy pretty clearly planned the attack and planned it well.

Mendalla

It's hard to imagine his friends and family would not have noticed these preparations being made. How could somebody plan all this without somebody noticing??? People like this, who seem to be without any social connection or any kind, really scare me. If we don't have others in our lives, we have nothing.

Deeply saddened by the shootings in Aurora, Colorado. My prayers are for the families and friends of the victims, and that swift justice and psychological treatment would take place in regard to the shooter.

Bizarre event

When I read the headline of the Batman event, I immediately thought "OK.  The killer dressed up as bane..."  and I was right

Actually, the later reports suggest it was only a smoke bomb and didn't mention the gas mask, so maybe not. It is rather like something you'd expect in a Dark Knight movie, though, which have been the intent. It'll be interesting to see what the cops find in his apartment (they were having problems getting in - apparently he booby trapped it).

Mendalla

Yeah, before this thread, I got the bane thing from HuffingtonPost...

Here's another more comprehensive article...

the killer is a 24-year old neuroscience graduate...gads...wearing body armour...

I just read a good, detailed account on cbc.ca. Gas mask, body armour, smoke bombs, an AR-15, a shotgun, and two Glock handguns (one carried, one stowed in his car). And they evacuated five buildings while trying to disarm the booby traps in his apartment. Yeeks!

Also just a read a good piece on that sportswriter who died who had earlier just missed the Eaton Centre shooting. The reason that she had been in TO at that time was to visit her boyfriend, a junior hockey player in Toronto. They first met when she interviewed him (over Skype) and he lived with her in Colorado in the off-season but had to come back for training camp. Their longterm plan was to live together in Colorado and start a charity to provide sports equipment for underprivileged kids. In short, a rather lovely, endearing young couple whose relationship has come to a tragic end.

Mendalla

I read a blog earlier this week where the reporter expressed fear about the possibility of ciolence rising out of the movie. Appherently early reviewers who panned the movie has recieved alot of death threats, as well online forums which discussed the mvies had a lot of intense debate earlier this week, and that many sites like Rotten Tomatoes started to remove or prevent anonymous comments due to the many violent and threatening posts. I somehow doubt they were all from the killer and not having seen any of the three batman movies in this trilogy i am curious as to why it is attacking this kind of violent reaponse. Are these 3 films attracted to the movie due to a certain character, in e way so many serial killers supposed were attracted to Catcher in the Rye's protagonist?

Nature can be quite fickle

Here's a short vid of what happens when a bit of an iceberg breaks near a fishing village...

58 people died...

They must have to live with this all the time...

This is from a beautiful testimony written by one of the survivors of the shootings...

"...as the rapid-fire shots continued, I truly thought I was going to die. And I realized that I was ready. I have put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the redeemer of my soul, and there wasn’t the slightest doubt that I would be received into heaven, not because of any good thing that I have done but because of His merciful nature and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Still, as I lay over my daughter, I began praying out loud. I don’t even remember what I prayed, but I don’t imagine it really matters. I’m sure it was for protection and peace. It drew me closer into the presence of God. When there was a pause in the shooting, people began to clamor for the exits. The girls and I jumped up and joined the masses. We had to step over a lifeless body, not knowing where the shooter was. We raced to our car..."

You can read the rest here: http://aminiatureclaypot.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/so-you-still-think-god-is-a-merciful-god/

Rich blessings.

I dislike statements like this because it plays into the hands of those who want to blame the movie for what happened. James Holmes is to blame, not Christopher Nolan and I'll be very disappointed if there's a wave of handwringing about how violence in Batman somehow caused this. There are literally millions of Batman fans from all all walks of life. It is inevitable that some percentage of those will have psychological issues. That doesn't mean Batman attracts or encourages those people unless you can show that the percentage of unhinged Batfans is higher than the percentage of such people in the general population. I'm a Batfan and have been for decades. I'm a pacifist and would condemn many of Batman's actions if they happened in the real world (though if the Joker and Bane existed in the real world, I might modify that stance). I also highly doubt Holmes' actions have anything to do with with the threats against critics, though I'll be interested to hear what his motivations were once some information is forthcoming. Threats like that are de rigeur in some segments of the Internet but rarely come to this.

Mendalla

Mendalla, In what ways, if any, do you believe people are affected by the viewing of violent films?

yep. that's the problem. it's them violent movies.

The US has some 250 million guns in circulation. In Arizona, a store offered to sell me a maxim heavy machine gun for 3,000. It fires 500 shots a minute. Or I could have an anti-gun. Or some submachine guns at very reasonable prices. Of course, I would have to produce an ID to show I was sixteen.

The US is the world's largest gun producer, largest exporter of guns. An estimated 20 to 30 million Americans are mentally unbalanced in such a say as to be prone to extreme violence.

This is exacerbated by the fear, hatred and paranoia encouraged by the US government and news media - of whoever the enemy is at the moment. As a result, the US, the geograpically and militarily least attackable country in the world, has lived in fear of Cuba, of Guatemala, of Iraq, of Aghanistant, and now of Colombia.

And the National Rifle Association is a major supplier of election campaign funds.

And what have Obama and Romney said we must do about this mass murder?

Pray.

well, at least that's better than blaming violent movies.

Praise the Lord

And pass the ammunition.

They just said on the news that three young men were killed in the Colorado shootings because they took bullets that were meant for their girlfriends.

Gentlemen, my hat is off to you.

    My thoughts go out to the victims. It's a horrible thing to have happened. 

    Of course there is lot of questions. Why?   I spent a bit of time on the internet yesterday looking at peoples theories. We had prominent leaders of the religious right in the US blaming Godlessness, the lack of the fear of hell and even the teaching of evolution.  We had people thinking it was a right wing militant, must be a Republican making some sort of political kill.  And then we had the opposite.  Must be a leftie, anarchist, part of the occupy movement blah blah.

We have those on both the left and right side of the spectrum convinced it was set up by some government cabal to make people scared, to help Obama pass more restrictive gun laws and get support for signing some treaty.  

There's been blaming violence in movies, guns laws, video games, the guy being mad that he couldn't hack medical school.  

We also had people scouring the internet looking for "James Holmes".  Several James Holmes were found, one had to post it's not me and we even had a major news organization do a news story suggesting it may be a leader of the Tea Party with the same name. They had to apoligize for that. 

All of this within hours of the shooting.   This is one of the reasons that after something like this happens I don't even bother speculation until more information comes in.  I usually have at least a 24 if not a 48 hour rule before even considering anything.  

There still isn't a lot of info as to why.  We know that this guy was uber prepared.  That he was quite elaborate in what he did and has likely been planning this for several months.  We also know that his own mother in California  wasn't surprised and her reaction was "Yes you have the right person" and that she said she had to get to Colorado.    

If I was to speculate now, with a few snippets of info that have come out, my feeling is that we are potentially dealing with a mental health issue.  The mother appears to know something was up.  Comments from a few people dealing with him in the jail have said that he is acting like he's in a movie, in another reality, he's said he is the Joker and an "enemy of Batman."

If such comments are indeed true and it is a mental health issue, like some sort of Schizophrenic type disorder then yes it was the movie and the story of Batman in general but only sort of.  The movie didn't make him do it, the violence didn't make him do it.  His choosen fixation on this particular thing and insertion of his 'self' into his created reality did.   If not Batman it likely would have been something else.  I had a collegue at work one time who had a schizoid break and he would get violent if he saw certain numbers on letters on license plates and freak out at certain commercials on tv because they were part of an elaborate reality he was living in where enemies of the world were using them to communicate with each other and plan the planets destruction.   From the outside looking in, his reality made no logical sense.  It was a people say, "crazy". 

It's all just so sad. 

People are finding other connexions in the murder

I was not meaning to blame Batman or the writers. I have not seen the Batman movies, ( i was tempted to do so after RevJohn reciew when the last one came out)and i would no more blame the shooting on the films than I would blame Catcher in the Rye for the assination of John Lennon.

I was just looking for an explaination on why these people are attracted by a fictional character. rottentomatoes had to close down it's comment section because of threats before the movie came out and before e shooting.

As to who or what to blame, i am convinced that it can not be laod at the foot of one person. Just how mentally capable the shooter was is still unknown. He could still be found not guilty based on his mental state. Certainly one of the contributing factor is the ease in whixh anyone can obtain guns, military weapons and bullets in the US. Japan which has around 1/3 of the population in the USA, has fewer deaths by guns in most years than there were people killed in this shooting.
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While gun control is one cited factor, killing in genral is comsidered acceptable in many cases in the US. they have the death penalty, and people in colorado make bombs, and other weapons evryday that are involved in the killing of thousands of people global. not just by US armed forces, but by people in other countries who buy these weapons as well. can one live in a society where human life is easily dismissed and than hold only one shooter responsible?
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Why should we be surprised that in a US state where many are involved in war and make and sell weapons that kills untold thousands evey year, that many hold human life with such distai .

It's part of the fun of being a sentient being -- intentionally creating reality/worlds/BS/worldviews/narratives instead of automatically swallowing what has been prepared ("the news")

life as art...

and I heartily encourage everyone to do it, and often