Unraveling the carnage in Colorado

What happened

The man accused of going on a deadly shooting rampage in a Colorado movie theater showed possible signs of insanity at his first court appearance this week, as the massacre sparked a renewed debate over gun control. James Holmes sat silently through the 12-minute hearing, his eyes alternately drooping and bugging out as the judge advised him that he would likely be charged with first-degree murder—a capital offense in Colorado. The former neuroscience student appeared oblivious to the relatives of the victims crowding the tiny courtroom. “You’re no tough guy now,” muttered Tom Teves, whose 24-year-old son, Alex, died shielding his girlfriend from the gunman.

Holmes is the only suspect in last week’s mass shooting that left 12 dead, including a 6-year-old girl, and 58 injured. Police said the gunman burst into a packed midnight showing of the latest Batman movie and set off a gas canister before stalking the aisles and shooting people at random. “Anyone who would try to leave would just get killed,” said Jennifer Seeger, 25. “It almost seemed like fun to him.” The death toll would likely have been higher, but the gunman’s AR-15 assault rifle—one of three weapons he used—jammed, preventing him from emptying its 100-round magazine. Holmes was arrested outside the theater and allegedly identified himself as “the Joker,” a vengeful villain in the Batman comics and movies. Police said Holmes began building up his arsenal four months ago, buying more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition from online gun stores.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What the editorials said

This bloodbath highlights yet again the need for gun reform in America, said The Denver Post. The federal assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004 would have prevented the sale of the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting, and the 100-round drum magazine attached to it. The strength of the gun lobby makes another assault-rifle ban unlikely. But at the very least Washington should outlaw high-capacity magazines, which serve little purpose beyond allowing “bad guys to kill so quickly and efficiently.”

This killing spree wasn’t the result of lax gun laws, said The Wall Street Journal. “In an America with 200 million guns in circulation, an evil mind will find a way to get weapons of mayhem.” If not guns, the instruments might be homemade bombs or poison. The truth is there may be no real defense against madmen intent on mass killing. Our best hope is increased awareness of the danger signs, so that family, friends, doctors, and therapists can report people who might be contemplating acts of violence.

What the columnists said

The fact is, America has grown less violent as gun controls have been loosened, said Brian Doherty in Reason.com. Violent-crime rates fell 41 percent over the past two decades as more Americans gained the right to carry concealed weapons. If an audience member had been armed—guns weren’t allowed in the cinema—the murderer might have been stopped and lives saved.

Oh, please, said William Saletan in Slate.com. “Equipping citizens with concealed weapons doesn’t stop bad guys. It just pushes them to the next level.” Holmes knew that he might face “some would-be hero,” so he dressed head-to-toe in bullet-stopping armor. Someone pulling a firearm on Holmes could have triggered an even wilder shooting spree. Only our lawmakers can stop this madness, said Alex Altman in Time.com. But both President Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, are so frightened of the National Rifle Association that they offered only hollow words of condolence in the massacre’s aftermath—instead of proposing gun-control policies that would protect us “from the next psychopath.”

Don’t blame politicians for failing to speak out, said Robert Shrum in TheDailyBeast.com. Over the past 20 years, lawmakers have repeatedly tried to tighten firearms legislation, only to be punished at the polls by an increasingly pro-gun electorate. Given the carnage the American people have chosen to ignore in recent years, it’s impossible to imagine what kind of outrage could now make them change their minds. “RIP gun control—and the victims still to come whose lives might have been saved.”