Aurora, Colorado ~ The "Legal" Arsenal of Killer James Holmes

The Preliminary Hearing for the Aurora "Batman Movie" shooting last year is going on in Centennial, Colorado, and disturbing details are emerging.

According to the Denver Post, here's the list of incredibly dangerous items that James Holmes, the mentally ill shooter, bought in the months before the massacre:

• four guns;
• 6,295 rounds of rifle, shotgun, and handgun ammo
• dozens of gun magazines
• ballistic gear
• weapon slings
• two laser sights
• two tear-gas canisters
• hundreds of practice targets
• explosive chemicals
• fireworks supplies
• handcuffs
• a military first-aid dressing

ATF agent Steven Beggs said the purchases — all from online retailers or the Gander Mountain and Bass Pro Shops sporting goods stores in the metro area — began May 10 and ended July 14. There were five purchases in the first week of July alone.

Did you catch that ~ almost 7,000 rounds of ammunition, and no one even blinked when he bought it. Tear Gas? No problem. Explosive Chemicals? Just some good clean fun for a young white man in Colorado.

Defense attorneys made it clear that all of that stuff was acquired legally under Colorado Law, and that there is no screening process for mental illness no matter how dangerous the purchase:

After prosecutors finished questioning Beggs, defense attorney Tamara Brady asked him whether it was illegal, for instance, to buy body armor or tear gas.
Beggs said it wasn't in Colorado.
"Is there any process in place in Colorado," Brady persisted, "to screen out whether a severely mentally ill person is purchasing these items?"
Beggs said no.

Also, police didn't test Holmes for drugs or alcohol, even though he was acting strangely and his pupils were dilated:

In afternoon testimony, Aurora homicide Detective Craig Appel testified that police did not request a blood sample from Holmes after he was arrested. He said Holmes' pupils were wide, but that "I saw no indication that he was under the influence of anything."
But under defense questioning, he said Holmes' behavior was at times odd while he was under observation. Paper bags had been placed over his hands to preserve evidence and Holmes played with them as though they were puppets, Appel said. He also tried to place a staple into an electrical socket, he said.

Obviously by then the police were as in shock as everyone else from the horrific shooting, and maybe they figured he was crazy so why bother with a drug test? The Defense is trying to protect their client from as many charges as possible, and the age old way to do that is to prove that the police and the state laws are somehow lacking or negligent. All well and good for Holmes, but what the testimony really does is damn him for playing the flawed system so well.

He knew that no matter how many weapons or scary substances he bought, alarm bells wouldn't go off in the stores where he bought supplies. No one could legally ask about his mental history even if his eyes were rolling around in his head and he showed schizophrenic tendencies. He knew the state laws allowed him to buy as much ammunition as his heart desired in order to carry out his vicious plot.

And on top of that, Holmes booby-trapped his apartment in a diabolical way that he hoped would cause a fire at the same time as the shooting, drawing away police resources so he could shoot up the movie theater. This is really over the top. If police hadn't realized the apartment was rigged, how many more lives would have been lost?



From NBC News:

There was a trip-wire leading from the door to a thermos filled with glycerine that was perched over a frying pan filled with potassium permanganate, Gumbinner said.
. . . On top of the fridge was a remote-controlled “pyrotechnic” box filled with 6-inch fireworks shells. Holmes left the remote for it outside, in a trash bag with a toy car and a boom box on a timer, the agent said.
His fantasy was that someone on the street would hear the music, open the bag, decide to play with the car, fiddle with the remote and detonate the explosives, Gumbinner said.
. . . "He said he rigged his apartment to explode or catch fire in order to divert police resources to his apartment,” Gumbinner said, recounting an interview with Holmes.
No one played with the toy car or banged on the door, though. And when Holmes was arrested outside the Century 16 multiplex – after allegedly killing a dozen people and wounding 58 – he quickly told police about his traps.

We may never know why Holmes wanted to hurt so many people in such a flamboyent and destructive way, and maybe there just is no answer. But something good can come of this if states like Colorado will begin to stand up to the NRA and create more hurdles. If government can't do it, then gun shops and sporting goods stores should realize they may be held accountable in the future if they don't support a screening process. Hey, if bartenders can be arrested for serving drinks that lead to deaths, then gun runners certainly can.

LaPierre on the Crazy Train

source: Matt Bors
OK, Mr. LaPierre - I call you Crazy!

From Meet the Press, Sunday December 23, 2012

DAVID GREGORY: This is a matter of logic, Mr. LaPierre, because anybody watching this is going to say ‘hey wait a minute. I just heard Mr. LaPierre say that the standard is we should try anything that might reduce the violence. And you’re telling me that it’s not a matter of common sense that if you don’t have an ability to shoot off 30 rounds without reloading, that just possibly you could reduce the loss of life? Would Adam Lanza have been able to shoot as many kids if he didn’t have as much ammunition?’

WAYNE LAPIERRE: I don’t buy your argument for a minute.

From NBC News

“If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy,” LaPierre told NBC’s David Gregory. “I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it. It’s the one thing that would keep people safe and the NRA is going try to do that.”

. . . President Barack Obama has tasked Vice President Joe Biden with the job of consulting with members of the Cabinet and outside organizations to come up with legislative proposals by next month.

When asked about this initiative, LaPierre said, “if it’s a panel that’s just going to be made up of a bunch of people that for the past 20 years has been trying to destroy the Second Amendment, I’m not interested in sitting on that panel…. The NRA is not going to let people lose the Second Amendment in this country.”

Following LaPierre on Meet the Press, Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y., said that the NRA leader is “so extreme and so tone deaf that he actually helps the cause of us passing sensible gun legislation in the Congress…. He is so doctrinaire and so adamant that I believe gun owners turn against him as well.”

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NRA Blames Everyone Except Themselves for Gun Violence

Many people thought that the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut might bring the National Rifle Association to its senses and it would be ready to work with Joe Biden on his Task Force to make the world a safer place for children while protecting gun ownership and the Second Amendment.

Boy, are we stupid. After a week of internet silence, the NRA instead put their spokesman Wayne LaPierre up front to rant, rave and lecture us on how shootings are caused by the lamestream godless media and video games such as Mortal Kombat - really old games, like 20 years old - and the only way to protect children is to have NRA Guardsmen posted in every school of the nation.

No really.

Full Text of Wayne LaPierre's Speech
Snark Amendment: Shocked Responses to the NRA

From Paul Tassi on Forbes

The message here was clear, blame everything but guns. Why bother considering that violent video games are played in all corners of the world, yet somehow it’s only the US with its lax gun laws where tragedies like this happen with this frequency? Video games are an easy target, almost as easy as the NRA itself which is doing everything it can to act like they’re the solution to the problem, not one of the primary causes.

The press conference went from standard stump speech to truly bizarre when the NRA’s big idea to help protect children in school turned out to be a national program to enlist an army of volunteers to patrol the corridors of high schools, junior high and elementary schools, keeping the kids safe from potential shooters. A direct quote from LaPierre: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

He is literally suggesting that retired police and military members patrol schools with guns. The program would be nationwide, and schools could opt out of it, but that would be up to the faculty and the parents. You know, those freedom-haters who who WANT their children to be at risk.

It’s the transformation of our country into a police state, pure and simple, or at least a very broad first step.

source: cognitivedissonance on Tumblr

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Shooting at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin

So sad that there has been another mass shooting in the United States. This one has been classified as an "act of domestic terrorism," but really aren't they all?



NBC News Story  

A gunman opened fire Sunday morning at a Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee, killing six people and wounding at least three others, including a police officer, before being shot to death, authorities said.

. . . It was not immediately clear why local police were classifying the shooting as domestic terrorism. Federal law enforcement officials told NBC News the suspected gunman had no obvious connection to domestic terror or white supremacist groups and apparently was not on any list of suspected terrorists. The suspect was in his early 40s, and while he had an arrest record, it was for minor offenses, one federal official said. A law enforcement official told NBC News the gunman was dressed in a white T-shirt and black tactical-style pants, which had several pockets for holding ammunition magazines. He was armed with a single handgun, the official said. His name was not released but police say they have a tentative ID and were searching his home.

. . . Officials told NBC News the suspect, who served in the U.S. Army, had many tattoos. The suspect had some kind of radical or white supremacist views but, as far as officials said they had heard, he was not in any kind of radical organization. His previous run-ins with law enforcement involved traffic offenses, they said.

From Reuters

Turban-wearing Sikhs are often mistaken for Muslims, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is overseeing the probe into shootings, Edwards said. "We're treating this as a domestic terrorist incident," he told reporters. Officials had no details about a possible motive.

Milwaukee's Froedtert Hospital said three male victims included one who had been shot in the abdomen, one in the extremities and face, and a third who was hit in the neck. The Oak Creek shooting was the latest in a series of suburban U.S. gun rampages. Organizations fighting gun violence rate Wisconsin's gun safety laws from low to moderate. There are no limits on the number of firearms that can be purchased at one time, nor on the possession or transfer of assault weapons, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

. . . The Sikh faith is the fifth-largest in the world, with more than 30 million followers. It includes belief in one God and that the goal of life is to lead an exemplary existence. The temple in Oak Creek, south of Milwaukee, was founded in October 1997 and has a congregation of 350 to 400 people. There are an estimated 500,000 or more Sikhs in the United States. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 by Islamist militants, Sikhs have sometimes been confused publicly with Muslims because of their turban headdress and beards.

Obama vs. Romney on Guns

These two candidates couldn't be more different. You can't tell me that "both sides are exactly the same" or "both sides are just as bad." There's a fundamental difference between a thinker like Barack Obama who actually cares about people, and a glib businessman like Mitt Romney who seems to have no convictions or opinions of his own beyond what the Neocons tell him to say. And at least the President has his facts straight. Romney still thinks the Aurora shooter bought weapons illegally, when actually everything he had was legal under the laws of the state.

Obama at the Urban League Convention in New Orleans:

. . . we’ve been reminded recently that all this matters little if these young people can’t walk the streets of their neighborhood safely; if we can’t send our kids to school without worrying they might get shot; if they can’t go to the movies without fear of violence lurking in the shadows. (Applause.)

Our hearts break for the victims of the massacre in Aurora. (Applause.) We pray for those who were lost and we pray for those who loved them. We pray for those who are recovering with courage and with hope. And we also pray for those who succumb to the less-publicized acts of violence that plague our communities in so many cities across the country every single day. (Applause.) We can’t forget about that.

Every day – in fact, every day and a half, the number of young people we lose to violence is about the same as the number of people we lost in that movie theater. For every Columbine or Virginia Tech, there are dozens gunned down on the streets of Chicago and Atlanta, and here in New Orleans. For every Tucson or Aurora, there is daily heartbreak over young Americans shot in Milwaukee or Cleveland. Violence plagues the biggest cities, but it also plagues the smallest towns. It claims the lives of Americans of different ages and different races, and it’s tied together by the fact that these young people had dreams and had futures that were cut tragically short.

And when there is an extraordinarily heartbreaking tragedy like the one we saw, there’s always an outcry immediately after for action. And there’s talk of new reforms, and there’s talk of new legislation. And too often, those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere.

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. . . I, like most Americans, believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms. And we recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation -– that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage. But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals – (applause) – that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities. I believe the majority of gun owners would agree that we should do everything possible to prevent criminals and fugitives from purchasing weapons; that we should check someone’s criminal record before they can check out a gun seller; that a mentally unbalanced individual should not be able to get his hands on a gun so easily. (Applause.) These steps shouldn’t be controversial. They should be common sense. So I’m going to continue to work with members of both parties, and with religious groups and with civic organizations, to arrive at a consensus around violence reduction – not just of gun violence, but violence at every level, on every step, looking at everything we can do to reduce violence and keep our children safe -– from improving mental health services for troubled youth – (applause) – to instituting more effective community policing strategies. We should leave no stone unturned, and recognize that we have no greater mission as a country than keeping our young people safe. (Applause.) And as we do so, as we convene these conversations, let’s be clear: Even as we debate government’s role, we have to understand that when a child opens fire on another child, there’s a hole in that child’s heart that government alone can’t fill. (Applause.) It’s up to us, as parents and as neighbors and as teachers and as mentors, to make sure our young people don’t have that void inside them.

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Mitt Romney with NBC's Brian Williams

Political implications, legal implications are something which will be sorted out down the road," Romney told NBC's Brian Williams during an exclusive interview here in London. "But I don't happen to believe that America needs new gun laws. A lot of what this young man did was clearly against the law. But the fact that it was against the law did not prevent it from happening.

Romney, who enacted an assault weapons ban as governor of Massachusetts (with the support of a Democratic legislature) would not say whether he still believes that weapons like the AR-15 assault rifle used in the Colorado shooting were "instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people," as he described them during the bill signing ceremony in 2002.

When Williams followed up later in the interview on the Aurora attack, Romney argued that it would take a change in heart, not laws, to stop future violence.

"And so we can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. It won't. Changing the heart of the American people may well be what's essential, to improve the lots of the American people."

More on Romney's "Gun Flub" as Salon calls it:

. . . As Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates explained: “All the weapons that he possessed, he possessed legally. And all the clips that he possessed, he possessed legally. And all the ammunition that he possessed, he possessed legally.”

Holmes used a handgun, a shotgun and an AR-15 assault rifle in his massacre — all legal, thanks to the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, which had previously prohibited some versions of the AR-15. Holmes also had body armor, tear gas grenades, a gas mask and tactical gear. All are legal and widely available online at minimal cost (one website sells tear gas grenades for just $16 a pop). The only way it would have been illegal for Holmes to have his guns would be if he had been diagnosed as mentally ill or was a convicted felon, but neither was the case. His only record was a speeding ticket.

“Background checks, as required by federal law, were properly conducted, and [Holmes] was approved,” said a spokesman for Bass Pro Shops, where he bought one of his guns. Holmes had also booby-trapped his apartment with homemade explosives, but there’s no evidence yet that any of these devices were illegal either, as he made them himself with common materials like gasoline.