On Batman and the Definition of Terrorism

Unless you have been living under a rock (or inside the Big Brother House) you know what happened in Colorado last Friday morning during a screening of Dark Knight Rises. At this point many news outlets have covered the event extensively reporting the facts as best they can. Now, while I do have some issues and concerns about some of those facts (the early linking to a Tea Party Member that just happened to have the same name) and the quick attempts to fix a policy debate to the event (both for and against gun control) I am not going to discuss those here. What I am going to discuss is the bits of the puzzle that seem to have been overlooked in the media.


1) This was a terrorist attack. Early on Friday an announcement was made that the suspect had no known ties to any terrorist group and therefore this is not terrorism. While it may prove to be true that he acted alone and is not part of any group, it is not true that that alone means this is not terrorism. A terrorist act is designed to cause fear in as large a populace as possible and to influence behavior. An attack on the opening showing of the biggest movie of the year had the same effect as if he had shot up a Mall on Black Friday. Sure people still went to see the film and the 160 million dollar take is more than respectable, but it is far short of the record breaking numbers that were predicted. An estimated 4 million people DID NOT buy tickets to the movie this weekend, in addition it is impossible to know how many more people bought advance tickets and never used them. Based on those figures alone this classifies as a terrorist act.

2) This was well planned but not well thought out. We may or may not find out why Friday happened, but right now we do know a lot about how it happened. We know this was a planned two part attack, part one in the theater and part two when the police entered his apartment. Now luckily part 2 failed (likely due to his bragging about having bombs). But based on what I have seen in the press and what I know of Batman lore, I think I can make some good guesses here about his thoughts and where he went sideways. First based on the body armor and the booby traps we can assume that he wanted to live and never planned to return home. From this we can infer that he knew he was going to get caught. The joker was captured many times in film and print, so getting caught would have been expected. I believe that the shooter (I am deliberately not using his name) got the idea in his head that after he was captured, the police would mass on his home and then once the bombs went off, he would be able to escape custody. this is what the joker would have done. This is why I say it was not well thought out. Taking a plan from a movie script and expecting it to work in real life is not a sign of forethought.

3) Gun-Free Zones do not work. If we learn nothing else from Aurora, we should finally learn that criminals do not read the signs posted on doors. When a "gun-free zone" is created it eliminates only the guns being carried by law abiding citizens. When a bad guy with a gun starts doing bad things, he will continue until good guys with guns stop him. This has happened so many times (including this time) that perhaps maybe the lesson will sink in. Just imagine how different Friday might have been if several members of the crowd had been able to return fire. (Anyone that is about to say "he was wearing a bullet-proof vest" go put one on, get shot in the chest and THEN talk to me about how they work.)

So, where does this leave us? The attack may have kept 4 million or so people at home, but about 16 million people still went out and saw the movie. Even more will see it as time goes by. We tend to bounce back from things like this. After 9/11, we huddled together for a while then we pulled ourselves together and went about our lives. We will do it again. Quicker this time for sure. In the meantime, we should know that this guy is just a guy. He is not a super villain. He is not even all that clever, a clever criminal would not have told the cops about the bombs. He will end up outlawing or reducing costumes at theaters, but that is about it. Whatever plan he had, whatever his delusions of grandeur, whatever he hoped to do, he failed. My heart  goes out to the families directly affected by this person, but I sleep well knowing that he will never harm another person and whatever he thought he was going to be doing today, he is not.