Colorado Governor Hickenlooper won’t blame gun laws for theater shooting

[Teh One Who Knocks]

by Eli Stokols - FOX 31 Denver


DENVER – Pressed by interviewers to comment on Colorado’s gun laws during three appearances Sunday morning on national news shows, Gov. John Hickenlooper just wouldn’t go there, expressing doubt that tougher gun control laws would have prevented suspected shooter James Holmes from mowing down 70 unsuspecting moviegoers just after midnight Friday.

“This person, if there were no assault weapons available, if there were no this or no that, this guy’s going to find something, right? He’s going to know how to create a bomb,” Hickenlooper said when pressed by CNN’s Candy Crowley on her show, “State of the Union”.

“Who knows where his mind would have gone? Clearly a very intelligent individual, however twisted.”

Hickenlooper noted that Holmes isn’t cooperating with police and described the 24-year-old neuroscience student as “diabolical” and a “twisted, really delusional individual.”

On ABC’s “This Week”, Hickenlooper similarly refocused questions about gun laws on the disturbed individuals who put them to deadly use.

“I’m sure [a conversation about gun control] is going to happen but this wasn’t a Colorado,” Hickenlooper said. “This is a human problem and how we can have such a warped individual and no one around be aware.”

Congressman Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, took a different view.

On Sunday’s episode of CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Perlmutter said that Congress should reinstate a ban on assault weapons in the U.S. that included the AR-15 semiautomatic that Holmes used inside the theater.

That assault weapons ban expired in 2004; and while President Obama talked about renewing it on the campaign trail in 2008, he hasn’t followed through.

Pointing out that the suspect had enough ammunition “for a small army,” Perlmutter said “there’s something wrong with that.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been the most outspoken public official calling for stricter gun control laws since the Aurora shooting, as has Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock is a member of the “Coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns”, but hasn’t touched on the subject of gun laws since the Aurora theater shooting and declined FOX31′s request to interview him on the subject.

[Acid Trip]

Good on the governor.

[Noilly Pratt]

A motivated killer will find a way to get a gun if that's what they want, laws or no laws. The laws are needed for more crimes of opportunity, rather than the plotted, premeditated ones.

[Acid Trip]

A motivated killer will find a way to get a gun if that's what they want, laws or no laws. The laws are needed for more crimes of opportunity, rather than the plotted, premeditated ones.

That and the fact Aurora, CO has some of the strictest gun laws on the books already.

[Arkady Renko]

seems like this particular killer would indeed have been able to use bombs instead if he hadn't gotten his hands on an assault rifle, seeing how he booby-trapped his flat. But by and large it would seem like a good idea to ban assault rifles for private buyers. They make killing large numbers of people a lot easier and I can't really see any reasonable explanation why someone would need one.

[Hal-9000]

seems like this particular killer would indeed have been able to use bombs instead if he hadn't gotten his hands on an assault rifle, seeing how he booby-trapped his flat. But by and large it would seem like a good idea to ban assault rifles for private buyers. They make killing large numbers of people a lot easier and I can't really see any reasonable explanation why someone would need one.

Using a gun will always be easier than trying to build a device that may not work...or using a knife to try and take down 50 people within 10 seconds...

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Using a gun will always be easier than trying to build a device that may not work...or using a knife to try and take down 50 people within 10 seconds...

For $30 someone could have killed everyone in the theater....chains, padlocks, and 5 gallons of gasoline...no firearm needed.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

If the gun laws allowed carry and concealed he would have killed 1 person.

[Hal-9000]

unbelievable...you guys are hilarious

[PorkChopSandwiches]

Im serious

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Im serious

So was I

[Muddy]

Using a gun will always be easier than trying to build a device that may not work...or using a knife to try and take down 50 people within 10 seconds...

I agree..

[Hal-9000]

I'll paraphrase Meur's post....assault rifles make killing large numbers of people easier.


Using examples of chaining theater doors shut while somehow coating the theater with gasoline is absurd in comparison...it's the ease of killing we're talking about.

I had a few other lines but will not post...there's no point anymore.

You guys keep worshiping the altar of the gun, love the gun...for it's never the problem when 20 people die

[Teh One Who Knocks]

And you keep pushing the guns are evil agenda, so I guess we're even

[Hal-9000]

I know you are but what am I?


I don't think that's accurate or fair Lance. I don't push any agenda. I read a story like this, see the common denominator and comment. I guess if some guy busted into a theater with a whiffle bat and killed and injured over 50 people within 60 seconds, I'd make the same observation about whiffle bats.