<p>There is no way the police could have known he was buying guns or ammo online. No way on earth. Do not blame the police. They have a tough job let’s not add mind reading to their duties. </p>
<p>By the way, God bless them, the cops got there 90 seconds after the first 911 call. 90 seconds. You know what, the cops did a good job. If you want to blame or lament anything how about we blame the guy that did it.</p>
<p>Let’s not use the “should have” card at the police. Please. They did a good job.</p>
<p>I think that the FBI would have to be involved in doing something like this.</p>
<p>There’s already tracking for chemicals to make certain kinds of bombs; regulations could be added for guns and ammunition too. All sorts of things get tracked today - not that hard with modern information technology.</p>
<p>BTW, there was a copycat caught today. A guy from Biddeford, ME was stopped for speeding and he had a lot of weapons and ammunition in his trunk. He also had article clippings on Aurora. When questioned, he said that he was going to shoot his former employer in Derry, NH. He did see the Batman movie on Saturday night.</p>
<p>Is this movie really dark? I watched the TV show as a kid and it seems like the modern versions are a lot darker from the snippets that I’ve read.</p>
<p>ACCecil I agree 100%that the police have no reason to be blamed. 90 seconds to respond seems incredible. Each of them would have put themselves in the middle of it without a second thought. Hats off to the first responders (police, emt and firefighters).</p>
<p>I thought that the shooter looked medicated when I saw him on TV today. Is it possible he is being sedated? He didn’t appear to have a clue as to what was going on.</p>
<p>As I see that the discussion is now on page 25, and perhaps this has been addressed…there seems to be an emergence of mental illness in young men particularly (early 20s). I am in no way dismissing this horrific occurrence, but just trying to make sense of it. Could a mental break have occurred given his age, etc? I, too, have watched the clips of court appearance and have wondered if he has truly snapped. I don’t believe he is sedated.</p>
<p>We could have some sort of gun nut offender list - like the sex offender registry. I’d probably put everyone on it who owns a gun but that’s just me.</p>
<p>If i remember right, there is a police station somewhere around that area (memory is fuzzy there rofl). So that could account for the quickness. Though, I will say this much, emergency services don’t mess around here. When we had to have an abulance come for a life threatening situation, they were here in about that time as well (mind you this branch was about a block or so away, but still).</p>
<p>I’m glad to see that WB, even though they really had no connection to this event outside of the moive, did something like that. My respect for them has risin tenfold.</p>
<p>One of the news stories has the mother as a member of a mental health organization that deals with four main illnesses (don’t remember what they are). That may be a clue that there was a problem known earlier.</p>
<p>I respect and get why Warner Brothers feels they want to do something for victims but I worry they are setting a precedent that could end up with more copycats,some people down the line or their families not related to this horrific incident trying to play on this or get money. Commit a crime and claim “Batman made me do it.” I’m not trying to be flip about this and could be totally offbase, just wondering where this kind of effort by Warner Brothers could lead down the line. I’m sure the studio and actors involved in the movie are extremely upset about what happened.</p>
<p>^A bumper sticker was seen on one of the Holmes family cars for “To Write Love on Her Arms,” an organization that does work related to depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. </p>
<p>My heart aches for the victims, but I can’t help feeling a little bit sorry for James Holmes too. In his mugshot and the pictures from the hearing today, he looked so terribly sad.</p>
<p>^^^^Well, you are a much better person than I. When I saw his pictures from today, I couldn’t help but remember that he aimed a gun at a six year old child and pulled the trigger…while wearing armour that protected himself from any possible injury. He had respect for life that day…his own.</p>
<p>Working from some of the latest posts within this thread: It’s a strong possibility that the shooter was acting out in court today. No jail is going to sedate a prisoner nor would they give him any medications unless he was already taking them and they were considered vital to function/health. There has been no indication that this guy was taking anything on a regular basis nor did authorities confirm that he was. Given the great care with which he booby-trapped his apartment and carried out the executions, he was high functioning and able to work with great precision.
His mother is a psychiatric nurse, which would cover her dealings with mental health organizations.
As for any government agency knowing what he was purchasing- that would have been an ideal situation. It’s beyond me why the sale of semi-automatic weapons is legal in the first place and the thought that one can easily purchase high-volume ammunition canisters and “cop-killer” bullets as easily as buying a DVD is horrible. Since it seems that many, many packages were delivered to his school lab buildings, I have a feeling that we’ll find out that was where the chemicals, etc were sent. This guy was brilliant and knew exactly what he was going to do.
The police have said that they were very familiar with the movie complex- seems their patrons have regular “disagreements” which require the services of law enforcement- so they were able to respond in full force where needed very quickly. Two police officers immediately noticed that there was ONE piece of equipment the shooter was wearing (perhaps the throat or groin protectors?) and nabbed the guy as he was trying to blend in with the cops!
I don’t thing this has been mentioned, but I’ll put it out here for discussion: Just suppose that the booby-trapped apartment wasn’t to kill responding police officers… He had that lout, techno-music rigged to blare from midnight until 1AM, and until that night, the area had been a very quiet location. What if someone-such as the woman who did go up to demand that the music stop- opened that door (as she had almost done) and the whole place exploded? Now THAT would have been quite a diversion and logic says that all of the available law enforcement and emergency equipment would have been sent there. Given the time of the music and the time of the shooting (and had the large capacity magazine not jammed), he would have been able to wreak far more havoc than he did, which is hard to imagine…
Thoughts?</p>
<p>That sounds like that was his intention. I’m not sure why he surrendered like he did. It appeared he went in there with the intentions of dying and taking as many with him as he could…</p>