NBC News and CNN are both reporting that Aurora, Colorado police officer, Jason Oviatt took the stand this morning during the opening day of James Holmes' preliminary hearing. Holmes is the bright young fellow who opened fire on an audience of movie goers on July 20th last year. By the time he was done 12 patrons were dead and another 59 were wounded.
According to reports by both organizations Oviatt heard the radio call of the shooting during a routine traffic stop and immediately rushed to the rear of the theater. His initial reaction when he saw Holmes dressed in black and wearing body armor was that he was another police officer. When he realized he was, in fact, confronting the shooter Oviatt drew his weapon and ordered Holmes to raise his hands. In his words the suspect was "very relaxed." He testified that Holmes complied readily to every command and volunteered that his apartment was booby trapped, Oviatt also used the word, "detached" to describe the suspect. He added that Holmes was "dripping with sweat" and his pupils were dilated. Finally, in a moment of grand understatement, Oviatt said that James Holmes, when arrested, "didn't display normal emotions."
No, I suppose he wouldn't since he was and still is as batty as a bed bug on acid. Legal analysts are speculating that his attorney's will enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Daniel King, the public defender representing Holmes contends his client suffers from mental illness and says he has two witnesses ready to testify to that.
Ok, we got it. We also know that while in the depths of all this terrible craziness he spent months plotting the attack, buying up weapons and ammunition legally from various sporting goods outlets and online vendors. We know he took the time to wire his apartment to explode upon entry. We know he bought a ticket to the movie, snuck out the back exit of the theater, changed into SWAT team type gear, then re-entered, armed and ready to rock an roll.
Currently he faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder, and some weapons possession charges that no doubt the NRA will heartily contest, because, after all, that is what the NRA does. The smart money says this will never get to an actual trial. That by the time the hearing is over the defense will figure their only real hope to keep this guy from taking a hot shot in a vein is to let the state chuck him into the slammer for the rest of his unnatural life without any possibility of parole.
Meanwhile over the weekend, back in Aurora, police confirmed two men and one woman were shot to death in a home early Saturday morning. A second woman escaped the scene and reported the shooting to police. When the cops arrived the gunman was still alive and kicking. Negotiators tried to talk him out of the house over a period of several hours. A police news release described how that went in this way, "He was behaving very irrationally throughout the incident and often hung up on the negotiators."
Finally after opening fire on officers not just once, but two times the police shot and killed the still unidentified man.
So there we have it. Crazy people do bad things with guns. It appears we have two choices. Get rid of the crazy people. You know, throw weird old uncle George and every kid with Asperger Syndrome into an asylum. Or, we can restrict the availability of guns.
Now which of those two options seems more a of restriction on personal freedom? I'll admit it is just me, but I tend to think that locking up, or forcibly medicating everyone who might go nuts is a tad more totalitarian than simply getting rid of the weapons of mass murder. I don't know if that sullen young kid down the street will go off or not, but I do know what a Bushmaster .223 with a thirty round clip can do and it isn't pretty.
We have proven time and time again that this culture, that the nation as a whole, cannot control itself when it comes to guns. If we have them we are going to use them.
And we're going to use them on each other.
Say good bye to the Glock, America. Now is the moment to put a lid on all your outlandish patriotic fantasies, not to mention your emotional and psycho sexual dependence on killing machines. In other words, grow the fuck up. Your act is not only tiresome, but deadly. Quite frankly it is time for it to end and I mean end right now.
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