The Dark Knight Rises Shooting: Blaming the Movies

On July 20th 2012, an incident took place at a movie theatre in the town of Aurora, near Denver, Colorado. A man dressed in black protective gear, including a bullet-proof vest, gloves and a gas mask, walked into a late night screening of The Dark Knight Rises and began randomly shooting at the cinema patrons. Reportedly, the gunman set off two devices which released some form of tear gas into the theatre before starting to fire.

According to some of the surviving cinema patrons, the gunman (thought to be James Holmes, a 24 year old medical student who is currently being held by police) started firing during a shootout scene, causing confusion amongst his targets. Ten people were killed in the theatre itself; another two died in nearby hospitals. More than fifty other people were injured.

This terrible happening has sparked upset and anger from many quarters. Some have spoken on the need for greater gun control in the US, while others are concerned with more social issues; we still don’t truly understand why people decide to commit this type of mass murder, or how to prevent them from doing it.

As with many other atrocities committed by young people with guns, the discussion has inevitably turned on cinema itself. This particular gunman’s selection of a film screening for the scene of his crime, as well as his carefully chosen combat attire, is hard to ignore; once again, people are blaming it on the movies...

To read the rest of this article, head over to Movie Farm