12 dead, 58 injured in Colorado at midnight showing of Dark Knight

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-movie-shooting-james-holmes-20120722,0,2746583.story

 

Just for the sake of mental exercise and discussion, let's say you're named the chair of a task force that's been created to curtail these senseless acts of violence. How do you go about quashing them?

I know the easy answer is that you can't, but what steps might help? There have to be some right?

Just wondering out loud.

 

I am dismayed the little f@@kwad won't talk to and is spitting at the authorities.
But I've got to say, I stand in awe of our system.
Here's a man who killed several innocent victims, including a 6-year-old child, a guy on his 27th birthday and another guy two days before his wedding anniversary.
Everyone knows he did it.
He ought to be dragged out of that cell by his thumbs and hanged from the nearest light pole.
And yet our system is stout enough to still protect the rights of a pissant like him.
We all want justice in this case, but there can only be such when the laws are paid heed.

 

Whatever happens to him, he won't be coddled in prison. I doubt he'll be integrated into a general prison pupation if he avoids the death penalty. Even if he does get the death penalty, he probably won't be executed as Colorado has only executed one person in 45 years.

 

I have said for years we need to use this classification of criminal in animal testing.
Sub him right in there.
He was into biomedical research.
Let's give him the career he wanted.
Only he's the subject.
Need James Holmes for a vivisection for chemical warfare research?
Oh, well. Sucks to be him.

 

Beg and plead the media, especially the TV news, to stop sensationalizing them.

It's an important story, but there's precedent for being aware of how coverage affects the world. This kid got everything he wanted: People all over the country watching the aftermath of what he did, feeling the unease and rubbernecking via TV in the name of "getting information." He got the body count plastered all over the news like some kind of high score. His picture everywhere, turning him into some kind of mythic villain.

Report the important facts in a subdued manner, and if you aren't in the local area where it happened, move on to other news the next day.

 

I like your idea a lot, Rick, but unfortunately, if people wanted "important facts in a subdued manner," all TV newscasts would resemble the MacNeil-Lehrer Show.

For better or worse, TV news* gives the public what it wants. And that's dramatic stories trying to piece together what happened to each vicitm, rather than analysis of why there's so much gun violence in our country.

* — Actually, most newspapers aren't much different.

 

I think he's the perfect poster boy to break their moratorium.

 

Not if he pulls a Loughner and a weak judge declares him unfit to stand trial.
Holmes is already showing signs in captivity that he's crazier than a shithouse rat.
Where is the sanity in our government?
Who will rule on its mental competency?

 

Under the flimsiest circumstances, he *might* get a pass for leaving the baby on the floor and bolting.

But getting in the car and driving off?

We've come a long way from our ancestors storming the beach at Normandy.

 

Well, at least that baby will be able to grow up without having his ear burned on the stove.