10 dead, 35+ wounded at Batman premiere shooting

[Aaron MkII]

That in part depends on what the visibilty was like at the time, since we know the perp released some sort of tear gas. I think the bigger question is, if he/she at least took the guy down before he could have done any more damage. As for whether they were would have been trained, weren't some of the people in there military guys?

We're not a magic wand. And it kinda depends on the trade, what if the military guy is a clerk?

Also to consider most militaries frown on soldiers/sailors/airmen carrying weapons off base. If the military in question insists its people go everywhere armed that means spree killers are not your biggest worry. Usually that means you are more worried about hearing "Allah Akubar" screamed out just before the bright flash followed by the loud noise. Or you are in former Yugo.
Most current and former service types that I know don't carry concealed. Maybe it's different in the US. (oddly the one country I've never visited...)

Concealed carry is essentialy impossible for the average Canadian, while an Authoritarization to Carry does exist, CFO's won't issue them.

So if you've got one, your fucking someone.

[Aaron MkII]

Elfie, adult friend finder is a site to find a fuck buddy or one night stand. Its not for hookers, though I imagine they are there.

[Broomstick]

Apparently the guy had, among other scholarship goodies, won a $26,000/year stipend. Well, that might explain where he got the money for guns, bullets, and bombs.

[DarkArk]

Apparently the guy had, among other scholarship goodies, won a $26,000/year stipend. Well, that might explain where he got the money for guns, bullets, and bombs.

Interesting, because there were a bunch of people out there complaining that he must have been a set up since his gear would have cost too much. Where did you find the info? That would much better explain it. Also that the bomb wasn't some top-quality device but rather a homemade incendiary one.

Perhaps because he flunked he'd also lost his stipend?

[General Zod]

Apparently the guy had, among other scholarship goodies, won a $26,000/year stipend. Well, that might explain where he got the money for guns, bullets, and bombs.

Interesting, because there were a bunch of people out there complaining that he must have been a set up since his gear would have cost too much. Where did you find the info? That would much better explain it. Also that the bomb wasn't some top-quality device but rather a homemade incendiary one.

It's all over the news. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162- ... hief-says/

But using his college money to fund the weapons shopping spree isn't exactly a huge stretch of the imagination.

[Sea Skimmer]

It depends a lot on if his guns were new or used, and just how he bought the ammo, but it is hard to see that having been less then 3,000 dollars worth of stuff and it could have been a fair bit more.

[DarkArk]

It depends a lot on if his guns were new or used, and just how he bought the ammo, but it is hard to see that having been less then 3,000 dollars worth of stuff and it could have been a fair bit more.

Some people were making outrageous claims of $20,000 needed for his gear, or at least one article I read did. Most of that came from radically over-estimating the price of the bomb, which as we now know was a home-made incendiary device. Hence why I was interested that he got that much of a stipend.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Oklahoma City bomb cost ~5,000 bucks and weighed 5,000lb, sounds like radically overestimating indeed, even if he'd built a high explosive bomb and allowing for price increases of stuff since the mid 1990s. I wouldn't be surprised if whoever wrote that article was also using figures like 2,500 dollars for an AR-15, which is indeed possible, but only if you went for one with an elaborate finish and the most expensive brand name you can find.

[Darth Wong]

On another board we've got some actual schizophrenics and folks with psych disorders that can cause deranged thinking/behavior. They have given examples of past instances where they did bad things while under the influence of their delusions (though nothing on the level of what this guy apparently did) then "snapped out of it" to the realization they did bad things and a crushing load of guilt. I don't fully understand such things, but I suppose it raises the possibility that his contact with reality waxes and wanes. If he's just come out of some psychotic or manic sort of episode he could be both physically and emotionally exhausted and/or not sleeping properly. I emphasize that is pure speculation, but it could provide an alternate explanation for his demeanor in court today. If he is still fully under some sort of delusion he may not be sleeping due to paranoid ideation, some sort of notion that if he falls asleep some harm will come to him. Sleep deprivation could certainly account for his behavior.

It seems like the planning and execution of this massacre would have taken too long for it to be something he slips into and then snaps out of.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yeah, us crazy people usually don't stay in such a mode long enough to do any real long term goals. Hell mood swings are called such for a reason.

[Broomstick]

It seems like the planning and execution of this massacre would have taken too long for it to be something he slips into and then snaps out of.

The brain is a complex organ that can malfunction in complex ways. While remaining capable of following through on complex planning would be unusual during an "episode" of some sort it's not entirely unprecedented. John Forbes Nash, Jr. remained functional enough to avoid hospitalization from 1970 onwards and do Noble level work in mathematics despite full blown paranoid schizophrenia that included highly delusional thinking and hallucinations. Thank god Nash was more interested in game theory and cryptography than killing people. Holmes is undeniably a genius and may have the mental resources to remain highly functional from the standpoint of planning and execution of complex behavior despite a severe mental dysfunction.

The post that triggered my speculation about all this is here. The poster himself points out that none of us really know what's going on with Holmes, but this gentleman has suffered from delusions that lead to inappropriate behavior and thus has an insight most of the rest of us don't.

Clearly, the boy ain't normal. What Holmes did is simply not normal regardless of what prompted it. It's not normal for a sane person, nor is it even normal for the mentally ill, the overwhelming majority of whom don't go on killing sprees. His behavior in court wasn't normal, either. Was he medicated? Was he sleep deprived? Is this some sort of symptom of a mental illness? We don't know.

[Beowulf]

A lot of people in the military carry, but no everywhere. You can't carry on a military base, because even though you may be trusted with a heavy machine gun, we don't trust you to carry a handgun around on base.

[Lord Revan]

don't you generally carry HMG unloaded and disassembled, compared to a pistol which you'd generally carry loaded and ready to fire.

[Aaron MkII]

Yes. But I don't think that was his point.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Holmes is undeniably a genius and may have the mental resources to remain highly functional from the standpoint of planning and execution of complex behavior despite a severe mental dysfunction.

Where is this coming from? I mean, where are you getting the idea that he is "undeniably" a genius?

[JLTucker]

Holmes is undeniably a genius and may have the mental resources to remain highly functional from the standpoint of planning and execution of complex behavior despite a severe mental dysfunction.

Where is this coming from? I mean, where are you getting the idea that he is "undeniably" a genius?

The same place she got the "dude would kill and bury his girlfriends and if he was sleeping with one, he may have not gone on the rampage."

[eyl]

Most current and former service types that I know don't carry concealed. Maybe it's different in the US. (oddly the one country I've never visited...)

Most current and former military folks I know here in the US don't walk around heavily armed, either.

Even here in Israel, where armed soldiers walking around in public is the norm, most of them wouldn't be taking their weapons to a movie theater unless they came straight from the base (in which case they're probably REMF's and don't have weapons anyway).

[Broomstick]

Holmes is undeniably a genius and may have the mental resources to remain highly functional from the standpoint of planning and execution of complex behavior despite a severe mental dysfunction.

Where is this coming from? I mean, where are you getting the idea that he is "undeniably" a genius?

He would not have been accepted to the PhD program he was in without being extremely academically gifted, nor is the US government in the habit of handing out $26,000/year stipends to just anyone. He had to earn that, and stand out from even the PhD crowd. I know people would like to believe he's a dysfunctional idiot but his academic credentials are exceptional and he was certainly functional enough to plan and execute an operation any normal human being would find challenging.

[Broomstick]

The same place she got the "dude would kill and bury his girlfriends and if he was sleeping with one, he may have not gone on the rampage."

I'm sorry you are incapable of discriminating between pure speculation and a conclusion based on upon evidence, the fact he was on a very exclusive study track you could only get onto by being a stand out even among high performing students.

[JLTucker]

The same place she got the "dude would kill and bury his girlfriends and if he was sleeping with one, he may have not gone on the rampage."

I'm sorry you are incapable of discriminating between pure speculation and a conclusion based on upon evidence, the fact he was on a very exclusive study track you could only get onto by being a stand out even among high performing students.

And I'm sorry you are incapable of pulling shit from your ass when it comes to said speculation. Your post about him murdering prospective girlfriends and burying them was one of the stupidest posts I've read in this thread. How does that at all aid to the discussion about the incident? How is that even sound speculation? It made you look like a joke.

Anyway, here's an update some may be interested in:

AURORA, Colo. — A man who did not sustain injuries but was in the Aurora movie theater when a gunman opened fire last week has hired a lawyer with the intent to sue multiple parties, according to a report.

TMZ is reporting that Torrence Brown, Jr. was in the Aurora movie theater when a gunman shot 70 and killed 12. A.J. Boik was one 12 dead, and was one of Brown’s close friends. Though Brown did not sustain any physical injuries, TMZ reports that he claims to now be suffering from “extreme trauma.”

Donald Karpel will represent Brown, who plans to target three defendants in his lawsuit.

The first defendant named was the Century 16 theater in Aurora, which Karpel claims “was negligent” in not alarming or guarding its emergency door in the front of the theater. It has been reported that suspected gunman James E. Holmes entered through that door.

Holmes’ doctors were also named. Karpel said it appears Holmes was on several medications prescribed by one or more doctors at the time of the shooting and was not properly monitored after these medications were prescribed.

The final party is Warner Bros. Karpel said the film “The Dark Knight Rises” was violent and Holmes was acting out some of the action.
“Somebody has to be responsible for the rampant violence that is shown today,” Karpel told TMZ.

Yes, it's unfortunate that TMZ is quoted, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Somebody has to be responsible for the rampant violence that is shown today

This is fucking stupid; how about the guy with the guns?

[Ziggy Stardust]

He would not have been accepted to the PhD program he was in without being extremely academically gifted,

Academically gifted =/= genius. I know plenty of people first-hand that are in prestigious PhD programs that aren't geniuses, they are just dedicated to their field and work hard. I know people who got PhDs just by being really good at studying; they could recite things by rote but they lacked a comprehensive understanding. According to the 2006 census, 2.5 million people have PhDs; are they all geniuses? And Holmes was in the process of dropping out of the fucking program anyway, because he was struggling academically and did poorly on a big exam.

I am not trying to paint him as a moron or anything. But calling him a genius, I think, is inaccurate.

nor is the US government in the habit of handing out $26,000/year stipends to just anyone.

What kind of stipend was it? What were the requirements? The NIH invests over $30 billion annually, including tens of thousands of such grants and stipends. In fact, without knowing the details of this specific one, these stipends are usually given to the school itself, which then decides how to use them within certain guidelines.

[General Zod]

He would not have been accepted to the PhD program he was in without being extremely academically gifted,

Academically gifted =/= genius. I know plenty of people first-hand that are in prestigious PhD programs that aren't geniuses, they are just dedicated to their field and work hard. I know people who got PhDs just by being really good at studying; they could recite things by rote but they lacked a comprehensive understanding. According to the 2006 census, 2.5 million people have PhDs; are they all geniuses? And Holmes was in the process of dropping out of the fucking program anyway, because he was struggling academically and did poorly on a big exam.

I am not trying to paint him as a moron or anything. But calling him a genius, I think, is inaccurate.

Besides which, being smart doesn't mean he's capable of talking to women at all. (Not to say the idea is necessarily credible, but still.)

What kind of stipend was it? What were the requirements? The NIH invests over $30 billion annually, including tens of thousands of such grants and stipends. In fact, without knowing the details of this specific one, these stipends are usually given to the school itself, which then decides how to use them within certain guidelines.

I dug up this little site after a few seconds of searching. http://chronicle.com/stats/stipends/

$14-20k is hardly out of the ordinary for your average stipend, it seems.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Besides which, being smart doesn't mean he's capable of talking to women at all. (Not to say the idea is necessarily credible, but still.)

Amen to that- in many ways it's a learnable skill, despite what the media fuckwits would have you believe who say that being a nice guy wins the day

[eion]

Somebody has to be responsible for the rampant violence that is shown today

This is fucking stupid; how about the guy with the guns?

Why would you sue somebody without any money?