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This is one of the most heinous stories I've seen in a long time.

I just wonder WTF was going through this loon's head. What gets people to want to do crazy shit like this?

Death metal music is to blame

Rottentomatoes.com are to blame.

Assuredly Marilyn Manson is to blame somehow.

He is, whatever you say he is.

The sad side effect of this is it is only polarizing the two sides of the gun control debate and I fear that any middle ground is going to grow further and further from reach. 

I'm daily saddened by the lack of honest, compromise-seeking debate in this country. Everyone is so entrenched in their stances and won't budge...

Guns, and the crazies who use them, are a perpetual issue in the United States and I think more honest dialog needs to happen, but I fear that has zero chance of happening now.

It will never happen Rick. People are idiots and will continue to become more idiotic with time until the earth disintigrates. 

Truth.

95% of these crazies probably had fucked up childhoods.

Root cause analysis = Shitty ass parents and shitty ass peers raised by shitty ass parents (for the most part). There are always going to be a few flyers out there that were brought up perfectly but still go crazy just like every statistical analysis ever done. 

Amen.

Anybody else catch that there were young kids in the theater, as young as 6 years old? Why the hell would you bring your 6 year old to a midnight showing?

If anyone is interested here is a feature on reddit called "Ask Me Anything" - this is with one of the wounded, I believe he was shot. He has a picture.

http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/wvbbk/i_am_one_of_the_50_wounded_in_the_aurora_theatre/

Because you're a shitty ass parent whose child is at risk of becoming a mass murderer with every selfish act you commit.

Thanks for sharing, adjective.  I really wish one of the fans had a gun and shot the guy before the entirety of the injuries/casualties had been finished.  The craziest thing is this asshole killer just dropped out of a PhD program before this rampage.

Nick, I can sympathize with your thoughts that having someone armed there would have helped, but I keep thinking about that situation and it not necessarily being any better.

Let's say there are 3 people in the crowd that are armed (a nightmare scenario to a liberal, but still too few for most conservatives) along with an armed security guard. The psycho comes in, brandishes a gun after dropping tear gas and starts firing. 

Civilian 1 sees this happening and decides he needs to do something so brandishes his weapon and starts firing at the psycho. Let's assume he takes out the pyscho. However, Civilian 2 thinks there must be multiple psychos since gunshots came from multiple directions and it's smokey from the tear gas. He starts to pull his gun just as Civilian 3 sees him do it. Civilian 3 thinks that there is an imminent threat and shoot Civilian 2, avoiding what he thinks is further tragedy. Only at that moment the security guard saw his action and fires on him. 

In the end you still  have unnecessary levels of death. I just have a hard time seeing how escalating a situation with more weapons makes things "safer" or better. Yes, I know I lean liberal, but honestly I'm more scared shitless of a society that believes everyone should be walking around packing heat to "protect themselves" than one where only "bad guys" have guns.

I definitely see and sympathize with your points.  I lean to the right (mostly because I believe I should be able to keep what I earn, not have to put half of it in the "government pool", but I don't believe the right to bear arms means everyone should carry around weapons.  I just still think as long as you require gun safety classes and have extensive background checks, then I'm fine with it.  The sad reality is getting rid of legal gun ownership won't ever stop shit like this.  There will always be a black market for something.  

Oh, I'm not so delusional that I think eliminating or limiting gun ownership would stop this from happening. As shitty as it is to say, stuff like this will always happen regardless of how easy guns are available.

My main beef is with the extreme segment of gun owners who believe in having automatic weapons, assault weapons, and other heavy duty artillery just because they can and also those that believe they need to conceal and carry. Those just don't make sense to me. 

People like guns. I know that. It's some weird american fetish that I don't personally understand, but it's definitely there. I say let people play with their guns and stuff, but let's do a better job of keeping them (the guns, not the people) isolated. For range shooters, they shouldn't need to take their guns outside of the range, so keep them there. That way you limit the potential for accidents. Hunters should only be allowed to possess hunter-class weaponry (rifle, limited handguns) and should check them in at some sort of safe location during non-hunting seasons (potentially a range in case they want to practice target shooting). 

I just don't see the need to have guns loose within the general populace. Having guns in the general populace won't stop situations like this. I think we can both agree to that. What it would accomplish is probably a coin toss between exacerbate the problem and cause more harm or limit the damage done, but it does introduce more accident risk to gun owners and, inadvertently, those around them.

there was actually a 3 month old there that was part of the injured....really...a 3 month old to a midnight showing??  

Yeah that's just bad parenting there.  Rick, I'm pretty much in agreement with you about the lack of necessity of military-grade weapons like assault rifles and semi-automatic guns.  All that has been said, have you ever shot a gun before?  I'm not gun wack-o, but I shot actual guns (not boy scouts BB gun range shooting) once and found it quite enjoyable.  I still don't see myself having a gun in the house, but I played enough baseball to use a nice aluminum bat as a self-defense weapon ha.

I grew up on a farm, so we had rifles and shotguns around. I did shoot rifles, but didn't really get a rush from it or see any reason to do it more than necessary to understand how to use the weapon if required to on the farm. We looked at them more as a necessity for putting down raccoons or other vermin if needed. A pretty low power rifle can take care of that, so we didn't have any "intense" guns around since we weren't hunters either. 

Even though my dad kept the guns locked in one cabinet in their room and all the ammunition in a separate lock box in another part of the house, I was still leery of having weapons around. My wife and I will absolutely not allow any guns in or near our home. Mostly for the reasons I noted before--we have zero need for them. 

That all makes perfect sense.  Wait, how are we having a rational, civil political discussion?  I should be calling you a pussy or a terrorist or something.

Fuck you, Nick. 

:-)

Frankly, I'm surprised Bill hasn't chimed in about how I'm some un-'MERICAN pussy piece of shit yet.

You know Bill is like Bloody Mary: you need to say his name three times before he shows up.  That's two.

Bill.