Batman shooting suspect bought large stockpile of rounds

[hellfire_m16]

Denver: Unhindered by federal background checks or government oversight, the 24-year-old man accused of killing a dozen people inside a Colorado movie theater was able to build what the police called a 6,000-round arsenal legally and easily over the Internet, exploiting what critics call a virtual absence of any laws regulating ammunition sales.

With a few keystrokes, the suspect, James E. Holmes, ordered 3,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, 3,000 rounds for an assault rifle and 350 shells for a 12-gauge shotgun - an amount of firepower that costs roughly $3,000 at the online sites - in the four months before the shooting, according to the police. It was pretty much as easy as ordering a book from Amazon.

He also bought bulletproof vests and other tactical gear, and a high-capacity "drum magazine" large enough to hold 100 rounds and capable of firing 50 or 60 rounds per minute - a purchase that would have been restricted under proposed legislation that has been stalled in Washington for more than a year.

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Mr. Holmes, a graduate student in neuroscience with a clean criminal record, was able to buy the ammunition without arousing the slightest notice from law enforcement, because the sellers are not required in most cases to report sales to law enforcement officials, even unusually large purchases. And neither Colorado nor federal law required him to submit to a background check or register his growing purchases, gun policy experts said.

A few states like Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey, and cities like Los Angeles and Sacramento, have passed restrictions on ammunition sales, requiring permits for buyers or licenses for sellers, or insisting that dealers track their ammunition sales for law enforcement.

But in Colorado, and across much of the United States, the markets for ammunition - online and in storefronts - are largely unregulated, gun-control advocates say.

Law-enforcement officials have refused to say whether Mr. Holmes bought the ammunition from multiple sources or spaced out the purchases over several weeks to avoid drawing attention.

But as investigators combed through the contents of his apartment on Sunday - its explosive booby traps now defused - new details began to emerge of his activities in the weeks leading up to the rampage. They sketch a picture of man once captivated by the science of the human mind growing increasingly interested in weapons and how to use them.

On June 25, Mr. Holmes e-mailed an application to join the Lead Valley Range, prompting the owner, Glenn Rotkovich, to call back, more than once, to invite him to a mandatory orientation meeting. Nobody ever answered, but Mr. Rotkovich described the voice message as nearly incomprehensible.

"It was this very guttural, very heavy bass, deep voice that was rambling incoherently," Mr. Rotkovich said. "It was bizarre on a good day, freakish on others."

Mr. Holmes never called back about joining.

In early July, Mr. Holmes ordered a Blackhawk Urban Assault Vest, a knife and two magazine holders from a Web site called Tactical Gear, according to an order slip provided by the company's chief executive, Chad Weinman. He chose expedited two-day delivery to his apartment in the eastern Denver suburb of Aurora, where the shootings took place early Friday, just a few miles from Mr. Holmes's apartment.

"I think it conveys a sense of urgency and shows premeditation," Mr. Weinman said in an interview, adding that the company was "deeply saddened" its gear had apparently been used in a mass killing.

Three weeks after that purchase, stunned and bleeding witnesses outside the Century 16 multiplex in Aurora would describe how a man dressed in a black commando-style outfit and a gas mask strode into the theater where they were watching a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," tossed some gas-spewing grenades into the packed auditorium and opened fire.

A law enforcement official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue said that local investigators in Aurora believed the gunman's semiautomatic rifle jammed as he was spraying the theater with bullets, forcing him to switch to a slower weapon. Had the gun not jammed, the official said, many more could have died.

The police apprehended Mr. Holmes outside the theater minutes after the shooting, still wearing the body armor. He had four guns with him. A law enforcement official said he also had tablets of Vicodin, a painkiller, in his possession.

Chief Daniel Oates of the Aurora police praised the arresting officers on the CBS program "Face the Nation" for noticing that Mr. Holmes' gear was not quite like that of the other S.W.A.T. officers or he might well have escaped, mistaken for one of the responders.

Gun-control groups said the purchases of the ammunition demonstrated how easily anyone could build a veritable arsenal without attracting attention from state or federal law-enforcement officials. Gun groups replied that stricter controls would not make the nation safer, but would only restrict constitutional rights.

Only a handful of states and cities have passed any laws requiring that gun dealers keep track of who is buying ammunition.

"It's a wide-open marketplace," said Tom Mauser, a gun-control advocate in Colorado whose son was killed in the 1999 Columbine shootings. "The Internet has really changed things. You don't have to show your face. It's anything goes."

Some top law-enforcement officers were among those calling for more restrictions on ammunition sales.

"I have an issue with people being able to buy ammunition and weapons on the Internet," Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey of the Philadelphia police said on the ABC program "This Week" on Sunday. "I don't know why people need to have assault weapons. There needs to be reasonable gun control put in place.

"And we talk about this constantly, and absolutely nothing happens, because many of our legislators, unfortunately, at the federal level, lack the courage to do anything."

The ammunition and arms Web sites are prolific online. They work like any small hubs of e-commerce, only with warnings to patrons that, under federal laws, they must have clean criminal records and must consult local laws before making their purchases. Buyers can pick up cases of bullets, clips, speed loaders, targets and a wealth of other gear associated with shooting, hunting or target practice.

A 1999 bill in Congress aimed at regulating Internet sales of ammunition was never adopted. Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced measures to restrict the sales of large-capacity magazines, but neither measure has gained any traction with the House controlled by Republicans, who tend to be strong supporters of gun rights, and election-year politics shunting politically volatile issues like gun control to the side.

"It is a war tool," Representative Carolyn McCarthy, Democrat of New York, said of the 100-round drum that the police say Mr. Holmes purchased online. "They're meant to kill. They're meant to kill as many people in as short a period of time." Ms. McCarthy's husband was among six people killed in 1993 by a gunman on a commuter train.

But after the Colorado shooting, Democrats and Republicans cast doubt on whether tougher laws could have averted the killing, diminishing the political stomach for any immediate changes in gun laws. Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, told CNN's "State of the Union" that the killer might have built a bomb or found some other lethal device if no assault weapons had been around. And Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, defended people's rights to own large-quantity ammunition magazines.

"The fact of the matter is, there are magazines, 30-round magazines, that are just common all over the place, and you simply can't keep these weapons out of the hands of sick, demented individuals that want to do harm," Mr. Johnson said on "Fox News Sunday." "And when you try and do it, you restrict our freedoms."

To gun groups, such an unfettered marketplace stands as a bulwark of their Second Amendment rights.

Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said there was no need to track sales of ammunition or require ammunition dealers to follow the same strictures as gun dealerships. He said law-abiding sportsmen and target shooters often bought ammunition in bulk to save money, and may keep rounds on their shelves for years. He said they can easily blow through 400 or 500 rounds in one vigorous day at a shooting range.

"I call 6,000 rounds of ammunition running low," he said.

© 2012, The New York Times News Service

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/suspe ... topstories

[YogiBear]

Yes, 6,ooo rounds depending on who you talk to is a Small amount of ammunition.

I have a friend who reloads 30-06, 45 acp, 38/357and others by the 5 gallon bucket full.

I'm not that bad. I will admit to reloading several 1,000s of rounds of handgun ammo a week

when I was shooting IPSC.

Most of us have Dillon progressive reloaders. 500 rounds and hour on a slow day.

Buy several pounds of powder at one time. Case of 5,000 primers and cast 500+ lead bullets

in on night. Reload all 500 in the next day. Shoot it all in one Sunday match.

Right now, I have at least 1,000 hard cast heads for my 375 H & H, Winchester Big Bore and Marlin rifles.

You should see how many rounds we go thru teaching a basic handgun class in 3 hours.

[Corjack]

I have between 30,000, and 50,000 rounds of ammo in my house, and have no plans on ever harming a soul, except for paper targets, steel gongs, and an occasional deer.

The media is leaving a lot of things out concerning this shooting rampage. They are not even discussing that this fellow had ties to an extremest group offshoot of the Occupy Wallstreet bunch. If this is the case, then he is just a terrorist, and terrorist never let laws tracking the sale, or limiting the sale of ammunition interfere with their terrorism.

[Mark]

If you ask a professional chef how many knives he has, and then ask a college student how many knives they have and compare the two I suspect you can get the college student to say "Why does any person need to have so many knives?! I can't understand it, so we should make laws restricting everyone to only one knife, because that is how many a person needs to have."

That would sound rather silly wouldn't it? Now substitute a different object, whether it is guns or fast cars, and apply the same logic.

[xl_target]

Only 6000 rounds? Of course the police chief is formerly from New York City so he would think that 6000 rounds is a lot. They have a lot of strict gun and ammunition laws in NY, restricting this and restricting that. Yet their crime rate is very high compared to most other US cities. Now that didn't quite work out the way they planned it, did it?

It also doesn't work for Chicago, Washington DC, Los Angeles or Detroit, among others that have very strict gun laws. Politicians everywhere will continue to propose "quick fixes" that do nothing to actually solve the problem. All they do is restrict the rights of law abiding citizens. There are 8 million peoplein the US with carry permits. As a subset of the general population, they have an incredibly low rate of committing crimes. Punishing them for the misdeeds of criminals will just make the problem worse, not better.

[essdee1972]

Sad incident. RIP ...... all the dead!

Even sadder is the fact that people do not realise that the only way to stop such crazies is to fill the room with guns, i.e. people carrying guns.

I had a small doubt here. Was checking on the net, nobody says anything about where he bought the gas grenades from. I also read somewhere that those are not available for civilian purchase in the US. Can some of our US friends enlighten me on this?

Moreover, what about the "explosive booby traps" in this psycho's apartment? Where did he get the "explosives" from? I don't think you can walk into a WalMart and ask for "5 pounds of C4 and a timing device, please"!!!

[Ravenn]

Interesting read, although many points have already been covered by IFG members

http://www.absoluterights.com/newslette ... 0120724%27

[YogiBear]

Aloha,

The difference between those who would BAN everything and "us" is that they want everyone else to

be as helpless and hopeless as them in terms of self defense.

For them, just the thought of self defense is "unthinkable". Sheep in other words.

We on the other hand have a Dog or Sheepdog mentality.

It is in our genes to defend oursself and family.

They want someone else to be responsible for their safety.

We are capable defending ourselves.

Two totally different thinking.

[Sakobav]

There are few things that are being lost here - core question is how does some one slip out of emergency exit go out dress up with armor weapons etc and then slip back in - without raising an alarm??

Every theater has an emergency exit but alarms sound when these doors are opened and in some cities ( NYC for example) this is a punishable offense. This killer left the door propped open - so why didnt the alarm sound or if it did why was it ignored?

Simply answer these corporations hire minimum wage workers aka students teens who cannot be expected to have maturity to respond to such issues. basically these youngsters are left to manage 2000 plus souls watching movies in a cinema But no this issue will never be raised -- guns etc will ??

Coming to gun owners - a range officer denied him permission to join the shooting club just based on funky answering machine message..shooters at a range typically dont allow crazies around.

So ban the assault guns whats next the Ruger mini or semi auto guns too? Its a slippery slope but there will be some kind of ramification here

best