Some related news to this shooting if any of this hasnt already been shared. Kind of funny, some of these.
A man claiming to have attended a showing of the new Batman film with a loaded gun has been caught by Maine cops. Police found handguns, boxes of ammunition and an illegal automatic weapon in his possession.Police pulled Timothy Courtois over after he was spotted speeding along a Maine turnpike at 112mph, flashing his hazard lights.
Upon searching Courtois’ vehicle, police found an AK-47 assault rifle, four handguns and several boxes of ammunition. Police also found a selection of newspaper clippings pertaining to the Aurora, Colorado, cinema shooting on Thursday in which 12 people were killed.
Mr. Courtois told police that he was traveling to New York, where he planned to shoot one of his former bosses. He added that he had brought a loaded gun to a screening of the new Batman film the previous night.
Police are as yet unable to ascertain whether he actually saw the film. "I guess we're taking everything at face value, it's very scary," said Maine State Police Lt. Kevin Donovan
A police search of Courtois’ home revealed several additional small arms, a machine gun and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
"Based on the arsenal that was confiscated, we brought in our counterparts from the FBI and ATF to assist with the investigation," said a spokesperson from the Department of Public Safety. They added that they have yet to establish Courtois’ motivation or intentions.
Mass hysteria
Tensions remained high at weekend screenings of the ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ in the wake of the Aurora massacre. There have been several cases of people taken into custody for threatening behavior at showings of the new Batman movie.
A 52-year-old cinemagoer in Southern California was arrested for complaining, “I should go off like in Colorado. Does anyone have a gun?” when the film did not start on time. Security guards suspected that the bag at the man’s feet may have contained a firearm, but police found nothing suspicious after searching the area.
And 50 people fled a screening of the Batman film in Arizona after a man was tackled in the middle of the theater. The man, Michael Borboa, was carrying a half-empty bottle of moonshine and was later arrested for threatening and disorderly conduct.
Things You Don’t Know About ColumbineLindsay Beyerstein
Dave Cullen, the author of the acclaimed book "Columbine," had a cogent op/ed in the New York Times urging us not to jump to conclusions about the Aurora shooter. Cullen covered the aftermath of the massacre and went on to write the definitive history of America's most notorious school shooting.
The op/ed inspired me to read Cullen's book. I was surprised to learn that almost every major media narrative about the shooting is false. Not disputed, not debateable, just flat-out wrong.
Our stereotypical mass murderer is a loner, and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are often described as such. They weren't loners. They had a tight circle of friends and Eric was even something of a ladies' man. Both boys had prom dates the weekend before the massacre.
Nor were Harris and Klebold social outcasts. They weren't even tight with the so-called "trench coat mafia," a clique of goths and other non-conformists that flourished at their school the year before the shooting. Harris and Klebold didn't even technically wear trench coats during the shooting, they wore dusters, which are the full-length equivalent of a trench coat.
Most people believe that the killers sought to wreak vengance on jocks and/or bullies. The targeted killing theory doesn't hold up to cursory scrutiny. The first phase of the plan was to detonate massive homemade bombs in the cafeteria. Nothing larger than a pipe bomb went off that day, but the fact that the killers tried to use explosives decisively debunks the targeted killing hypothesis. As Cullen puts it, Columbine was a failed bombing first and a shooting spree second. The killers also rigged their cars with explosives in the hopes of killing first responders and journalists.
Columbine has more in common with geopolitical terrorism than most people think. The standard narrative is that Columbine was like a classic workplace shooting where disgruntled people "snap" or "go postal" and take revenge on their perceived tormenters.
Cullen argues that the Columbine killers staged spectacular violence for a mass audience, which is a hallmark of terrorism. Harris's diary lays out his objectives in detail. Eric admired Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh and boasted in his journal that he would outdo him in casualties. That said, unlike your stereotypical terrorist, the Columbine killers didn't have any specific political ends. The carnage was an end it itself.
Columbine is arguably the most iconic mass shooting in American history. What we think we know about Columbine springs to mind when we try to make sense of the Aurora shooting. So, it's well worth revisiting our assumptions thirteen years later. Cullen describes how preconceptions about mass murderers fed back on themselves to create and solidify myths during the Columbine crisis. Now, these myths are shaping our perceptions of the Aurora shooting, to everyone's detriment.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/duly-noted/entry/13570/things_you_dont_know_about_columbine/
Cohen's op/ed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/opinion/sunday/the-unknown-why-in-the-aurora-killings.html?_r=1
Originally posted by Mairuzu
http://rt.com/usa/news/police-copycat-batman-massacre-932/
that's messed up...
ABC News continues its top notch reporting on the issue:
In the hours after news of the massacre broke, ABC said that it had spoken exclusively to Arlene Holmes in her California home:[quote]The woman, contacted at her home in San Diego, spoke briefly with ABC News and immediately expressed concern her son may be involved in the shooting death of at least 12 people overnight.
"You have the right person," she said, apparently speaking on gut instinct. "I need to call the police... I need to fly out to Colorado."
But on Monday, a lawyer for the Holmes family read a statement by Arlene Holmes to the press, saying that she needed to "clarify" the comments attributed to her[/quote]
in addition to:
It isn't just people surfing the web who are getting the facts on who James Holmes really is wrong. ABC's Brian Ross made the presumptuous leap that a James Holmes who is from Aurora, Colorado, who happens to be an active member of the community's Tea Party was in fact the same James Holmes that allegedly killed 12 people. Ross was wrong.
Not related to ABC but also interesting:
Colorado gun sales soar after Aurora tragedyGun sales in Colorado have soared in the aftermath of the shooting in Aurora last Friday, which left 12 people dead and 58 injured.
Background checks needed for gun ownership have jumped by 41 percent and demand for training sessions required for a concealed-carry permit has also increased, according to The Denver Post.
"A lot of it is people saying, 'I didn't think I needed a gun, but now I do,'" Jake Meyers, an employee at Rocky Mountain Guns and Ammo, told The Denver Post on Monday. "When it happens in your backyard, people start reassessing — 'Hey, I go to the movies.'"
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a gun, a 43 percent increase over the previous weekend, said The Denver Post.
NPR noted that there have been reports of increased sales from other parts of the country, including Oklahoma. Similar surges in sales were reported in the aftermath of the shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011, and the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, said NPR.
The surge in weapons purchases is ridiculous. You still can't carry a concealed weapon in the majority of theaters, malls, etc in the country, nor government buildings, nor public libraries and the like, nor at 99% of schools and public and private universities. Just idiocy.
As to the facts of Columbine being skewed I might have to check out that book. I knew the "loaner" side of things was falsely played up because as much as reports tried to change things, it was clear both shooters had a number of friends that they hung out with regularly. The shame in that is that it likely could have been prevented if there were some dilligence by the parents in seeing what their sons were cooking up in the basement and garage in all those hours alone.
I was just reading about the increase of gun purchases over there which could be good and bad. Perhaps this will show the need for protection and people will think again about the laws.
Then again it could backfire with most of these people probably giving into the fear mongering to grab a quick gun without any experience. Guess we'll see how that plays out.
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Some interesting notes in this article, but role playing games, really? They're focusing too much on it here. Stupid. It also goes on to mention a break up with his girlfriend and was soon to be kicked out of his pad.
The new details may give some insight into what pushed Holmes over the edge.
A former classmate from the University of Colorado suggested another cause for the killings, describing Holmes as someone who had lost touch with reality after becoming 'obsessed' with video games.The classmate told the Daily Mail: 'James was obsessed with computer games and was always playing role-playing games.
'I can’t remember which one but it was something like World of Warcraft, one of those where you compete against people on the internet.
'He did not have much of a life apart from that and doing his work. James seemed like he wanted to be in the game and be one of the characters.
'It seemed that being online was more important to him than real life. He must have lost his sense of reality, how else can you shoot dozens of people you don’t know?'
Originally posted by Robtard
"was driving 112 mph on the Maine Turnpike with an AK-47 assault weapon, four handguns and several boxes of ammunition in his car"MORON ALERT!
Not to mention the fact that he said he was going to kill his boss? If I read that correctly. Most likely just wanted fame from all this.
I didn't care so much for Obama playing politics with this shooting but I thought this was pretty damn nice.
Christian Bale visits the victims.
Yeah, Doom was to blame for the Columbine shooters as I recall.
Interesting--and by interesting I mean idiotic--talk on a local station earlier. Apparently, if we make guns harder to get these nutjobs will just turn to explosives. I guess these "pundits" don't understand that it is more difficult to manufacture and place an explosive device effectively than it is to aim a weapon and open fire on a crowd. Even the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics had relatively few casualties considering the number of devices and the huge crowds surrounding them. Will gangs and enraged lovers and looney tunes randoms still kill if guns are taken away? Sure, but they'll do it a lot less effectively if all they can get their hands on are knives and bats, but there is a need for stricter regulations on firearms purchases and better monitoring of ammunition, secondary sales and certainly tactical equipment.
Originally posted by Mairuzu
I didn't care so much for Obama playing politics with this shooting but I thought this was pretty damn nice.Christian Bale visits the victims.
Just read this on http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/07/24/christian-bale-batman-colorado-shooting.html
Good on him, also great that the people who leaked the story were hospital staff and not WB or his agent.
Also, this is a very interesting read: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/