The midnight premier audience was happily anticipating a blockbuster full of violent action designed to transport them out of their mundane reality of Aurora, Colorado. Suddenly, out of the darkness of the theatre an AR-15 assault rifle punctured the gloom with bursts of muzzle flash like firecrackers according to a survivor. Was it real or just a practical joker in the audience? Slow seconds passed as the reality transcended the gun play on the movie screen; then bullets began impacting flesh and seats. So the desperate scramble to survive the attack began. The killer came equipped for a war: clad in black body armor, helmet, gas mask and armed with a portable arsenal of smoke grenades, semi-atomatic pistol, shotgun, and semi-auto assault rifle with a hundred round clip.
Identifying with his favorite super villain, the Joker, an apparently damaged and deranged graduate student came to kill as many people as he could before being taken down himself. Perhaps he even considered achieving a bloody record of the most casualties in a mass murder; the total so far of 12 killed (including a six year-old girl) and 58 wounded, some critically, exceeds the number of casualties at Columbine High School in the 1999 mass shooting across town. The shooter planned the attack for weeks, buying 6,000 rounds and even rigging his apartment with explosive devices. All of the weapons were purchased legally by the former medical student with no police record. America has mixed itself a potent cocktail of warrior culture, easily purchased automatic weapons, and a mentally fragile public conditioned by
a century of cinema in which the gun is portrayed as the great equalizer, a solution to every injustice real or imagined. The after effects of indulging ourselves are becoming harder to endure each time someone's grip on reality fails. No "aberration of nature" is necessary--just belly up to the counter and order your poison, pardner, while we fly the flag halfway up the pole.
