14 dead, 50 wounded in shooting at Colorado theater, police chief says

Meanwhile, here come the inevitable Gun Control polls.

He could have used pipe bombs or other destructive devices if he wanted to inflict massive casualties, but he chose a more personal tool, the firearm. His victims are told to be those moving to get out of their seats (controlling). I don't think it was about the numbers of dead for this sick'O, it was about creating panic and having his name associated with the evil he caused. If his conscience where intact, he would have stopped sooner, if he was a smoker he would have lit up a cigarette while waiting in his car.

Tom C questioned: "All this happened in the 90 secondes BEFORE the police got there?"

The Denver Post offers this timeline. It supports a 2 minute reponse. But, as was very recently posted in another thread, seconds matter and the best PD response is minutes, at least.

It also includes a 'youtube video posted' timestamp and the video. You can see cop lights flashing in the background throughout it. At the 1 miute mark, you can see a black man in a blood soaked, striped shirt being walked out by what appears to be a cop. They're immediately followed by a kid in a Batman costume being walked out by a cop. I'm not suggesting that the video started at the same time as the shooting but it does suggest the cops got there quickly.

"I am not surprised he didn't commit suicide . . "

Whether or not he even contemplated suicide is speculation. It's quite evident he had no plans to return to his apartment. Whether that was because he expecteded to be gunned down or that he intended to see it all play out from a jail cell is more speculation. A longer shooting spree and a faster police response or a single, armed Batman fan would have favored the former.

And that gets me to wondering . . "Is this theater (mall/complex, etc) posted 'No Firearms' . . very common in the west.

Edited to answer my own question . .

"On its website, Gun Owners of America, a group opposed to stricter gun laws, blamed Holmes' ability to shoot so many people on the absence of guns in the audience.

"The gunman used a movie gunfight to cover his actions and further surprise the innocent patrons. Worse, the theater in Aurora reportedly has a 'no guns' policy," the group stated. "Despite gun control's obvious failure, the calls for more restrictions have already begun."

"He could have used pipe bombs or . . "

No question that his selection of 4 guns (and all that goes with it) was a calculated choice. He wanted to see the faces of his victims and he wanted it to last. We part company as to why he stopped shooting. I say he went in with the high expectation of being gunned down. This is supposed to be a smart guy, after all. No one shot back and he stopped. You're suggesting that's because he was finished. I'm suggesting he changed his mind.

KennyRoberts tests the conspiratorial waters with this observation: "It would be my pondering/wondering if public opinion is being manipulated to accomplish a goal."

You aren't alone. The timing (looming treaty vote) and the location (proximity to Columbine) make for an interesting coincidence. While the money could have come from anywhere, Holmes is unemployed and collecting. One of the (many and ever changing) Denver Post articles* details the order and number of his weapon, ammunition and equipment purchases . . a lot . . all within the last four months. The reader comments are disturbing. They're also hard to follow because of the number of stories. For such an outdoorsy state, there sure is a lot of anti gun rhetoric.

And, of course, Alex Jones, to no one's surprise, has already cemented the conspiracy. To be clear, I am a known admirer of Alex Jones but I'll be the first to admit that he doesn't do much to advance his cause by arriving at his entirely too premature conclusions. He may be more adept at identifying and thus relying on the telltale markers. I still insist on evidence.

* Searching 'Holmes weapons purchased' produces everything BUT the Denver Post article. Info is all there. AP link says two months.

There are weekends in Chicago where more people get killed than were killed in this Colorado theater.

Oddly, the exact same people who brought us that weekly slaughter, which has become so commonplace as to no longer be newsworthy, point to this incident as "proof more gun control is needed."

Public safety is the LAST thing on their minds. They want the entire country to look like South Chicago.

Secondly, I don't want to be ghoulish, but the kill ratio here was low, of about 70 injured, only 17 percent were fatalities. I don't know if that is because many people were hit by stray shotgun pellets (and so less likely seriously wonded,) or if the killer used FMJ ammunition which, although held in special contempt by the MSM, allows an individual a much higher chance of survival than if he were hit with a common soft-point hunting round.

Several news sources are saying that Holmes had one of those "cutesy" 100 rd drum mags that are made for the AR and are sold all over the internet and other places. Supposedly this jammed at some point as the still partly loaded mag was found on the floor of the theater.

One report out this morning said he then had to resort to "other guns" he had. Yet in the Daily Mail photo essay I posted above, you can see the AR on the ground outside the door and it cleary has a 20 rd magazine still in it. He must have changed mags and kept on shooting with it.

As he was wearing body armor, he must have expected to run into someone who whould shoot back, at some point. Perhaps he didn't know that the theater was a "gun-free" zone.

The press is so friggin ignorant, when it comes to firearms, that it is pitiful!

At least Obama has not come out with more anti-gun talk. His spokesman yesterday said the Pres already thought there were enough laws that we ought to be able to keep guns away from dangerous people.

BTW I don't think Holmes was nuts at all. I think he was more like Ted Bundy in that he very carefully, over a period of months, planned this all out, to the point of booby trapping his apartment, in hopes of taking out some unwary cops afterwards.

Those are not the actions of a lunatic, by any reasonable measure in my book.

WC

Ted Bundy tried to avoid being captured. This guy is facing 12 consecutive life sentences, and just gave himself up. A rational person would not do that.

He had a distorted picture of reality, and what would be the results of his actions.

you can see the AR on the ground outside the door and it cleary has a 20 rd magazine still in it.

There are a couple of types, but this is a 100 rd AR-15 magazine:

Unless it was specifically a drum magazine, from a distance, it would look like a regular AR-15 mag.

The fancy black rifle gear that is sold on the internet is about cool-looking stuff, not cool-working stuff. If you frequent shooting ranges where a lot of people show up, you're always running into some guy who has a Cadillac Esplanade and big mouth who always has the fancy want-to-have-it gun de jure. This guy always spends most of his time there clearing and repairing his weapon.

I was in a gun store a few years ago, and this little weird guy is buying a little .22 automatic "purse" type pistol. He clearly knew very little about guns, and just wanted one, and wanted to pay as little as possible. It was inexpensive and shiny, and gosh, darn it, it was a gun. I actually had one of those guns, in pink, I was going to buy it for my girlfriend at the time. When I took it out to the range, it jammed time and time again, and then finally literally fell to pieces in my hand. It's the cheapest man who spends the most.

Anyway, this guy was so creepy and wanted a gun so badly, that I wondered if he was planning on going home and shooting his wife, or something. I watched the fellow, and for a minute I thought about telling him about my experience with that gun, but the idea popped into my head that I thought the general public would probably be safer if this fellow left the store with a gun more likely to jam than to work properly.

Law enforcement would be making a MISTAKE if they tried to take that stuff off the market. That stuff probably SAVES lives.

Some photos from the Daily Mail essay I posted a link to yesterday.


I admit that, in these pictures, it is hard to see, especially in the one that is blown up, but it clearly is a stick mag, which incidentally looks a lot like the "C-Products" 20 rd mags for the AR that I sell on the internet (me bad in some places today!).

In a story on the news this morning the source clearly states "Drum Magazine".

....."The source said that Holmes allegedly had obtained a 100-round drum magazine that attached to the weapon but that such large magazines are notorious for jamming........... Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, interviewed on “Fox News Sunday,” did not confirm or deny that the gun jammed but said police found a 100-round magazine on the theater floor. He said he did not know whether it was empty"......

Washington Post

One could understand the media being ignorant but one assumes that a cop could probably recognize a drum mag alright. I can only suspect that it was one of those double drum thingies advertised all over the net, that do not work well, or the cops would have them.

I have sold quite a few AR-15 mags in the last couple of years and customers tell me they overwhelmingly prefer 20 rounders. I sell 30's and 40's but there are very few takers. Likely it is because the larger mags don't work well when firing from the prone position.

WC

New stories now say that Holmes was trying to act like a SWAT team member after the shooting, and blend in with responding teams, but an alert, authentic SWAT officer noticed that a portion of his gear/body armor was "unusual," and questioned him. That's how he came to be detained. Doesn't sound to me as if suicide was part of his plan.

I don't buy it. He was just "detained"? Didn't run or fight back?

I think he must have surrendered. The cops are just trying to convince us that they are steely-eyed protectors who miss nothing. The fact is, they didn't and couldn't stop this, the thing that stopped it was the killer.

Not sure. Those details haven't been released, to my knowledge. it wouldn't surprise me, however, since a true narcissist wouldn't want to be harmed.

WMTW Link

Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland said Trooper Phillip Alexander stopped 49-year-old Timothy Courtois in the southbound lane of the turnpike around 10 a.m. Sunday after other drivers reported a speeding Mustang with its flashers on.

According to McCausland, Alexander clocked Courtois at 112 mph, arrested him and took him to the York County Jail.

McCausland said troopers found an AK-47 assault weapon, four handguns and several boxes of ammunition inside Courtois's car. Troopers also found recent clippings of the shooting at the Colorado movie theater.

Courtois, apparently, admitted to taking a handgun into a movie theater in Saco over the weekend - AND - that he was on the way to kill an ex-boss.

Was the AK capable of either full auto or semi auto? If not it was not an "assault rifle".

WC

I don't think the AK-47 exists in a version which isn't full auto, or semi auto.

charlie

Now THAT is a "good job, officers"!

Although, there's something about that story that doesn't seem quite right....

The Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, also is investigating because one of the guns seized from Courtois' home was a fully automatic rifle that is not legal for civilians to own, according to the state police.

Police seize arsenal from Biddeford man who saw 'Dark Knight'

That's not true. A registered machine gun, with a tax stamp is perfectly legal to own. Also, an FFL-1 can own just about any automatic rifle as long as he has legal possession of it, and it is entered into his "book." Guys get FFL-1s (firearms dealer licences) soley so they can get $600 full-auto rifles.

They shoot ammo by the pallet, though. Sure, you get a cheap machine gun, but then, in a single afternoon you shoot $5,000 worth of Wolf .223. It's an expensive hobby, any way you look at it.

Yeah, like driving 112mph with your flashers on and your car loaded with weapons!

charlie

Officer: "So..... where you going in such a hurry?"

Idiot: "I'm going to New Hampshire to shoot my old boss."

What does it matter auto or not?
Look it is the most widely built/copied reliable weapon an excellent killing machine ! That was and is its' only purpose, to arm people, who use it to kill an enemy.
Besides having one because one can,please tell me what the appeal of having one is ? I can see as a collector having an original ,if that could be determined, other than that it is like buying a Coach purse out of a black trash bag in NY city, a knock off!

This guy is a made-to-order right wing nut for the lefties.

I think this was his car before he got the Mustang.

Facebook - employer:

SoNiCdEaThMoNkEy S&D, Inc.

CEO & Founder · Saco, Maine

a young hip start-up S&D company which is a subsidiary of TBD and also includes Tactical Development Corporation

Ths guy is a cartoon. Something about this doesn't make sense.

You know though, his bumper sticker is still correct. Ted Kennedy's car DID kill more people than his guns.

What can be done about it?

Feinstein's "Turn them all in Mr and Mrs America"

Ban all future sales, license all compliant owners, go door to door and search homes for compliance for those non-compliant, do no-knock raids at 3 am?

What kind of country do you want to live in?

Who has been the biggest killers of its own people throughout history? the thug or crazy on the street or a tyrannical government?

There are thousands of gun laws on the books, laws against murder, and somehow only complete government control will solve these situations.

Individuals in societies have always been searching for safety and in the end find there is none.

Tom C

I've quit putting bumper stickers on my vehicles, have peeled quite a few off.

No reason to be targeted for expressing my first amendment rights, should I next scape off my NRA and GOA stickers. Maybe a I support gay marriage sticker or a Obama 2012, but I've still got to work for a living. :)

Maybe I should stop driving some of my old classic vehicles, it might show a mindset that is clinging to the past. After all the cars don't have 4 disc brakes and aren't disposable nor have payments due.

No one said life was easy or that there wasn't risks involved, and it is a matter of considering the risks and planning for same, seems the government types can't seem to understand that.

Probably what turned the Honda guy bad was driving a Mustang where you could actually pass someone going 5 under the speed limit, gave him a false sense of empowerment, so did the guns in his trunk.

......"What does it matter auto or not?"......The Kalishnakov class of weapons are generally referred to by most people as "AK-47's". Within the Kalishnakov family there are numerous variants. The most common, in this country is a semi-auto only version of the AKM which in it's original form is a true "assault rifle" capable of being able to be selected to fire in the semi-auto mode of the full auto mode, by a selector switch on the right hand side of the weapon. The reason this matters to me is that the term "assault rifle" is commonly used by the media and the gun banners to describe all Kalishnakov weapons. The only true assault rifles are capable of full auto fire if desired. All others are "look alikes" at best, not a bit functionally different than my Ruger 10-22 plinker rifle, and the media should be honest with their reporting.

......"Besides having one because one can,please tell me what the appeal of having one is ?"......Bruce, I am a technical junkie, schooled in Mech Engineering and fascinated by any and all machines, which any firearm is. The Kalishnakov is a very simple, but very effective, as you pointed out, military rifle, undoubtedly, at least in my opinion, the best light infantry weapon ever devised by human kind. In a book entitled "The Gun" by C.H. Chivers, which was publised last year, and is a good history on the evolution of the Kalishnakovs, he calls it the single most devastating "weapon of mass destruction" in the history of man. The weapon has been produced in way over 100 million copies, all around the world, and has been used in every war in the last 60 years, and is responsible for the deaths of more people than any other single weapon, including nuclear weapons!

But aside from that, it is still just a tool, no different than a hammer or saw, needing a human component in order to accomplish the mission it was designed for.

I am fascinated by its simplicity and its ability to be worked on by semi skilled people with simple tools. It lends itself to being built into as many variations as the mind can concoct, by people working in their home shops. I have built several and both my sons are fascinated with the gun, for all of the reasons that I am. It only becomes a killer if someone sets out with that in mind, But an ordinary car can become a killer pretty easily too.

We are people who try to be prepared for whatever may come our way. Crime is on the increase, especially with the economy going down the drain, and we expect it to get much worse than it currently it. We have firearms on hand to take care of our personal defense, if need be, and to guard whatever we have from being stolen by those who might be so inclined, when the checks from government stop coming, which I believe they will eventually.

One would have to look pretty hard to find a better weapon to defend ones person and property with than one of the Kalishnakov family of weapons. They are simple, cheap, cheap to shoot, ultra reliable, much more so than an AR-15, and easy to maintain! That is a pretty hard combination to beat these days.

Everybody into guns buys AR-15's for a thousan bucks a pop. I can easily build 4 AK's for that same money, and I have.

WC

WC

I'm mostly concerned about 4 legged critters in my daily work, but I don't fault someone for wanting an AK or AR, so be it. Just like I don't fault someone for wanting a honda vs a mustang, I'm quite surprised to see how responsible some of these mustang owners are vs a wild-eyed Honda driver.

I've always marveled how responsible the vast amount of American society is, considering the amount of people armed to the teeth with vehicles and firearms and how we go about our business with relative minor harm.

While we are not the Queen's subjects, we go about our lives with consideration for each other for the most part.

Just for clarification... a type 1 FFL needs to pay the Class 3 Special Occupational Tax at $500 per year and have a letter from a law enforcement agency expressing their desire to purchase before he can obtain post '86 samples (i.e. $600 machine guns). The FN that Mr. Courtois had is a$7000+ gun even if he has the proper dealer licenses etc.

I suppose it's possible, but it doesn't seem likely to me that a guy who has an AR with a pinned stock and Clinton-Reno ban approved muzzle brake and Thermold magazines still in the blister package negotiated all the legal hurdles to become an NFA firearms dealer. More likely, someone's going to be in a world of hurt.

According to the video on the channel 6 website, it was obvious to the trooper who made the stop that Mr. Courtois had mental health issues. We'll never know the whole story. Fleet Bank isn't going to tell us why they fired him due to employee privacy laws. Chances are, Mr. Courtois' attorney will negotiate some sort of plea deal to divert him into a "treatment" program and he'll be a ticking time bomb back out on the street before too long.

Bruce: Don't fixate on the weapon itself since the only difference between it and any other gun is the action. It undoubtedly has one of the most robust, 'bulletproof' action mechanisms of any firearm ever made, which is why people own them. They were made into sniper versions that are very effective, and the AK-47's are surprisingly accurate despite their short barrel. The cartridge, which is a shortened .308 round, is a nice caliber and effective over a wide array of uses. I like it much better than the M-16 (AR-15).

I have a friend with an FN and it's hardly a $7,000 gun, more like a grand to $4K, depending on the setup and acoutrements. It packs a big whallop with its .308 round (much larger than the AK-47's shortened .308), and I have to wonder why he didn't choose to bring that with him on his trek to NH. If you want to go after someone, the FN would have been a much more effective weapon since it'll blow through a lot of material.

But traveling the interstate at 112 mph with your hazards on, then telling the cop what you're going to do just tells me you want to get caught and get the notoriety before you actually commit the act. While it was certainly serious, I don't put him in the same category as the Aurora shooter.

jeepn correct if we don't fixate on the weapon there will be no discussion of any aspect of the issues.

Two things .
First I understand the desire for some as explained very well by WC.

Second not to fixate but I use the following which I am sure is not excepted but it is true IMHO.

If one goes down a country road in Maine during hunting season and sees a hunter leaving woods w/ a normal looking hunting rifle what would they think?
If one goes down road and sees a person w/ a very reliable etc. etc. etc. AK 47 rifle what is the reaction and what is seen ?

OK it is legal and one can own one etc. etc. but the perception will be totally different!
Most will not choose to understand that which is part of the problem.

By the way I will admit I am prejudice about them I have all the trophy I need ,the bullet from one ,taken from my back.

Any person that can pass the required background check, and has the cash to pay a highly inflated price for same, can buy and possess any legally transferrable machine gun that is on the federal registry. Without knowing the history of this particular firearm, I can only guess as to whether or not it is a legally registered one.

If I had the money I might have one, but about the cheapest I have seen in a while are the stens, and they are running $3,500 and up, plus the $200 transfer tax required before the transaction can be completed. In fact many people think that "transfer tax money" is what the laws are really all about.

If this is NOT a legally registered firearm, and he does not have the proper paperwork, he is facing 10 yrs in a federal prison at least, just for possession. I have read of cases where men have been sentenced to 5 yrs in federal prison.....simply for possessing the auto sear out of an M-16, which ATF considers a "machine gun" all by itself.

I own a number of AK variants and you have to be very careful just what parts you have on hand. If you possess a legal semi-auto AK, and simply have in your possession, the full auto fire control parts, which ofen come with the older parts kits, you could end up in prison also. Any of those parts I have encountered, I have heated and totally destroyed as I have no desire to go to jail. A legal AK receiver has two holes through the receiver for the pins that hold the hammer, trigger and other fire control parts. An AK capable of full auto fire has a third hole through the receiver. It is even illegal to have a receiver with that third hole in it, even if you don't have any other parts.

One thing most of us who enjoy guns are aware of is that ATF takes this stuff very seriously, as they will here. This guy is going up the river on the gun alone, unless he has some good paperwork for it! Guaranteed!

WC

The Debate Over His Conduct In Court

The age of the information highway has no land marks.