Lone Gunman Kills at Least 12 (38 wounded) at Midnight Batman Screening

[Corn Flake]

here is a live blog from Jordan Ghawai, brother of Jessica Ghawai. She was mentioned earlier in the thread as the aspiring sports journalist who witnessed the Eaton Centre shooting.

he is blogging his findings and a lot of detail from the person who was with her at the time of the shootings.

http://www.jordanghawi.com/denver-theatre-shooting-jessica-ghawi/

 

[Kin]

Why?

Well, I'm probably going to guess that he's severely mentally ill and that's about all there is to it. It doesn't really ever seem to be anything else in these cases.

 

[Fanatic]

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/video/us/2012/07/20/nr-lavandera-witness-guy-beside-me-shot.cnn

I found this interview to be particularly interesting.

 

[Rick C.]

Why?

Well, I'm probably going to guess that he's severely mentally ill and that's about all there is to it. It doesn't really ever seem to be anything else in these cases.

Bingo.  It's either a personal to get back at someone (like an ex), or the person is severely insane. 

It was sad reading an interview with the guy who hacked another guy's head off on a Greyhound a few years ago.  He was off his meds and hearing voices.  In jail they got him properly medicated and he was horrified to understand what he had done.

 

[Rick C.]

CNN just updated the numbers:
Police in Aurora, Colorado, say 71 people were shot in movie theater massacre: 12 were killed, and 59 were injured.

 

[crazyperfectdevil]

i found this depressing ...my first thought was..why didn't he kill himself...

 

[Kin]

CNN just reported that the suspect was a PhD candidate in Neuroscience at the University of Colorado.

 

[L K]

CNN just reported that the suspect was a PhD candidate in Neuroscience at the University of Colorado.

Earlier they were calling him a former Med student who dropped out in December.  71 people injured/killed.  That's just awful.

 

[Derk]

This is just sickening.

 

[Kin]

So, apparently, in addition to two handguns and a shotgun Holmes was using a AR-15. Which for those of you who don't know, looks something like this:

It really does boggle the mind that people can buy semi-automatic assault rifles.

 

[Champ Kind]

[rant]

You know, this is sad and everything but I am now as desensitized to Americans dying in mass shootings as I am to deaths in Africa from starvation, tribal warfare, Aids or Malaria. It's all sad but it all simply seems to be a by-product of those respective civlizations that happen with fairly regular frequency.  In Africa people die from those things every day and, every so often, some nut job in the states with access to weapons he should never have access to kills a bunch of people.

It's a horrible thing that I'm desensitized to either thing, really. Were I a decent person the situation in Africa would hit me like a punch in the gut every day and I'd spend my spare money buying Malaria nets for orphans instead of a season pass to MLB.tv. Likewise, I should probably hear this and go "Man, that's awful."

But this stuff happens. And just like in Africa I've kind of made my peace with it.

While I can understand your perspective, I sort of take exception to the isolation of 'Americans'.  Your hometown (my assumption, here, sorry if I'm incorrect) hasn't exactly been rosy lately, either.  Are you shocked by what's been going on in Toronto?  How about Andres Brevik?  The Toulouse shootings? 

Again I get your point, but it seems way too simple for you to pile on to the typical passive-aggressive anti-Americanism many Canadians seem to have.

 

[Frank E]

[rant]

You know, this is sad and everything but I am now as desensitized to Americans dying in mass shootings as I am to deaths in Africa from starvation, tribal warfare, Aids or Malaria. It's all sad but it all simply seems to be a by-product of those respective civlizations that happen with fairly regular frequency.  In Africa people die from those things every day and, every so often, some nut job in the states with access to weapons he should never have access to kills a bunch of people.

It's a horrible thing that I'm desensitized to either thing, really. Were I a decent person the situation in Africa would hit me like a punch in the gut every day and I'd spend my spare money buying Malaria nets for orphans instead of a season pass to MLB.tv. Likewise, I should probably hear this and go "Man, that's awful."

But this stuff happens. And just like in Africa I've kind of made my peace with it.

While I can understand your perspective, I sort of take exception to the isolation of 'Americans'.  Your hometown (my assumption, here, sorry if I'm incorrect) hasn't exactly been rosy lately, either.  Are you shocked by what's been going on in Toronto?  How about Andres Brevik?  The Toulouse shootings? 

Again I get your point, but it seems way too simple for you to pile on to the typical passive-aggressive anti-Americanism many Canadians seem to have.

I think Nik was referring to the fact that it happens with far more frequency in the States than it does here, and therefore his desensitization.

I don't read any anti-Americanism in that post.

 

[Joe S.]

While I can understand your perspective, I sort of take exception to the isolation of 'Americans'.  Your hometown (my assumption, here, sorry if I'm incorrect) hasn't exactly been rosy lately, either.  Are you shocked by what's been going on in Toronto?  How about Andres Brevik?  The Toulouse shootings? 

Again I get your point, but it seems way too simple for you to pile on to the typical passive-aggressive anti-Americanism many Canadians seem to have.

The stuff that happens here is almost always targeted, never these random mass events... Sure innocents are harmed, but it's nowhere near the same level as these events that happen in the states.

 

[Frank E]

While I can understand your perspective, I sort of take exception to the isolation of 'Americans'.  Your hometown (my assumption, here, sorry if I'm incorrect) hasn't exactly been rosy lately, either.  Are you shocked by what's been going on in Toronto?  How about Andres Brevik?  The Toulouse shootings? 

Again I get your point, but it seems way too simple for you to pile on to the typical passive-aggressive anti-Americanism many Canadians seem to have.

The stuff that happens here is almost always targeted, never these random mass events... Sure innocents are harmed, but it's nowhere near the same level as these events that happen in the states.

Well, they've got ten times the nutcases that we have here in Canada, so you're going to see that reflected in the frequency.

The easier availability of high powered guns is likely a contributor as well.

 

[Kin]

While I can understand your perspective, I sort of take exception to the isolation of 'Americans'.  Your hometown (my assumption, here, sorry if I'm incorrect) hasn't exactly been rosy lately, either.  Are you shocked by what's been going on in Toronto?  How about Andres Brevik?  The Toulouse shootings? 

Again I get your point, but it seems way too simple for you to pile on to the typical passive-aggressive anti-Americanism many Canadians seem to have.

Well, let's clear something up right off the bat. My father is American. So are both of my uncles and my grandmother and numerous cousins and my departed grandfather. This has nothing to do, in the slightest, with any sort of antipathy felt towards America or its people.

But beyond that I think you're sort of missing my point. Yes I was shocked by the shootings in Norway(and read a absolutely chilling story about it at GQ today that I'd advise people to check out) but chiefly because Norway is a country that would rank among the very last I'd associate with gun violence.

In Toronto? I mean there's been gang violence, yeah, and the thing in Scarborough did surprise me because things like that don't usually happen here. The Eaton Centre too. There's been some bad examples of gang violence of late. But it's not like Toronto has become a city that rivals any major American city in terms of shooting deaths. Nobody's going to point to a map of North America and say "Yeah, Toronto is where there's a lot of gang activity."

As for Toulouse I suppose I had a bit of a more personal connection to it as anti-semitic violence resonates with me as someone who is vaguely Jewish so there was a bit of a personal connection.

So, yeah, like I said at the top this has nothing to do with not liking America or Americans just like our collective indifference to Africa has nothing to do with our disregard for Africans. It's just a statement on what we've grown used to. Regardless of whether you call America the Greatest Country in the World or The Great Satan or something in between you have to admit that spree killings like this are not unheard of and don't even really count as rare at this point.

More over, I've never gotten anything much in the way of the sense that when they happen things change at all. Astonishingly. there seems to be a move away from gun control and it's not like there is a booming investment in mental health either. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Gabrielle Giffords...none of those have sparked significant change. So it's not even like the fact that they continue to happen subverts any notions I have about progress in the area.

Like I said, it's a sad thing to say but it's true. News of a mass shooting out of the United States doesn't shock me because of the frequency with which it happens. There's no parallel there to one extremely isolated incident in Norway or violence of a completely different sort in Toronto.

 

[Champ Kind]

While I can understand your perspective, I sort of take exception to the isolation of 'Americans'.  Your hometown (my assumption, here, sorry if I'm incorrect) hasn't exactly been rosy lately, either.  Are you shocked by what's been going on in Toronto?  How about Andres Brevik?  The Toulouse shootings? 

Again I get your point, but it seems way too simple for you to pile on to the typical passive-aggressive anti-Americanism many Canadians seem to have.

Well, let's clear something up right off the bat. My father is American. So are both of my uncles and my grandmother and numerous cousins and my departed grandfather. This has nothing to do, in the slightest, with any sort of antipathy felt towards America or its people.

But beyond that I think you're sort of missing my point. Yes I was shocked by the shootings in Norway(and read a absolutely chilling story about it at GQ today that I'd advise people to check out) but chiefly because Norway is a country that would rank among the very last I'd associate with gun violence.

In Toronto? I mean there's been gang violence, yeah, and the thing in Scarborough did surprise me because things like that don't usually happen here. The Eaton Centre too. There's been some bad examples of gang violence of late. But it's not like Toronto has become a city that rivals any major American city in terms of shooting deaths. Nobody's going to point to a map of North America and say "Yeah, Toronto is where there's a lot of gang activity."

As for Toulouse I suppose I had a bit of a more personal connection to it as anti-semitic violence resonates with me as someone who is vaguely Jewish so there was a bit of a personal connection.

So, yeah, like I said at the top this has nothing to do with not liking America or Americans just like our collective indifference to Africa has nothing to do with our disregard for Africans. It's just a statement on what we've grown used to. Regardless of whether you call America the Greatest Country in the World or The Great Satan or something in between you have to admit that spree killings like this are not unheard of and don't even really count as rare at this point.

More over, I've never gotten anything much in the way of the sense that when they happen things change at all. Astonishingly. there seems to be a move away from gun control and it's not like there is a booming investment in mental health either. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Gabrielle Giffords...none of those have sparked significant change. So it's not even like the fact that they continue to happen subverts any notions I have about progress in the area.

Like I said, it's a sad thing to say but it's true. News of a mass shooting out of the United States doesn't shock me because of the frequency with which it happens. There's no parallel there to one extremely isolated incident in Norway or violence of a completely different sort in Toronto.

I think I do get your point, Nik.  My point is that I am equally shocked - disgusted - by this sort of thing happening regardless of geography.  Maybe you're more of a realist than me, maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm trying to diminish the possibility of such random violence occuring in my own life....whatever it might be, I don't share the sense of antipathy toward these sorts of events. 

I'll admit these things seems to happen with such ridiculous regularity and I won't begin to argue with your assessment on how these events don't seem to have a tangible effect on public policy, support for the NRA, etc.  My very basic point is that they never cease kick me in the gut - hard.

For full disclosure, my wife is America, my children are dual citizens, and I spent some very formative years in the Southwestern US. 

 

[Kin]

I think I do get your point, Nik.  My point is that I am equally shocked - disgusted - by this sort of thing happening regardless of geography.  Maybe you're more of a realist than me, maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm trying to diminish the possibility of such random violence occuring in my own life....whatever it might be, I don't share the sense of antipathy toward these sorts of events.

I get the sense you meant something more like ambivalence or apathy here and the problem I have with that is that the combination of what I see in terms of gun control laws and anger and lack of proper healthcare in the States these things aren't hard to fathom.  A combination of poor mental health care and letting crazy people buy all the guns they want and this is a result. At some point you just can't be shocked that your chickens are laying eggs.

I'll admit these things seems to happen with such ridiculous regularity and I won't begin to argue with your assessment on how these events don't seem to have a tangible effect on public policy, support for the NRA, etc.  My very basic point is that they never cease kick me in the gut - hard.

You know I'm reading a bit about this young woman who died today, the aspiring sportswriter, and my heart is breaking. By all accounts she was a wonderful person with amazing potential that will forever go unfulfilled. I feel this on that level. I bet I could read something similar about all of the other victims.

But that's something very different than what I'm talking about. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, just like I would never say that the AIDS epidemic in Africa didn't matter, just that it's a sign of how stupidly common this is that I can compartmentalize mass shootings in the US the same way I can plagues and famine in Africa.

 

[Champ Kind]

I think you probably helped articulate what I was trying to say better than I could have. 

Not sure why, but as this dialogue unfolded I went back to one of my favorite Skydigger songs that I hadn't listened to for a while.  I'll include it here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI7XUrLnClA[/youtube]

 

[Rick C.]

CNN says all of the guns were bought legally at Bass Pro Shop...

 

[bustaheims]

It really does boggle the mind that people can buy semi-automatic assault rifles.

Yeah. I get shotguns (in rural areas), hunting rifles and, to an extent, handguns being legal, but, I can't find any legitimate reason that a civilian should be able to own any sort of automatic/semi-automatic weapon. They really serve no purpose outside of a warzone or certain areas of law enforcement (and, even that's somewhat questionable). I mean, they're called assault rifles for a reason.