by bassgeisha
The Dark Knight Rises Theatre Killer July 20 2012 Image from cnn.com front page
I usually do not make a post about news.
However, I just had a talk with a friend and it brought up a few key points that I wanted to address here.
The reason choose to remain silent on news, is due to the volatile nature of my opinions and how they may affect others, or perhaps even perpetuating the infamous noteriety of wayward individuals.
However, I have obviously chosen to make a post about this.
I’m assuming that the killing actually happened last night on July 20th, 2012 early morning midnight showing. It is a top news story all over the USA and even on BBC.Co.Uk
When I make the comments I am about to write, I am applying my knowledge of Anthropology, Sociology, Personal Experience, Dharma studies and minimal psychiatric knowledge (I am also going to draw upon the latest Through the Wormhole from Science channel that aired Wednesday, which discussed the topic of evil and why societies or people become evil.)
*********************************UPDATED
I have decided to update this blog post with a very strongly related book exerpt as seen below. AND a Wired.com scientific article addressing “Patients, Prisoners and Mass Shootings”.
I have also made a decision to update this post with yet another conversation I had on the book of faces. I will post it as soon as I can.******
Finally, I am going to repost the CNN.com writeup that is on the front page at this moment in time, below.
Alright, here we gooo
- Attachment embodies Fear, Aggression, and on the opposite end, Pleasure. Allow me to explain:
Why the heck am I bringing up attachment? Well, one of my first instincts was to say, “Send him to the Electric Chair!!” Not all states in the USA allow the killing of convicts. I do not know how Colorado stands, but I’m pretty sure my state does. However, upon deeper concentration into my own reaction, I realized that I wished the killer to be killed because I was angry, aggressive or perhaps downright hostile. As stated above, this fear comes from attachment to well, life or living and backwardly out of the compassion I felt for the poor injured and murdered souls that were in the theatre. Fear of death is quite common, or some would say, natural. I am NOT by anymeans a well versed teacher of the Dharma or “The Path” I will include a link to a podcast on being at peace with Death, by Michael McAlister of Infinite Smile Sangha.
- That being said, if you allow yourself to become angry or aggressive or hostile, you become that wayward 24 year old killer.
However, the awareness of the hostility or aggression or anger is the BIGGEST and HARDEST step that many in life may unfortunately not achieve. It is also not the end of the lesson. Does it make sense? This idea that when you yourself are attaching to those feelings, that you are immediately placing yourself in that young boy’s mentality, can lead to an immediate rebalancing once you become aware. Once you look deeper, you see that there are several things that may have contributed to this boy’s actions. These aggressive actions are vastly different than the “Fight or Flight” response that is ingrained in all human beings. The response that triggers mothers to sacrifice themselves (not just in humans, but all mammals if I am recalling correctly) for their offspring. Or that response that tells you to run out of the way for fear of being hit by a bus. The podcast link here explains more of this: http://www.infinitesmile.org/2012/06/ismile328-fear-on-the-path/
- Psychological/mental chemical imbalances.
The limited studies that I have learned can easily explain this boy’s actions–including his non-resistant arrest after the incident. This is where the Through the Wormhole bit comes in. On the last episode that I saw, it told the story of a man who had led a perfectly “normal” life by all of society’s standards, until he began experiencing an unknown source of anger and hostility. He took his own life after killing multiple people. His suicide note said that he had requested an autopsy be performed. The autopsy revealed a tumor pressing on the specific area of the brain that keeps hostility and anger in check. This is of course a biological abnormality that explained his actions quite effectively. However, the brain, when out of balance aka in a chemical imbalance can cause all types of mood disorders. These imbalances or even perhaps a misguided way of thinking due to environmental factors can also lead to the boy’s type of behavior–in extreme conditions.
- Why did the Colorado Dark Knight theatre killer not resist arrest?
All of these bulleted notes are, as stated before, my personal insight based on the things stated above. I can think of one reason why this boy would not resist arrest. He seems to be to obviously be desperate in some way. The fact that he relinquished himself to police without a fight or flight says to me that #1 he did not FEAR the police, and maybe even related them to Safety! My theory, just a theory, I ask myself, well, what environmental causes would perpetuate this? I immediately think that to relate police to safety, even after an obviously highly illegal act, means that in his past, he was in either an abusive or violent environment where the police may have been called frequently to restore order. It seems logical to me…
- Pleasure seeking = attachment
Alright, drug use, buying things, vacations? sex…all of these bring pleasure, and with them, attachment. How? Well, as I stated above, FEAR is embodied within Attachment. Pleasure seeking is an escape from the current situation, the current moment. The escapism is rooted deeply in fear. Fear of losing a lover, of a broken heart, of pain physical or emotional, stress…any perceived negative situation. Hence, attachment. Again, once one is aware of this slippery slope of attachment, the balance begins to return. At this point, I can say no more, and will refer you to find any lesson relative to this. InfiniteSmile.org is one of my favorites, but we are all different.
- Being at Peace with Death
Here is the podcast I am posting that has helped me deal with my fears of death and has provided insight into my attachments: http://www.infinitesmile.org/2012/06/ismile329-at-peace-with-death/
UPDATE:
I was given this book by a mercenary friend. I will say no more of his identity. However, I feel the few bits and pieces of exerpt found here may help explain, albeit disjointedly, a bit about the psychology of the Dark Knight Rises Aurora colorado Theatre Killer.
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Book by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman Front Cover – in reference to Aurora Coloradio The Dark Knight Rises Killer – Not a complete set of introduction notes. Simply an exerpt.
Please purchase this book at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316330116/ref=rdr_ext_tmb
VIEW THE PDF EXERPT, WITH ALL COPYRIGHTS HERE: (please copy and paste into a new window, not sure why my link code sends to 404)
http://genuineindividual.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/OnKilling-Lt.Col_.Grossman-Exerpt_Introduction_with_Copyrights.pdf
I DO NOT OWN THIS BY ANY MEANS. PLEASE PURCHASE THE BOOK IF YOU ARE WANTING MORE INFORMATION IN THE LINK ABOVE. THIS IS PARENTAL ADVISORY, NOT FOR CHILDREN!
************************ UPDATE from Wired.com:
Patients, Prisoners, and Mass Shootings
By David Dobbs, Author July 20, 2012 | 9:46 pm | Categories: Neuron Culture, Science Blogs
Follow @david_dobbs
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/mental-health-crime-rates-and-mass-shootings-a-timeline/
Closure of mental hospitals and rise in prison rates, 1934-2010, US. From Bernard Harcourt
The medical resident PetulantSkeptic drew my attention to the graph above, which he included in a short, sad post he wrote last fall:
I’m currently doing a psychiatry rotation at an outpatient behavioral health clinic which primarily serves the substantial indigent population here. I’ve tried to sit down and write about the experience but all that comes out is a structureless jeremiad about the tragedy of a shredded safety net and those with psychiatric problems.
Rather than subject you to that I’d rather just present this chart by Bernard Harcourt.
The graph comes from a paper that Harcourt, a criminologist, wrote after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007, which he blogged about at the Volokh Conspiracy:
Was the tragic incident at Virginia Tech the result of a failure of Virginia’s mental health system? Slate recently posted Seung-Hui Cho’s commitment papers and they are revealing: the magistrate who heard Cho’s case determined that he was “an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness,” but determined that there were “alternatives to involuntary hospitalization.”
After the shooting, Sally Satel at AEI argued that Virginia needs to reexamine its involuntary treatment laws and adopt a lower threshold for commitment, more in line with states like Arkansas and Hawai’i. Others, like Brian Jenkins at RAND, contend that the tragedy probably could not have been prevented and might not have a solution.
It’s impossible to make sense of the debate, though, without understanding the extent to which we’ve dismantled our mental health system in this country. Brick-by-brick, cell-by-cell, we deconstructed what was once a massive mental hospital complex and built in its place a huge prison.
Harcourt isn’t arguing that everyone in prison should be in mental hospitals; the rise in prison population is far more complex than just jailing the unstable. Yet he and many others note that we are imprisoning many people who are mentally ill — essentially because, as a nation, we’re far more enthusiastic about imprisoning people who commit crimes than we are about treating people who are mentally ill.
We should not be surprised that there are so many persons with mental illness behind bars today. We deal with perceived deviance differently than we did in the past: instead of getting treatment, persons who are viewed as deviant or dangerous are going to jail rather than mental hospitals.
The second is that we should not be surprised that our mental health systems are in crisis today. The infrastructure is simply not there. This is evident in states across the country where persons with mental illness are being housed in jails rather than treatment facilities.
He’s not arguing for more institutionalization — but for better treatment. See his post or the paper for more.
I agree too with the many who feel our gun culture — from easy ownership and defend-your-turf laws to a fetishization of violence — makes it far more likely that the violently inclined will express their fury in spectacular ways like the Aurora shooting. I don’t think you can separate the development of an obsessive psychotic fixation from the culture in which it develops; this is why we see these mass shootings so often here in the U.S. and so seldom elsewhere.
((Note from bassgeisha: If you read the pdf above, you will see Lt.Col. Dave Grossman’s Chart and his explanation that we are NOT the only country experiencing mass murder. I would think that any American that knows why we are in the Middle East or come to the aid of refugees of war-torn countries understands that this problem is NOT just us.))
The list of mass shootings in the U.S. since 2005 alone runs 62 pages. Is it coincidence that the alleged shooter dressed up in SWAT-team-like gear? I found it chilling and somehow utterly normal, almost expected, that (if this account is correct), after shooting 71 people in a theater amid a screenplay that reportedly made some at first think this strange live-action before the screen was part of the show, the shooter went outside to his car in the parking lot and there surrendered without trouble to police similarly clad and armed. I found it too easy to imagine that he felt a sort of fraternity with his new captors.
We’ve reached a point where it all feels quite scripted. Yet no one seems tired of this movie.
If you read the introduction to the book above, this scientist/doctor basically just said the same thing. “I don’t think you can separate the development of an obsessive psychotic fixation from the culture in which it develops.”
Very. Interesting. 
As a final note, I feel very compassionate for all involved in this tragic event.
As promised, here is the article on the full news story:
(CNN) — A heavily armed gunman attacked an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater early Friday, tossing tear gas before opening fire on the terrified audience and killing 12 and wounding 38, authorities said. The theater was showing the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises.”
One of the injured was just 3 months old, hospital workers said.
The shooting unfolded inside a darkened theater packed with Batman fans, some in costume for the movie’s premiere. Screaming, panicked moviegoers scrambled to escape from the black-clad gunman, who wore a gas mask and randomly shot as he walked up the theater’s steps, witnesses said.
The shooter used at least four guns — an “AK type” rifle, a shotgun and two handguns, a federal law enforcement official told CNN. The official also said the shooter used tear gas.
Shooting turns movie into surreal horror: ‘This is real’
Police quickly arrested a man believed to be the shooter in a rear parking lot of the theater, Frank Fania, a police spokesman, told CNN.
“He did not resist. He did not put up a fight,” Fania said. Police seized a rifle and a handgun from the suspect, and another gun was found in the theater, he said. It was unclear where law enforcement found a second handgun.
Two federal law enforcement sources involved in the investigation identified the suspect as James Holmes, 24, of Aurora, Colorado.
The suspect was tentatively scheduled to appear in a Colorado courtroom on Monday, although no formal charges have been filed, according to the Colorado Office of the State Court Administrator.
Witness: He pointed gun at my face
Witness: Little girl wasn’t moving
Witness sees shots through theater wall
Police describe Batman shooting scene Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said there was no evidence of a second gunman, and FBI spokesman Jason Pack said it did not appear the incident was related to terrorism.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper issued a statement saying the shooting was “not only an act of extreme violence, it is also an act of depravity.”
“It is beyond the power of words to fully express our sorrow this morning,” he said.
‘Bullet holes’ everywhere: Victim accounts detailed
President Barack Obama said he and first lady Michelle Obama were “shocked and saddened” by the shooting and pledged the administration’s support for victims.
“As we do when confronted by moments of darkness and challenge, we must now come together as one American family,” Obama said.
Chaos broke out during the showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” at the Century Aurora 16 theater when the shooting began, police and witnesses said.
The gunman went to the rear door of the theater and propped it open, then tossed a canister before starting to shoot, according to a federal law enforcement source involved in the investigation.
A federal law enforcement official told CNN the man used tear gas.
One moviegoer, who was not identified, told KUSA the gunman was wearing a gas mask.
Some people in the audience thought the thick smoke and gunfire were a special effect accompanying the movie, police and witnesses said.
The smoke smelled like a Fourth of July firework, said CNN iReporter Adam Witt. It took a few gunshots before he figured out what was going on.
iReporter witness: ‘We have to run’
“There were so many people running,” he said. “I didn’t look back. I just remember getting up from the floor and shouting, ‘We have to drun.’”
Witt said he held his wife’s hand as they rushed out of the theater.
“There was a moment where I lost her hand, but I grabbed her shirt,” he said. “We didn’t let go of each other.”
Quentin Caldwell, who was attending a screening in the adjacent theater, said he wasn’t sure at first what was going on, despite hearing a “pop, pop, pop, pop” sound.
“We really didn’t know something was happening until someone came from the left entrance and said we should not go outside because somebody with a gun was out there,” he said.
Armed guards appeared at the theater exit and demanded audience members raise their arms to ensure they were not carrying weapons, then told them to run, Caldwell said.
“Outside was chaos. There was wounded everywhere,” he said.
Cell phone video taken by someone at the theater showed scores of people screaming and fleeing the building. Some had blood on their clothes.
A police officer carried a girl believed to be about 9 with gunshot wounds to her back out of the theater, a witness said. “She wasn’t moving.”
Timeline: Worst mass shootings in U.S.
Officers rushed many of the wounded to hospitals in their patrol cars.
Authorities also evacuated the suspect’s Aurora apartment building after he made a statement about explosives in his unit, Oates said.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents went to his home to search for explosives, agency spokesman Tom Mangan said.
Law enforcement officers who searched the suspect’s apartment found “items of interest,” a federal law enforcement source involved in the investigation told HLN. He did not elaborate.
A woman who lives across the street from where the suspect is believed to live said police evacuated her building around 4 a.m.
“They told us there was a bomb or bomb material located in the house across the street from us.” Rebecca Bradshaw said.
In addition to looking into the possibility of explosives, ATF agents also are conducting emergency traces on the weapons to see how they were obtained, Mangan said.
Authorities also searched the suspect’s car in the parking lot of the movie theater.
KWGN: Witnesses first thought gunfire was part of movie
Police initially said 14 people had died — 10 in the theater and four at area hospitals — but revised the death toll to 12 later Friday morning, according to Aurora Police Lt. Jad Lanigan.
Several people remained in critical condition at area hospitals.
Of the wounded, at least 20 were being treated at the University of Colorado Hospital, said spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery. All of the wounded suffered from gunshot wounds, which ranged from minor to critical, she said.
“They’re arriving by police, by ambulance. Some are walking in,” she said.
The victims being treated there ranged in age from 3 months to 45, the hospital said.
Denver Health Center had six patients from the shooting, one in critical condition and five in fair condition, said Shelly Davis, house supervisor.
Swedish Health Center spokeswoman Nicole Williams said her hospital was treating three people, two of them in critical condition and one in fair condition. A fourth patient with minor injuries was treated and released, she said.
Parker Adventist Hospital was treating two people for minor injuries, according to a spokeswoman.
Hundreds of police officers descended on the theater, and the FBI has joined the investigation.
Opinion: Gun control won’t stop mass murder
“We were calling for help from every police and fire agency,” Fania said.
Warner Bros., the studio behind the movie, said the company and filmmakers were “deeply saddened” to learn of the incident. The studio canceled the movie’s Paris premiere, while New York police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said his officers would watch over screenings of “The Dark Knight” to prevent copycat shootings.
Obama was expected to speak about the incident at a campaign event in Ft. Meyers, Florida, on Friday morning. He pulled some advertising and canceled a second campaign event scheduled for Winter Park, Florida, according to his campaign. He will instead return to Washington, the campaign said.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney also issued a statement, saying he and his wife Anne were “deeply saddened by the news of the senseless violence.”
Aurora, a Denver suburb, is about 13 miles from Littleton, Colorado — site of the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
In that incident, two teenage students, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, armed themselves with guns and bombs and opened fire inside the high school. They killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before killing themselves.
Are you there: Share your story on CNN iReport.
CNN’s Carol Cratty, Mike Brooks, Ed Payne, Joe Sterling, Tina Burnside, Mike Brooks and Jim Spellman contributed to this report.
Quoted from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/us/colorado-theater-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Some of you might want to know my stance on gun control at this point. I consider myself a Centrist, and have voted multiple ways. I believe that there are SO many gun owners in the USA as is our right as in the 2nd Amendment. Why did they make that the 2nd Amendment, after free speech? Because hello, the British were invading! Let us not forget the entire reason it was put in place. If war were on our shores (which well, that’s a whole other issue) but I’m talking about mass outbreak or invasion, and none of the law abiding citizens had guns or even knew how to use them, then what? I am all for drug testing, psychological evaluations, something other than a knee-jerk reaction of “TAKE ALL THE GUNS AWAY, GUN CONTROL GO GO” I am in full support of gun training, certification, SAFETY and other necessary training than just the knee-jerk reaction of Gun Control. Stricter gun laws, sure, I got that. But how did the Theatre Killer learn how to booby-trap his apartment. It just all goes back to *knock knock knock* what’s up there in your head. I have not heard any sort of drug test result from the killer. Why? Is it just not released yet? Every single person in North Korea is trained in their army. They all know how to use weapons due to their high risk of invasion. Sure we can pull the cover over our heads, but why not “ARM THE HOPELESS” as RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’s guitarist’s guitar says? Please, people, do not take that literally, it is proven that those in a hopeless state will either take their own lives or possibly the lives of others. THE PHRASE IS NOT LITERAL, but Sociological, or Sociopolitical…Intellectual. Got it? (I know that is a very powerful, perhaps volatile example.)
Gun safes I think should also be a requirement to prevent kids from accidentally killing themselves or others. Why is this not common sense?
In all honesty, the 2nd Amendment is a right, although it must be handled cautiously. The more I read, the more my Anthropological training is kicking in saying, this is a culture thing. We are enabling violence by repressing it. READ THAT PDF YOU’LL KNOW WHAT I MEAN. We ALL must take responsibility for that killer’s actions in Colorado, and work past the first instinct reaction to say MORE GUN CONTROL or um, no, it isn’t our media, no we aren’t a war-like country fighting for Democracy or engaging in a war where an entire sect of religious extremists are working with what they have to exterminate us. If pulling the cover over your head made your home invader “not see you” then that would be awesome. The fact is, the psychology of that killer was developed from the time he was young, and influenced by our violent culture. The fact that he was supposedly a neuroscience student and is now a near-convicted murderer is astounding to me. It shows that we have no way of currently “testing” gun owners. Maybe a yearly test paid by the gun owner, PER GUN? eh? I do not have all the answers but I understand the NRA’s desire to wait until more information is revealed. This article has turned into quite a monster, starting out monstrous from the get-go.
Another idea, why are we not autopsying the clinically insane either through imaging or visceral means to learn more about what it was that drives people to be that way?
The first thing I’d want to do to James Holmes is stick him under whatever it is (Functional neuroimaging) that makes your brain light up when exposed to certain stimuli. While he is still alive.
Then again, all of this is just grasping at straws. Fear is natural, but maybe once one’s awareness of fear is had, as I stated at the near beginning of the article… If we can’t explain psychopathological or sociopathic behavior, then we are left with what I would hope is common sense and ideally, awareness of what is fully going on in our culture today, and taking steps to change it. How could we do this without impeding on free speech? Parental controls? I figured out my Dad’s code when I was young. It is so much easier to hide than to accept responsibility or accountability for our own culture here in America, where we ideologically have control over what happens?
I am not sure if I’ve stated this before but man, you take away the weapons, who is to say Mexico wouldn’t start importing them along with all the drugs our “War on Drugs” is so successfully stopping? And we’ve been at it for how long? heh. Unfortunately, we as a country have proceeded into a level of technology due to well, initial Europeans invading America being the beginning of the development of our culture. Guns “won the west” but at what cost? Why aren’t we looking backwards, into our past, to help explain the present and develop intelligent ideas for the future in a direction that maybe all of us can agree on?
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman asserts that it is our violent culture that is literally “conditioning” our children to be predisposed towards violence. I’m going to go tangential for a moment and it all has to do with my personal experience of what is going on “up there” *knock knock*:
I will admit that I was a very angry teenager. I hated well almost everything going on in the world, violence, money, greed, fake people with their fake smiles. However, I was blessed enough to have grown up in a household where my Dad taught me, “Attitude is everything.” “Always be nice, there is never a reason to be mean.” amongst other many…common sense ideas. I say that with caution. However, deep down, I was still very upset and couldn’t place why. I listened to angry music (can’t stand horror films but love action…however there is a lot of killing in almost any action film now) but I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have nor have I ever had absolutely any intention to go out and hurt another being…be it cat, dog, bird, person, etc. I guess the farthest I may go is calling Orkin lol.
I grew up in a near tortured state—self-inflicted, only, and trying to come to terms with the world I am in. “You are your own worst enemy sort of thing”…
*sigh* *think* This is I guess where I’m going to defer back to my original writing of anger, fear and attachment. I was ashamed of being an angry teenager, especially growing up in such a loving household. However, even as a teenager, I was never rude, to any classmate. I learned early on in Elementary school how powerful words can truly be. I’ve suffered through huge self-esteem issues after my first mistreated me, cheated on me…and I was still completely loyal, although it came at a price larger than I could have imagined at the time. I will admit that after our reuniting our relationship was tit for tat at times. It was many years before I became aware, and snapped out of this self-pity induced hole. Current health issues are trying to eat away at it again, but I’m very stubborn (and aware of that slippery slope). 
As far as being angry inside? Maybe I am when things like this article come up. Or I’m annoyed at literally, the media/tv. I try to stick to science channel or maybe comedy like the Big Bang Theory (love Sheldon lol).
I digress, however, it may relate me with some of you out there who may have gone through the same thing. Anyways, my point is that environmental factors are a huge part of the growth and development of the psyche, as stated above.
Ultimately, I suppose yes I am definitely for GUN SAFETY (if you wish to call it GUN CONTROL that is your preference). But to remove all the weapons in America just wouldn’t happen.
People would hide them, bury them, claim someone stole them or that they sold them…all of these may be law abiding citizens that owned guns legally. I’ve already spoken about the black market side of things. Do I wish we as humans could live peacefully with the earth? Yes, most definitely. The Earth being other humans as well. However, we need to figure out this violence culture that is developing/developed in our own country as well as others. That is for certain. Will there be an easy fix? Well, how easy is it to fix yourself? To change a habit? To some it may be easy, but we are all different. Not everyone will agree. This is basically a tightrope, a topic requiring balance, intelligence and dear God hopefully common sense.
