10 dead, 35+ wounded at Batman premiere shooting

[RogueIce]

Just a note on metal detectors in movie theaters; According to the Aurora police, the gunman propped open a rear door and came in through an exit which was supposed to be only opened from the inside.

I read that too. You would think someone would have seem that and gotten suspicious.

Not really. In addition to what Los said, I doubt most moviegoers would notice. From the ones I've been in, the theater exit doors aren't all that close to the seats, and depending on when he snuck out it'd be pretty dark in there. That and most people aren't looking at those doors, they're looking at the screen and/or their friends/family next to them.

And even if people had noticed the propped door, well...it was the midnight premier of an incredibly popular summer blockbuster. It was probably just assumed to be people trying to sneak in and not given a second thought. This could well change now, of course, with people more likely to report it, managers getting more strict about the employees keeping on top of it, etc.

[Darth Wong]

And millions of Muslims across America breathe a sigh of relief.

Sorry, black humour. But let's be honest: we should all be glad it wasn't a Muslim, because this killing will prompt anger and grief, but if it were a Muslim, it would prompt a wave of hate and paranoia, especially since the right-wing has been stoking those flames for the last ten years.

[JME2]

Wow, that's a spectaclor amount of fucked.

Agreed; I didn't realize that was his motive for the Tuscon shooting.

Yeah, I'm also wondering if Holmes' motviation was a fatalistic farewell to the world.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Grusome image of the backdoor of the theater.



From reuters.

[JME2]

Christopher Nolan has issued a statement in response to the shooting:

"Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of ‘The Dark Knight Rises,’ I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community," Nolan said in a statement.

Nolan continued, “I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime.

The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me.

“Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families."”

And yeah, CaptainChewbacca, gruesome is an apt description of that photo.

[Col. Crackpot]

Grusome image of the backdoor of the theater.



From reuters.

that picture is profoundly disturbing.

[Alyrium Denryle]

But if your doing the job from scratch for a detonator, it gets tricky and it gets very dangerous. However a medical student who may already have a significant background in chemistry is already a step ahead in the process.

"Neuroscience" is a soft-science "interdisciplinary" degree with debatable connections to the real world. (Better than Cognitive Science, though.)

No Marina. It is not. I have no idea where you get this idea. It is certain not physics, it is squishy because it deals with living systems, but it is not soft. Their research is fully quantified, hypotheses are testable, they use experiment in addition to observation.

Please back up your statement, because as someone who studies behavior and finds neuroscience useful, I find statement "interesting" in a somewhat bad way.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

But if your doing the job from scratch for a detonator, it gets tricky and it gets very dangerous. However a medical student who may already have a significant background in chemistry is already a step ahead in the process.

"Neuroscience" is a soft-science "interdisciplinary" degree with debatable connections to the real world. (Better than Cognitive Science, though.)

No Marina. It is not. I have no idea where you get this idea. It is certain not physics, it is squishy because it deals with living systems, but it is not soft. Their research is fully quantified, hypotheses are testable, they use experiment in addition to observation.

Please back up your statement, because as someone who studies behavior and finds neuroscience useful, I find statement "interesting" in a somewhat bad way.

I believe the correct term for what you just described is neurobiology or neurology. As part of this push toward an "interdisciplinary" offering of watered down degrees in universities neurobiology and neurology have been transformed from the strict medical study of the biology of the brain into a collection of fields that mostly exist to employ people. The definition itself says that it is about moving away from a merely biological understanding of the brain, but since the brain is a biological organism, that makes the definition of the field absurd and the field itself dubious. I don't doubt that you can probably cobble together a legitimate neurobiology degree in one of the programmes, but there's plenty of room for simply retarded things as well, watering down the overall quality of research. Now can we please have this argument on AIM instead of in this particular thread? I was just trying to make the point that he may have no actual serious chemistry experience, but may have been on a "social neuroscience" or "linguist neuroscience" track which basically has no science in it, and both of which are offered there.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So ChaserGrey,

Do you think he failed a course or the semester, felt his life was over, and decided to go out with a bang, so to speak?

Just seems so drastic.

Less that and more what Simon said. In the case I'm familiar with, the guy had a pre-existing mental condition, but was also extremely bright and motivated, a high achiever all through high school and college, and at the time he started the program seemed to have his issues under control to the point where they didn't affect his work. The problem is that a doctoral program is hard both mentally and emotionally, especially during the first year where you have to deal with the change in workload, the incredibly high expectations, and the shriveling of your life outside the program. The intense stress caused that controlled mental condition to get out of control, manifest entirely new symptoms and eventually lead to a breakdown. Guy in this story ended up fine, but not everyone's that lucky.

I'm not saying that's what happened here, but withdrawing after a year into a doctoral program basically means he ran into some major, major problems there. Add in the possibility of developing schizophrenia, and you could very easily be talking psychosis. That's my working theory until I hear something different.

That became my working theory the moment I saw he was a graduate student. Graduate school is stressful. Even sane people get a bit erratic, particularly in the sciences, and if you are withdrawing after a year, that means it was too much for you.

If insane already... yeah. I have seen this before. Schitzophrenic girl in our psych program. Had her shit under control with meds, then grad school happened and she was writing shit on the wall of her apartment with her own blood. It was...bad

[Broomstick]

Our culture wasn't saturated with homicidal violence as entertainment back then. Now it's fucking everywhere. Add easy access to weapons and an unstable nutbag and boom. Just like fire... heat, oxygen and fuel.

I am not an expert on 19th century American culture, but I am somewhat skeptical about that. The media of that day -based on what I read - still liked to write about Indian massacres etc, nevermind the whole circus shows which did feature violence etc.

Crackpot is also forgetting legal cockfighting, dogfighting, actual gunfights, legal (and not so legal) dueling, lynchings, vigilante “justice” and the other problems of 19th Century American life. Calling “shotgun” to reserve the seat next to a car's driver originates from the old stagecoach routes when there was a guy seated next to the driver who carried an actual shotgun for defense.

I don't think you could call the 19th Century less violent than the 21st. It is entirley possible the violence manifests in different ways. Also, the less violence in general the more such incidents will stand out in start relief.

Honestly, that's the thing that has everyone I've been talking to confused and outraged-- none of us can think of what the hell might have motivated this guy. Even Harris and Klebold at least had grievances against their fellow students. This guy just kinda went crazy and shot up a theaterful of people, What The Fuck?!

Um... it's not like he's the first disaffected white guy who committed mass murder. Timothy McVeigh, anyone? Well, OK, he didn't act entirely alone, but it was a very small group. How about the Unabomber? Not a single mass killing, but picking people off over the years. Oh, and then there's the more recent Jared Lee Loughner shooting Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords along with a few others. We may not know this guy's motivation right now, but as soon as I heard his white-guy name and that he was in fact a white man I thought “lone wolf” because there are prior examples of white guys operating in ones or twos to commit mass murder.

As for motivation – reports are he told the cops he was the Joker. Well, I guess some men just want to watch the world burn or some happy horseshit.

Though I think our gun laws in the US are still absolutely just fine, within the limits of a few minor tweaks, I have to say emphatically a question which is far more pertinent here. Where the hell did he get smoke bombs and tear gas grenades and why are these legal?

The news this morning was reporting that he may have made them himself. They weren't sure if it was official tear gas or some sort of gaseous irritant. We are talking about a pretty smart guy, college educated, some background in chemistry or the smarts to figure it out himself...

Get some moderately pure capsaicin, for example, you can make a very effective “tear gas”. I don't know how easy it would be to refine it from a raw source in your own kitchen, but if it's not too hard, well hot peppers are perfectly legal to purchase by the bushel. All entirely hypothetical, of course, but the point is making your own tear gas isn't any more unlikely than making your own bomb.

The police are now reporting that he dyed his hair red and identified himself as The Joker when arrested.

Excuse me... doesn't the Joker traditionally have green hair?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Perhaps he got the Joker confused with Ronald McDonald.

[JME2]

I'm guessing Holmes dyed it the wrong color, be it intentionally or accidentally.

[ChaserGrey]

That became my working theory the moment I saw he was a graduate student. Graduate school is stressful. Even sane people get a bit erratic, particularly in the sciences, and if you are withdrawing after a year, that means it was too much for you.

Yeah. I did some thinking about it, and I can't think of a single "good" reason to withdraw after only a year. Yeah, your dissertation can get FUBAR, but that takes longer. If he's leaving after that amount of time, something went wrong.

If insane already... yeah. I have seen this before. Schitzophrenic girl in our psych program. Had her shit under control with meds, then grad school happened and she was writing shit on the wall of her apartment with her own blood. It was...bad

Oh, God, how I wish I didn't know what you were talking about...

[CaptainChewbacca]

It appears it could have been much worse. He had set an alarm to blast loud music in his apartment around midnight, apparently to have a neighbor call in a noise complaint which would have resulted in police kicking down his door and setting off a bomb. That would have pulled all emergency response away from the theater, and would have given him a lot longer to rampage in the movie theater.

The only reason this didn't happen is for some reason his stereo turned itself off before a neighbor got fed up enough to call.

[Coop D'etat]

"Neuroscience" is a soft-science "interdisciplinary" degree with debatable connections to the real world. (Better than Cognitive Science, though.)

No Marina. It is not. I have no idea where you get this idea. It is certain not physics, it is squishy because it deals with living systems, but it is not soft. Their research is fully quantified, hypotheses are testable, they use experiment in addition to observation.

Please back up your statement, because as someone who studies behavior and finds neuroscience useful, I find statement "interesting" in a somewhat bad way.

I believe the correct term for what you just described is neurobiology or neurology. As part of this push toward an "interdisciplinary" offering of watered down degrees in universities neurobiology and neurology have been transformed from the strict medical study of the biology of the brain into a collection of fields that mostly exist to employ people. The definition itself says that it is about moving away from a merely biological understanding of the brain, but since the brain is a biological organism, that makes the definition of the field absurd and the field itself dubious. I don't doubt that you can probably cobble together a legitimate neurobiology degree in one of the programmes, but there's plenty of room for simply retarded things as well, watering down the overall quality of research. Now can we please have this argument on AIM instead of in this particular thread? I was just trying to make the point that he may have no actual serious chemistry experience, but may have been on a "social neuroscience" or "linguist neuroscience" track which basically has no science in it, and both of which are offered there.

The guy was apparently involved in cancer micro RNA studies. That requires a working knowledge of biochemistry. Not an ideal background for bomb making but enough background in general chemistryto be smarter at it than the average bear. Plus practical lab experience in how to successfully follow a protocol.

[Simon_Jester]

The cases I know of people cracking or nearly cracking in grad school are depression, but yeah- I'll back Chaser and Alyrium in this, insofar as I'm qualified to do so.

But if your doing the job from scratch for a detonator, it gets tricky and it gets very dangerous. However a medical student who may already have a significant background in chemistry is already a step ahead in the process.

"Neuroscience" is a soft-science "interdisciplinary" degree with debatable connections to the real world. (Better than Cognitive Science, though.)

If he made it into graduate school, someone was taking his degree seriously- they think that 'debatable' debate was won. He may not have been doing well academically, or he may have; that's another question.

[JME2]

It appears it could have been much worse. He had set an alarm to blast loud music in his apartment around midnight, apparently to have a neighbor call in a noise complaint which would have resulted in police kicking down his door and setting off a bomb. That would have pulled all emergency response away from the theater, and would have given him a lot longer to rampage in the movie theater.

The only reason this didn't happen is for some reason his stereo turned itself off before a neighbor got fed up enough to call.

...wow.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The guy was apparently involved in cancer micro RNA studies. That requires a working knowledge of biochemistry. Not an ideal background for bomb making but enough background in general chemistryto be smarter at it than the average bear. Plus practical lab experience in how to successfully follow a protocol.

Conceded.

[Coop D'etat]

The cases I know of people cracking or nearly cracking in grad school are depression, but yeah- I'll back Chaser and Alyrium in this, insofar as I'm qualified to do so.

But if your doing the job from scratch for a detonator, it gets tricky and it gets very dangerous. However a medical student who may already have a significant background in chemistry is already a step ahead in the process.

"Neuroscience" is a soft-science "interdisciplinary" degree with debatable connections to the real world. (Better than Cognitive Science, though.)

If he made it into graduate school, someone was taking his degree seriously- they think that 'debatable' debate was won. He may not have been doing well academically, or he may have; that's another question.

I also have some personal familiarity with Grad School mental illness. I can easily see this being the far edge of the curve on the kind of reactions you can get. Usually the anger is directed internally and results in depression. To think of that kind of destructive anger directed externally... Well you get the point.

[Lord MJ]

The level of intricacy of his planning of the attack probably rules out an insanity defense even if he is schizophrenic.

[General Zod]

Maybe we should wait until an actual psychiatrist can diagnose this guy before making all sorts of grand proclomations about the state of his mental health? Just an idea.

[Lord MJ]

Oh I agree this could be the result of his schizophrenia, or it might not. But that he conceived to have a stereo blast at full volume to distract the cops so he could spend more time killing people will probably from a legal point of view, blow away any insanity defense.

Part of me wants him to be totally insane, because it boggles the mind how anyone could dress himself up like the Joker and go on a killing spree otherwise.

[weemadando]

Look everyone, clearly the takeaway from this isn't that we need more gun control, but that we need better guns.

If just one upstanding citizen in that theater had been allowed to mount AN/PAS-13s on their personal carry weapons then they would have been able to safely and effectively engage the gunman through the gas/smoke in the darkened theater and save all of the lives and then go on to be your next President and resurrect Ronald Reagan through the power of the Second Amendment.

Additionally, it's also now clear that all theaters should be required to supply MOPP suits under each seat and a short video on how to quickly and safely use the suit.

[JME2]

The level of intricacy of his planning of the attack probably rules out an insanity defense even if he is schizophrenic.

God, I hope so.

This isn't the comics or the Joker and the revolving door at Arkham. This is real life and the thought of him getting off due to an insanity plea sickens me.

[The Romulan Republic]

Keep in mind that being insane does not mean he goes free.