Saturday, July 21,
2012
Two
Aurora Shootings: One Widely Known; the Other Ignored
On April 22
of this year a convicted felon, just out of jail, went to an Aurora, Colorado,
church and shot and killed a member of the congregation before being
killed himself by a congregant carrying a gun.
On July 20,
following the horrific shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, President Obama
offered his condolences to the victims of the more recent tragedy. "Our
time here [on Earth] is limited and it is precious," the president said.
"And what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not
the trivial things which so often consume us and our daily lives. It’s about
how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another."
Obama then led his supporters at a rally in Fort Myers, Florida, in a moment of silent prayer “for all the victims of less publicized acts of violence that plague our communities every single day.”
No doubt the president was unaware of the other, less-publicized lethal shooting that took place earlier in the year in Aurora, when there was only one victim, thanks to the quick thinking and action of a responsibly armed individual. Aurora police spokesman Frank Fania asked rhetorically: “Who knows what would’ve happened if the [church member, an off-duty police officer] had not been there? It certainly could have been a lot worse.”
How much worse? Could the killing spree have been as bad as the shooting at the movie theater, where a dozen victims lost their lives? Thankfully, we'll never know.
The killer in the April shooting was 29-year-old Kiarron Parker, who had just been released from prison. He had been convicted for assaulting two police officers, drug abuse, and breaking and entering. The details are here and here. But the point is clear: Because the perpetrator was able to claim only one life before being killed himself by someone carrying a gun and acting in self-defense, it garnered relatively little publicity.
In contrast, by now there may hardly be a single sentient soul in the country who doesn’t yet know what happened on Friday, July 20 at about 12:38 a.m., when James Egan Holmes opened fire on a theater full of people attending the premier of the latest Batman movie, killing 12 individuals and wounding at least another 50.
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