Could just have easily been your home town...dick.

I'm with you. I think it's a little insensitive to be judging people right now when they went through one of the craziest, most awful experiences one could ever imagine! To think some people even thought it was part of the show! Disgusting!

And trust me, I'm the guy who will say something to someone who brings their baby to ANYTHING after 9-10pm.

I was referring to the shooter.  Not the victims. 

I was commenting on your "idiots" comment that appeared to be linked to the Denver Metro area. I may be an idiot but...

Look, in the past 13 years, we have had three major rampage shootings (Columbine, Bailey and, now, this). It does seem like we have an issue here in CO but, I believe that they are in no way related. It is simply coincidental that they have been within a matter of miles of one another. Like I said, it could happen anywhere.

I guess if everybody carries a weapon into the theater, everyone will need to wear kevlar like the shooter and nightvision goggles so you don't shoot as many people as he did. More guns isn't the solution.

Unfortunately, there's nothing that can be done about these sorts of things happening. If you've got some twisted [email protected] who wants to do it, he's gonna do it.  

I believe CO has CCW, so that's not gonna help.  Then you listen to people talking about things like this, and they say "I would've done something".  Unfortunately, there's really no time to react when the entire thing lasts less than a minute or two.  

These types of things count on the element of surprise.  

As I understand, 3 or 4 service members (Airforce/Navy?) were in the theater as well.  If these guys didn't have time to react, nobody does.  

I gotta tell ya though, I've been against the death penalty my entire life.  I'm really starting to reconsider my thoughts on it.  Not that I think it would deter anything from happening.  I just feel like killing a few guys like this and Jerry Sandusky.

Don't worry AnthonyZ, You and I are on the same page. It's not the first time somebody called me a dick.  In fact, probably happens 2 or 3 times a day. 

Not looking to start a pro/anti gun debate as there are likley many different opinions here.
Now that I have said that.
guns don't kill people any more than spoons make people fat. People kill people, period.
This has been the case long, long before the invention of metal & gun powder, let alone guns.

More people are killed by cars, each year in "accidents" (texting, reading, DUI, etc) then they are intentionally killed by someone with a gun.

Yes, people kill people. People with semi-automatic weapons kill people wholesale.

And in places where guns are illegal they find other ways to kill groups of people.

And cheap dinnerware makes people fat.

Glad to see the idiots in Colorado comment was clarified. I know plenty of people on this forum reside in Colorado (myself included) and it was a tough day with plenty more ahead.

Woke up at 6am to see the news and was immediately shook. I live in Littleton, CO and as I graduated from Columbine in 1999 and spent the day of April 20, 1999 locked inside a storage room with other students and a teacher listening to bombs and gunshots, I was brought to tears reading the story. The media and others linked Columbine pretty quickly which brought a lot of stuff back for a lot of people around here. The CHS graduates/friends on Facebook had an outpouring of positive messages for the victims and families of the Aurora shooting, it really is an amazing community. The Aurora community will come out of this stronger than before but it will be a tough journey.

These tragedies ought to give one the opportunity to think or re-think their a priori assumptions but they always seem to provide opportunities for atavistic group-think. Rural vs urban and with urban sprawl impinging on natural habitats of large predatory animals I do understand there can be a justification of using fire arms. 1980 budget cuts resulted in the asylums being emptied. With the economy causing more emotional strains some on the edge of sanity may and do crack. From a statistical point, I've never seen the justification of hand guns. If you're a hunter do you really need a M4 to kill a deer? Every hunter I've met has taken pride on his ability to take the animal down with a single shot. Most of the most fanatic seem to prefer bow and arrow as it requires more hunting skills.

When my children were small we lived within walking distance of the cinema. Yet we did not go. Or our parents came to babysit. I appreciate that we may no longer live near extended family and in these economic times a baby-sitter may not be in the budget. What happened to delaying gratification? We had to wait for the movies to come on cable. It was frustrating but one discovers the pleasures of books, or forgive me, each other. You put your child in a stroller and walk to and in a park.

I will never understand the requirement for automatic weapons in civilian hands. Others think they have a God-given right to own a Dessert Eagle. I do not pretend that I have a solution to this conundrum, particularly as it seems to be framed in emotional rather than utilitarian terms. We have forgotten Utilitarianism and so in so many respects we all respond to issues emotionally and non-rationally. I am becoming less and less sanguine about our ability to communally deal with the difficult issues confronting us, in part, due to the inability to rationally and realistically accept reality. We are in love with the fantasy; with perception being our definition of reality.

By definition these events are non-rational. What rational person would think to be a serial killer? As a resident of NYC I find the emotional pull of automatic weapons hard to comprehend. I am enthralled by castles in the air. I see the statistics of needless, accidental deaths. I wonder if we understand that life does seem made up of random events, many of them dangerous. Man seems to harm everything he touches. Ought it to be very surprising that he has turned his sight on himself?

+1 on all accounts.

Exactly!

This guy had 4 guns and time to reload.
This would not have happened in Texas. Ask yourselves why?

The only thing making guns illegal does is take them out of the hands of the responsible people.
Drugs are illegal and they are a f**king epidemic amongst the non responsible. What makes you think guns are any different?
Note that most drugs come from other countries and are smuggled into this one.
Anyone who thinks that disarming the American people will protect us is out of their ever loving mind.

PS. I'm not a gun person. I don't want a gun in my house but that's my choice.
I refuse however to support the idiots behind gun laws that come out of the woodwork when these things happen.

I have to accept that these morons get to vote. See why I don't own a gun.

Perhaps one day we can find our way beyond the need for guns.

The average rate of deaths by firearm annually is higher in Texas than in Colorado and a lot of other places.
[Link: worldlifeexpectancy.com]

Since 9/11 - 334,168 deaths due to firearms in the U.S.
[Link: theatlantic.com]

In the meantime, before the politics and debate continue... The victims of the Aurora shooting. Here are those who have fallen on that terrible day. May they rest in peace and may their families and other victims recover from this senseless act...