At Least 14 Killed in Colo. Movie Shooting

Fourteen people were killed and at least 50 others wounded early Friday when a gunman opened fire at a midnight screening of the summer blockbuster "The Dark Knight Rises" near Denver, authorities and witnesses said.

Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told reporters that 10 people died at the scene and four others died after being taken to local hospitals. A three-month-old and a six-year-old girl were among those treated at local hospitals, reports said.

Witnesses said tear gas also went off in the theater.

"It was mass chaos," witness Jennifer Seeger told TODAY. The gunman began to shoot at people who were trying to leave, she said, adding, "He pointed the gun at me."

A 24-year-old male suspect was apprehended in the shopping center's parking lot, Oates said.

The incident occurred in the Century 16 Movie Theaters at the Aurora Town Center, police told NBC News. Aurora is a suburb less than 10 miles east of downtown Denver.

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Welcome to another day of crazy people doing crazy stuff. Welcome to America. I'm not kidding every week you hear about people killing there family's and coworkers. Lets not forget the school killings.

This brings me to the question of why? What makes a person just decide to kill randomly in public places? Maybe mandatory mental screening should be required yearly or monthly.

Link-http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/20/several-reportedly-dead-injured-after-shooting-at-colorado-movie-theater/

My guess that's an overload of stress going on there, which can never be loaded off otherwise.

Here in Germany we notice - the more and more it becomes like the U.S. in terms of jobs, payments and social uncertainty - that people are stressed much, much more than in earlier times.

And nobody helps them.

The "Prekariate" is under constant stressful constraints of uncertain personal life - they can be fired more easily nowadays, jobs are underpayed, thus resulting in constand fear of the future - which helps economy, because these people MUST take however bad-paid jobs are offered to them in order to survive - and the money that is saved by underpaying "human resources" is bgoing to a bigger degree into the pockets of those who already own - stockholers, for example, and especially managers, who usually are the biggst stzokholders of their own firms.

All this "social uncertainty" isvery well on the path of "Inequality", which is similar to the "shock doctrine", which explicitely is based upon keeping people in fear of something in favour to "nudging" certain developments into the direction certain groups (and their Lobbyists) want. Like 9/11 and the "fear of terror", for example.

This is the "big picture" I see.

And this living in constant fear etc. leads into stress which erupts in shootings, imho.

Couchpotato said:

What makes a person just decide to kill randomly in public places?

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Microorganisms, earthquakes, floods, extreme temperatures… It's not working any more. Not enough. Planet cannot normalize our number in any other way since we don't follow lunatics and mass murderers (Hitler, Alexandar, Napoleon, etc) any more.
For the species at the top of the food chain, there is simply too much human beings alive out there.

There is a thing called collective concsiusness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_consciousness) and urges to decrease our number probably comes from it. Ppl "infected" just turn into another Brievik.

You say we better own a gun? It can only turn us into the next masskiller.
You may disagree as much as you want with me. I believe that it can be stopped by stopping the overgrowth.

joxer said:

Microorganisms, earthquakes, floods, extreme temperatures… It's not working any more. Not enough. Planet cannot normalize our number in any other way since we don't follow lunatics and mass murderers (Hitler, Alexandar, Napoleon, etc) any more.
For the species at the top of the food chain, there is simply too much human beings alive out there.

There is a thing called collective concsiusness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_consciousness) and urges to decrease our number probably comes from it. Ppl "infected" just turn into another Brievik.

You say we better own a gun? It can only turn us into the next masskiller.
You may disagree as much as you want with me. I believe that it can be stopped by stopping the overgrowth.

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So some of us should just randomly go out and kill just to decrease the population? Well good luck with that. Just hope your never in a public place when it happens then.

Alrik all good points but this is happening almost every month. There is no excuse for this. If a person thinks and acts on it they should do us all a favor and just kill themselves.

If all it took was an overload of stress I would have shot up half of America already. I'm sure stress along with many other things contribute but there has to be some mental defect going on there as well.

The western culture is severely fucked up, and having a casual approach to highly lethal weapons is probably not one of the smartest American traditions. Still, it's not the guns that kill, right? Just keep them and have fun with all the tragedies.

DArtagnan said:

The western culture is severely fucked up, and having a casual approach to highly lethal weapons is probably not one of the smartest American traditions. Still, it's not the guns that kill, right? Just keep them and have fun with all the tragedies.

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Don't forget that you can own automatic weapons in Colorado. Not a smart law at all.

Despite my sarcastic comment about owning a gun we need to become like Japan with there very harsh gun laws. Sadly with the NRA, other groups, and the outdated amendment it's not going to happen.

DArtagnan said:

The western culture is severely fucked up, and having a casual approach to highly lethal weapons is probably not one of the smartest American traditions. Still, it's not the guns that kill, right? Just keep them and have fun with all the tragedies.

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Senseless murders happen in every country, not just the US. There are many countries with much higher homicide rate than us.

sakichop said:

Senseless murders happen in every country, not just the US. There are many countries with much higher homicide rate than us.

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How is that relevant?

You honestly think that allowing people easy access to firearms has nothing to do with the shooting spree trend?

Don't tell me you're that blind.

sakichop said:

Senseless murders happen in every country, not just the US. There are many countries with much higher homicide rate than us.

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Yeah, Bosnia, Syria and Rwanda

A terrible incident.

pibbur

DArtagnan said:

How is that relevant?

You honestly think that allowing people easy access to firearms has nothing to do with the shooting spree trend?

Don't tell me you're that blind.

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You're stating causation. When called on it, you're now backtracking to "contributory" and calling him blind. Sloppy.

In another thread recently, we discussed American gun laws and discovered that they're surprisingly similar to those in Germany, which I would presume to be fairly similar to laws across the Land of Enlightenment. So, from a legal standpoint, "easy access" is a questionable statement right out of the gate. Now, I'll definitely grant you that our black market in firearms is far worse than yours, but that points to a breakdown in the legal system (too much kid-glove enlightened "rehabilitation", but that's a different topic) and once a person steps outside the bounds of society, it should come as no great surprise that they'll do things that are, ya know, outside the bounds of society.

Now, perhaps you'd like to dig into the kinds of guns that we'll allow over here, and on that front you'd have some traction (I don't really see the need for your average Joe to own an AK-47) but that's not the road you chose.

One thing I been thinking about: In Norway we have a lot of guns. But we have them mostly for sport and hunting, not for defending our homes. Maybe the threshold for shooting people is higher because of this? It's just a thought.

The weapon mostly used in murders here are knives.

pibbur who first of all thinks about the tragedy

joxer said:

Microorganisms, earthquakes, floods, extreme temperatures… It's not working any more. Not enough. Planet cannot normalize our number in any other way since we don't follow lunatics and mass murderers (Hitler, Alexandar, Napoleon, etc) any more.
For the species at the top of the food chain, there is simply too much human beings alive out there.

There is a thing called collective concsiusness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_consciousness) and urges to decrease our number probably comes from it. Ppl "infected" just turn into another Brievik.

You say we better own a gun? It can only turn us into the next masskiller.
You may disagree as much as you want with me. I believe that it can be stopped by stopping the overgrowth.

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It's an interesting approach. Although I'm wholly agnostic, I do like to treat "Mother Nature" as a "system with intent", so I'm actually completely on-board with your "population control via natural disaster" position. Not sure I'm comfy with expanding that into a system where the players are encouraged to control themselves, though.

Very sad.

From what i read the suspect is a christian, probably another example of christian terrorism.

dteowner said:

You're stating causation. When called on it, you're now backtracking to "contributory" and calling him blind. Sloppy.

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You have quite the imagination for interpreting what's being said.

I pointed out that your gun laws are not smart - and when people are in denial, I ask them if they don't think they're AT LEAST contributory - so as to see how far removed from reality they are. Follow? No backtracking involved.

In another thread recently, we discussed American gun laws and discovered that they're surprisingly similar to those in Germany, which I would presume to be fairly similar to laws across the Land of Enlightenment. So, from a legal standpoint, "easy access" is a questionable statement right out of the gate. Now, I'll definitely grant you that our black market in firearms is far worse than yours, but that points to a breakdown in the legal system (too much kid-glove enlightened "rehabilitation", but that's a different topic) and once a person steps outside the bounds of society, it should come as no great surprise that they'll do things that are, ya know, outside the bounds of society.

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The difference is one of tradition and culture. The gun laws by themselves wouldn't be a problem if so much of western culture wasn't sick and depraved - and here America stands at the forefront.

The issue is that you can't easily change culture - but you can at least prevent a lot of weapons from falling into the wrong hands. The cultural impact will follow - however long it will take.

Now, perhaps you'd like to dig into the kinds of guns that we'll allow over here, and on that front you'd have some traction (I don't really see the need for your average Joe to own an AK-47) but that's not the road you chose.

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This isn't a matter of me being right or wrong. We're not talking science. We're talking blatantly obvious consequences of widespread firearm accessibility. If you want to prolong the inevitable by acting the moron in denial like so many others, fine. But even you won't change that it's just obvious enough that you're going to have to change your ways, or face an impossible alternative.

Everything from here until then, is prolonging the pain - and anyone who's not for a change is actively contributing to people being killed for no reason. Unless, of course, you want your fantasy scenario of subtle population control to be a reason.

People in the US are more and more comfortable with putting any and all responsibility for their personal safety into the hands of others. Had this guy tried it 100 years ago I doubt he would've gotten more than 3 rounds off before being blown away by half the theater.

And for the record, almost all guns are illegal in Mexico. Sure is doing them a lot of good.

DArtagnan said:

The western culture is severely fucked up, and having a casual approach to highly lethal weapons is probably not one of the smartest American traditions. Still, it's not the guns that kill, right? Just keep them and have fun with all the tragedies.

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DArtagnan said:

How is that relevant?

You honestly think that allowing people easy access to firearms has nothing to do with the shooting spree trend?

Don't tell me you're that blind.

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DArtagnan said:

You have quite the imagination for interpreting what's being said.

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Well then, let's review, shall we? I've taken the liberty of bolding. Quote #1 clearly establishes that you equate gun ownership with the problems. Thus, direct causation. Quote #2 introduces the hedge of "easy access", which is a complaint about the application of gun ownership rather than gun ownership in and of itself. Now, I demonstrated that "easy access" is, in fact, a largely false accusation since the requirements to legally own a gun in the US are remarkably similar to the requirements to legally own a gun in Germany. So, not only did you hedge back from direct causation, but you did so on a factually inaccurate basis.

DArtagnan said:

I pointed out that your gun laws are not smart - and when people are in denial, I ask them if they don't think they're AT LEAST contributory - so as to see how far removed from reality they are. Follow? No backtracking involved.

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Given that your bait was factually inaccurate, do you consider the data valid, even if we accept the explanation?

DArtagnan said:

The difference is one of tradition and culture. The gun laws by themselves wouldn't be a problem if so much of western culture wasn't sick and depraved - and here America stands at the forefront.

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My, did that feel good? Would you like me to save some of the flying froth for next time?

DArtagnan said:

The issue is that you can't easily change culture - but you can at least prevent a lot of weapons from falling into the wrong hands. The cultural impact will follow - however long it will take.

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As was pointed out, this is also factually inaccurate based on the real-world situation in Mexico, where rigid gun control hasn't accomplished squat, and might have even made matters worse. Do you honestly believe that the kind of person that's willing to shoot someone is going to give two shits about whether he's got a license to carry?

DArtagnan said:

This isn't a matter of me being right or wrong. We're not talking science. We're talking blatantly obvious consequences of widespread firearm accessibility.

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But that's not a systemic problem of US laws as you are stating, since our laws for legal gun ownership are largely the same as yours. If you want to rail against an overarching cultural disregard for the law in America, then you'd definitely be on to something, but that has only tangential connection to legal gun ownership.

DArtagnan said:

If you want to prolong the inevitable by acting the moron in denial like so many others, fine. But even you won't change that it's just obvious enough that you're going to have to change your ways, or face an impossible alternative.

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It's interesting that you link those two sentences. The first is pretty much empty foam, but you certainly hit the nail on the head with the second. So then, are you applying for a job in my benevolent dictatorship, perhaps as Minister of Draconian Justice?

DArtagnan said:

The western culture is severely fucked up, and having a casual approach to highly lethal weapons is probably not one of the smartest American traditions. Still, it's not the guns that kill, right? Just keep them and have fun with all the tragedies.

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Spoken like someone who's obviously never been here and doesn't know as much about America as he thinks.

desensitize
rinse
repeat