Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said his chief of staff took a group of young people to see “The Dark Knight Rises” movie on Saturday night to make a statement against the shooter who killed a dozen people watching the same movie two days earlier.
“The response to terrorism is not to shrink away but to rise up and face it,” Mr. Hickenlooper told David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re not going to let this son of a gun win; we’re not.”
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But Mr. Hickenlooper dodged a question by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos about whether Colorado should revisit its gun laws, saying that shooting suspect James Holmes would have found a way to create “horror” even if he hadn’t been able to acquire guns.
“This wasn’t a Colorado problem. This is a human problem,” Mr. Hickenlooper said on “This Week.” “Even if he didn’t have access to guns, this guy was diabolical…he would have found explosives. He would have found something…he would have done something to create this horror.”
The shooting has brought renewed focus to gun control, after Mr. Holmes, a 24-year-old doctoral student at the University of Colorado, entered an Aurora theater early on in a midnight showing of the film and opened fire, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others.
Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan told “This Week” that Mr. Holmes appeared normal.
“He just. by every standard, appeared normal,” Mr. Hogan said. “He did have friends. He had made connections. He had people he went drinking with on Friday nights.”
