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

I think comedian Rob Delaney was speaking some truth with this tweet:

@robdelaney: Guns don’t kill people. People who say “Guns don’t kill people” kill people. With guns.

 

Or 2:30 a.m., like I did last night.

 

That won't catch everyone. Someone can be completely normal for their entire lives, have a schizophrenic or psychotic break and become completely batshit insane without affecting whatever is in that database. And most people in those states are so completely wrapped up in their own reality that they have no idea they're drifting into insanity, so asking them about their own mental state isn't going to do much good either. And some are able to function normally enough while plotting horrible, terrible things because only they know that the voices in their head are telling them about the vast government conspiracy that they're arming up to stop.

How to prevent the dangerously mentally ill from getting weapons is a very complicated question that a simple database check isn't going to fix.

 

I keep thinking this is one instance in which it really would have helped law enforcement had someone been pirating the movie with their camcorder/iPhone video camera.

 

What would it have helped? Other than getting a clearer picture for the courts and maybe shedding light on a possible motive, it's not like that would have saved any lives. He didn't go on any sort of spree after the initial shooting. I suppose it could be of some use trying to disarm the bomb in his apartment, though.

 

I was thinking about that earlier today.

The newest, plushest theater here has stadium seating. You enter down low - by the emergency exit - then walk up the steps to your seats. In a theater like that, you're trapped. You've got no place to go, because you'd have to run right at the shooter to get to either exit.

 

That's a great point. I love the stadium seating, but I've never seen a theater with emergency exits at the top.

 

Beaker, one of the multiplexes in the Grand Rapids area... which used to be a Cinemark... is in a shopping mall and some of the theaters had exits at the front and at the top. Not to mention it had emergency exits that could take you down to the covered parking lot.

That's the exception more than the norm, but there are theaters out there like this.

 

Several theaters I go to have emergency exits at the top, too.