The Shootings in Aurora

Roger Ebert wonders about the relationship between the attacks and the 'insane' gun laws in the United States:

Should this young man — whose nature was apparently so obvious to his mother that, when a ABC News reporter called, she said “You have the right person” — have been able to buy guns, ammunition and explosives? The gun lobby will say yes. And the endless gun control debate will begin again, and the lobbyists of the National Rifle Association will go to work, and the op-ed thinkers will have their usual thoughts, and the right wing will issue alarms, and nothing will change. And there will be another mass murder.

That James Holmes is insane, few may doubt. Our gun laws are also insane, but many refuse to make the connection. The United States is one of few developed nations that accepts the notion of firearms in public hands. In theory, the citizenry needs to defend itself. Not a single person at the Aurora, Colo., theater shot back, but the theory will still be defended.

Back in 2008, the film critic Jenny McCartney argued in the Telegraph that there's Hollywood plays a role in inspiring violence, despite those who insist otherwise:

Is there a link between screen violence and actual violence? Fans of violent films will tell you – frequently in the most aggressive terms – that there is not. Yet we know that children are, to greater and lesser degrees, highly imitative of what they see. We know that there is escalating public concern about violent crime, particularly knife crime, among teenagers. And we know that entertainment aimed at young people is becoming markedly more violent. My generation was terrified by the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; the current one is diverted with torture and agonising death.

Harold Pollack suggests that, this time, we not put the killer's face on magazine covers:

I hope Time and others do better this time. I don’t want to read the killer’s weird manifesto. I don’t want to see his face. I don’t want to see pornographic interest in his weaponry beyond what might usefully inform public policy.

By far the most contentious response I've found this morning was from Juan Cole, who said that everyone was wrong to believe the shooter had no accomplice, and that his accomplice was the gun lobby and a system that allows this sort of event to occur. Even that view seems slightly too extreme for me.

(Image: "Judy Goos hugs her daughter's friend, Isaiah Bow, 20, as Emma Goos, 19, and Terrell Wallin, 20, look on after they all made it out alive from the Century 16. They were gathered outside Gateway High School, where witnesses were brought for questioning." Barry Gutierrez / Associated Press, via LA Times)