Neuroscience Student Kills 12 ‘Dark Knight’ Audience Members, Has Millions Talking Gun Control

Almost everyone who considered going, or did go to a midnight showing of Batman this morning just experienced a spine-tingling moment of silence and selfish relief.

At around 12:30 a.m., a 24-year-old UC Denver student wearing ballistic armor and a gas mask named James Eagan Holmes brought a machine gun to a Century theater in Colorado and killed 12.

Over fifty of the people in the Denver suburb of Aurora were injured, mostly from gunshot wounds, though some suffered chemical burns from what the police called a “smoke device.” 

The incident has sparked discussions of lax gun control laws in America, with many citing statistics comparing yearly gun-related deaths in our country to the lower numbers of many other countries.

Those discussions of course led to defense of such weapons. According to The Guardian, in 2010 there were 8,775 deaths caused by firearms in our country. That is eight times higher than countries who are economically comparable (Australia, England etc.) to the U.S.

This could be one of those moments where you have to blame more than just guns, and take this man’s thought process (or lack thereof) into account.

We’ll always have some access to guns, but the majority of us would think twice about killing innocent people when we’re handed one.

However, limiting access to the few psychopaths that would walk into a movie with an assault rifle and empty clips into everyone they see is still important. Mayor Bloomberg agreed this morning during a radio interview, calling on Obama and Romney to ‘do something.’

“This is a real problem. No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities – specifically what are they going to do about guns?”

Read: Roger Ebert’s thoughts on the shooting, “We’ve Seen This Movie Before.”