Aurora Shooting: Is Colorado Schizophrenic on Handguns?

Debates on the mental state of James Holmes, the alleged murderer of 12 people in Aurora in July 2012, resumed this week. The state of Colorado doesn’t know where to turn on gun control.

The saga continues for the accused in the Aurora shooting in Colorado. Postponed last week, debate resumed this week. The technical discussions focus on the sanity of James Holmes, whose portrait with orange-tinted hair was everywhere in July 2012. In the state of Colorado, a person found to be mentally incapacitated cannot be put to death but may be imprisoned for life.

The American press is focused on those closed-door proceedings. Essentially, James Holmes is the presumed murderer of 12 people killed on July 20, 2012 during an early screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Prosecutors are asking for a new independent expert on mental health for the 26-year-old man, in the hopes of being able to argue for the death penalty. His lawyers think that the first evaluation, completed over the summer, is sufficient; the results have not been released, but James Holmes is suspected to be schizophrenic[1].

Always More Guns

Sick or not, James Holmes had access to handguns: two pistols, a shotgun and a semi-automatic gun. Like the rest of the United States, Colorado seems to be crazy when it comes to the question of guns. This state has seen other shootings, notably Columbine in 1999. When you type “Aurora shooting” into Google, you get many results. In mid-January, two people died in apparently unrelated homicides. In December, a shooting in a high school left two dead. Far from tightening the law on firearms, some citizens have decided to arm themselves more, in the name of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. After the shooting in 2012, gun sales in Colorado jumped 40 percent, noted Le Figaro. In April 2013, the U.S. Justice Department[2] counted 60,171 guns [in Colorado] compared to 54,475 in March 2012.

Battle at the Top

In March 2013, some months after Aurora, the Democratically-led Colorado tightened gun laws; the medical histories of buyers must now be verified and large-capacity clips are prohibited. On the other hand, the amendment[3] seeking to ban guns on campuses was blocked and several sheriffs still refuse to apply the law, according to the New York Times[4].

The subject is evidently political. In September, two representatives supportive of gun control were voted out. In order to keep the Senate in Democratic hands, Senator Evie Hudak has to quit at the end of the year rather than face a recall like her two colleagues. By law, her replacement must be a Democrat, according to the Chicago Tribune[5]. In spite of the advances on the legislative front, the battle for and against guns rages on in Colorado. But Colorado is not unique; Iowa is wondering whether it should allow guns to be sold to the visually impaired.