The Batman Shootings

-POLICE RADIO:

-'Shooting at Century Theatres,

'14300 East Alameda Avenue.

'They're saying somebody's shooting in the auditorium.'

Just after midnight on July 20th, in a small town in Midwest America,

a masked gunman enters a theatre

showing the premiere of the new Batman film.

'..They're saying Theatre 9, where Batman was playing.'

-NEWSREADER:

-'A local radio station is reporting that

'some people have been killed, but there has

'been no official confirmation.'

But details soon become clear, and the reality is horrific.

'We've got seven down in Theatre 9! Seven down!'

'Here's what we know right now, as you said, the revised number -

'12 dead, 50 injured,

'the youngest victim just three months old.

'The suspect is in custody right now.

'We know he's a young man, 24 years old.

'Eyewitnesses describe him as armed for battle...'

You have the right to remain silent.

Armed for battle, the accused,

an academically brilliant college dropout.

..probable cause to believe you committed

the offence of first degree murder,

which is a class one felony under Colorado law...

James Holmes, aged 24.

He'd dyed his hair orange and when arrested,

tells police he is The Joker.

'We may never understand what leads anybody

'to terrorise their fellow human beings like this.'

Such violence, such evil is senseless.

I'm Amal Fashanu, and this is me

two nights before the Aurora shootings,

at the London Leicester Square premiere of The Dark Knight Rises,

where Batman, Christian Bale,

and Catwoman, Anne Hathaway, are the stars of the red carpet.

Now, I've come 5,000 miles to Colorado to meet people

who were inside Century 16 when the shooting started.

God, there was like so much blood.

It's not like what you see in Hollywood at all.

'We have a party shot here.'

I'll hear stories of incredible heroism.

He completely protected me by telling me what I needed to do

and pushing me under that seat further.

He knew he was saving my life.

I want to find out if young Americans think

the time has come to tackle gun control.

I think guns are great. SHE LAUGHS

I want a gun. I'm going to go buy one right now, actually.

And I'll tell the story of how the lives of James Holmes

and one of his victims, Jessica Redfield - both 24 -

collided on a night that saw the deaths of 10 Americans under the age of 30.

'They're saying there's hundreds of people just running around.

'Got a child victim. I need rescue at the back door of Theatre 9 now!'

I've arrived in Colorado less than a week after the shootings.

Right next to the state capital of Denver is the city of Aurora,

population 325,000.

Aurora's main feature is the Century 16 theatre,

and it's here that the shootings happened.

No-one really expects to go to a cinema and end up being shot,

or end up having a friend shot or a family member shot.

'Century 16 is still cordoned off

'so relatives and friends have created a makeshift memorial

'on a patch of land close by.'

'It's bare, raw, and the tributes are heartbreaking.'

I don't know, this kind of reminds me of Princess Diana's memorial.

I was really young when that happened,

but this kind of brings back memories.

'It hits me just how young they all are - 27, 24,

'23, 18...even six years old.'

-How old are you personally, if you don't mind me asking?

-28.

-28.

-Yeah, cos I'm 23,

and I kind of just find this just amazing, how everyone was so young.

Yeah. That's what breaks your heart.

You've got people here that hadn't even lived half their lives.

Yeah, and it could have been anyone.

-Exactly.

-It could have been you, me...

I think that people are very open here,

and I don't have anything to do with it and they welcome me

and I've been here and I kind of feel like one of them,

And I think a lot of people knew each other, which is unfortunate

as well, cos I guess they knew a lot of the people who passed away.

Did you know anyone here?

Yeah, I knew AJ.

OK, a lot of people seemed to know AJ.

What was he like as a person?

He was always happy and smiling.

If you were sad, he would always be the one who'd make your day.

Was he very popular?

How do you feel about this?

Well, I've known him since I was six years old, so...

I'm really sorry.

I'm so, so sorry.

'A lot of these people have lost a lot of loved ones.

'I've lost people that I've loved before,

'so I can understand what they're going through,'

and to be honest with you, this is just...

it's so much more than a tragedy,

that I can't even describe what it is.

It's something just totally incoherent and it's just awful.

First, let's spin back to 1987.

James Holmes is born here in San Diego, Southern California.

An exceptionally bright student, he leaves school with top grades.

And our next speaker is James Holmes.

Aged 18, he's introduced to students at a summer camp.

In personal life, he enjoys playing soccer and strategy games

and his dream is to own a Slurpee machine.

LAUGHTER

These kids have been fun to work with this summer.

But he's a serious student. His expertise is neuroscience.

My mentor John Jacobson, who works in CNL,

is a philosophical type of guy.

He's interested in how we perceive reality...

Described as academically "at the top of the top",

James Holmes studies neuroscience

at the University of California, Riverside.

James Holmes wouldn't have known Jessica Redfield,

who was taking the first tentative steps on her chosen career.

She too was attending a university,

while at the same time trying to break into

her dream career of sports journalism.

She'd landed an internship at a cable TV station

and was sent out to interview an ice hockey star.

And what about players coming in and out

throughout the entire season?

You get the guys coming down from the NHL,

you are going to have guys coming in from the Coyotes.

How does that change the dynamics of the team?

The intern's outtakes were posted on YouTube.

SHE LAUGHS

Here we go.

Or not!

Can we please see...?

Can we please...?

Jessica was determined that one day she would make it to the top.

And clearly, she was an instant hit with the hockey team.

MIMES TO MUSIC

# Like baby, baby, baby, no

# Like baby, baby, baby, oh

# Thought you'd always be mine... #

After we modify their perception of time,

we completely remove the delay, and this causes the time illusion.

James Holmes graduates with a bachelor's degree,

but finding work is difficult.

He gets a part-time job at McDonald's,

then moves 1,000 miles east to Denver, Colorado

to start a PhD in neuroscience.

But he struggles and quits in early June.

Out of college, out of a job

and getting deep into prescription drugs,

Holmes starts searching the internet for explosives and ammunition.

On June 25, he fills out an application form to join a gun club.

'I've tracked down the club, 30 miles east of town.

'The owner has agreed to meet me,

'and for the first time publicly,

'show me the application form that James Holmes submitted.'

My name's Amal.

Amal? Glad to meet you, Amal.

This is the actual application that we received from him,

with his name, address, all the general information on it,

and his parents' address in San Diego.

When I called James Holmes,

the problem was that when I called him, he had this rather guttural

bizarre message on his answering machine,

that was indistinguishable, rambling, very weird, at best bizarre.

And so I left a message for him anyway figuring, who knows,

maybe somebody did it and he doesn't know it's there.

And he didn't call back, so I ended up calling the next day and the next day.

So by the third day, my attitude was kind of like, you know,

this is strange and bizarre - you're not calling me back,

you should be - you sent me an application, you know, this isn't right.

So I just simply told the staff,

"Look, this guy's not scheduled, he's not supposed to be here.

"if he shows, then please set him aside, put him there,

"don't process him until I get a chance to talk to him

"and find out who and what he is."

Around the same time, just six weeks before the Batman shootings,

Jessica Redfield is in Toronto

visiting a shopping mall when panic breaks out.

Get out of the mall, please!

'One person was killed and seven others injured in a shooting

'in one of Canada's busiest shopping centres.'

Ever the journalist,

Jessica goes online to tell the world what's happened.

"I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday.

"I saw terror on the bystanders' faces.

"I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change."

She said it was definitely a horrific experience and scary.

'In Aurora, I meet Harmony Johnson,

'who went to hockey matches with Jessica.

'She believes that Jessica's escape from the Toronto shooting

'had given her a fresh perspective.'

She didn't let it affect her.

She didn't let, like, her experience

keep her a victim, or make her afraid of living life at all.

'100 miles east of Denver, high in the Rocky Mountains,

'I've come to the old mining town of Leadville

'to check out their annual Boom Day parade.'

Hello!

'It's a chance to find out if Aurora

'has changed young Americans' views on guns.'

'The right to bear arms is a key part of the US constitution,

'and in Leadville, that's something they take very seriously.'

It seems like a really close-knit community.

It's extremely close.

'But I'm still surprised to find

'that a street gun display is part of the family entertainment here.'

GUNSHOTS

Oh, my God!

I'm so scared.

If I was a kid, I'd be petrified.

They seem pretty relaxed compared to me.

'In this part of the country,

'owning and using guns is an important tradition.

'But do young Americans here feel the same?'

I personally own three guns,

and I think it's important to me to have a gun in my house,

because I'm a single person, I live in Boulder,

which is a secure town, but my house has been broken into before.

I come from a very rural community out in the woods,

so I was brought up with guns being a tool for hunting animals

and providing food for families.

'They're part of American culture,'

and have been and continue and will be.

I want a gun. I'm going to go buy one right now, actually.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

I already own an AR-15,

but I'm going to go buy another, a pistol.

I'm going to go buy a pistol today.

I think guns are great. SHE LAUGHS

Everybody has the right to own weapons.

If they want to have guns, by all means, own them.

We're Americans. We should be able to bear arms,

or why are you an American?

'I've found just one person here who has reservations

'about gun ownership.'

I do think guns are important, but I kind of think

that I would be contradictory to most people you would ask here.

I think that they shouldn't be in the home.

I think that owning them and allowing them to be everywhere

just perpetuates more violence and I'm not a huge supporter of it.

Hey, Marshal! Heard you've been looking for us.

Get out of our way!

We've got a delivery to make to the bank,

and I'm not going to put up with no shenanigans.

Back off!

The Leadville Old West Reenactment Society

stages a mock shoot-out as part of the parade...

THEY SHOUT

..and people here love it.

GUNFIRE

-I'll take this from you, sir.

-No! Ughhh.

CHEERING

ANNOUNCER: 'Well, that's the end of the OK Corral, my friends.'

It's all good clean fun.

Guns don't kill people.

-It's the people behind the guns that cause the damage.

-That's it.

So had the shooting in Aurora only two weeks before

changed the views of these young people?

No, it hasn't. I think that, like I said with gun safety,

it's a big deal. If you own a gun, you should be responsible.

There's no way that they can regulate for someone who has a problem.

There are a lot of crazy people in the world doing a lot of crazy

things, and so it's hard to single out and say this is the reason

that guns should be banned or outlawed or something like that.

Some think the real lesson of Aurora is that people need more guns.

We should have them for our protection.

If everyone in the theatre had a gun on their person,

it would've never happened.

On July 5, Jessica Redfield tweets

that she is celebrating her first year in Denver.

"Can't believe I moved to Colorado a year ago today.

"Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me along the way.

"It's been a fun journey so far."

And on July 16, she has some personal good news to share.

"It's official.

"I'm going to be a godmother on August 6th at 2pm.

"Poor kid doesn't know what he's in for."

James Holmes isn't on Twitter or Facebook.

Having dropped out of his PhD course,

he's looking for sex and speaking to strangers on Adult FriendFinder.

It seems he had become obsessed with the Batman films.

He dyes his hair orange and appears to be modelling himself

on one of the series' key characters,

the crazed gunman, The Joker.

Come on. Come on. I want you to do it.

I want you to do it. Come on!

Throughout this summer,

James Holmes manages to buy 6,000 rounds of ammunition online.

And with no criminal record

and a current Colorado driving licence,

he is able to buy four guns at specialist stores in Aurora,

including this one.

An official Batman hat!

Around the world, for many young people,

premieres of The Dark Knight Rises means Batman Fever -

costumes, souvenirs and Batmobiles.

CROWD CHEERS

In Aurora, I find four people who'd bought tickets for the premiere,

a night filled with excitement and anticipation.

Kevin Lam, aged 18, a computer software design student,

goes to the movie with his girlfriend Arianne.

I'd never been to a movie premiere before.

So this was already an amazing thing, going with my girlfriend.

Jansen Young, aged 21, heads to the cinema

with her boyfriend Jon Blunk,

after thinking about staying in for the night.

That night he was really tired,

and we had almost discussed not going, but then we were like,

"No, we already got the tickets, let's go."

And so, we were tired, but we were still excited to see the movie,

because we'd been excited for it, you know, for a while.

Tony Hoang, aged 18, a college student.

With a group of friends, he arrives early to be sure of a seat.

It was the Batman premiere,

and it was just so exciting that night,

and I really wanted to see it.

Harmony Johnson, 23, a single mum being treated for cancer.

With two friends, she joins a crowd of 200 people.

We were excited, we were pumped up, everybody was rooting,

people had their face painted, people had their hair coloured,

people were wearing Batman shirts and costumes,

and just having a great time.

Just, I don't know, it was like going to a party.

Jessica Redfield has her ticket,

but tweets that she's had a hard time finding someone to go with.

"Never thought I'd have to coerce a guy into seeing

"the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises with me."

Her excitement is clear as the pre-film trailers start.

"Movie doesn't start for 20 minutes!"

I remember my friends telling me that this

is going to be the best night ever.

LOUD, MUFFLED MUSIC

James Holmes leaves his flat for the movie,

but keeps music blaring so loudly, it disturbs the neighbours.

He drives to Century 16 with a car full of guns and ammunition.

The midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises

is being shown on Screen 9,

but so many people have turned up,

they decide to show it on Screen 8 as well.

Unusually, James Holmes parks at the back of the multiplex.

Inside, he manages to get a front row seat in Screen 9.

Once the film begins, Holmes quietly gets up

and heads for the rear emergency exit door.

He goes to his car, where he puts on a helmet, gas mask,

bulletproof vest and leggings,

And then picks up gas canisters,

his shotgun, handgun and a semi-automatic rifle.

He returns via the emergency exit door,

which he left propped open,

and heads back to Theatre 9.

Someone walked in the right hand corner by the screen,

that threw something up behind us

and it landed in, like, the left back corner

and it smoked the entire way up there, and I watched it

and then when it went 'Boom', immediately it was like,

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! That's not part of this."

At first, I thought it was some kind of joke.

And then the smoke canisters exploded and smoke was coming out.

I was in Theatre 8 when everything was going on in Theatre 9.

They were screaming from the right

that there was smoke coming over

and I looked over and I thought,

"They don't put dry ice in a movie theatre,

"but is it part of the movie?"

And then next, I see flashes.

And I looked into the flashes...

four shots in.

I stared in the muzzle to see the flash. I stared at it.

My friend pushed me down

and told me to duck, and I did.

And that's when I realised it wasn't fireworks or anything.

It was gunshots.

And the bullets were going through the walls?

They were actually going through the walls!

POLICE RECORDING: '451, we have a gunshot here...'

Jansen Young's boyfriend, Jon Blunk,

immediately understands what's happening.

He pushed me down and said, "Jansen, get down and stay down,"

and pushed me down, like, behind the seats and I was like, "Why?"

And he pushed me down further onto my stomach

and pushed me under the seats, and said,

"Because there's a man in the movie theatre shooting people."

And by that point, I could hear multiple gun shots that had gone off.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

And...

..the screams were unreal.

The person above me was screaming, "I've been shot! I've been shot!"

and even still, I was thinking, "This has got to be a joke.

"Everybody's acting. Everybody's on this.

"They're getting shot with something they don't think is bullets.

"This has got to be a joke."

It was a constant, just non-stop firing.

But then, the firing does stop.

The gunman's semi-automatic jams.

And then, all of a sudden, it was quiet.

And, uh...

we just knew that we had to run during that time,

because it seemed like he was reloading.

I jumped over some friends. I told them,

"Guys, we've got to go. Run! Run!"

The gunman, it turns out, is no professional.

His confusion and delay over changing weapons means many people escape.

But they have witnessed unimaginable horror.

'I've got seven down in Theatre 9! Seven down!'

'Cruiser 10, I need a medical crew. I've got one victim eviscerated.

'I've got a child victim.

'I need rescue at the back door of Theatre 9 now!'

And I could just feel blood running down from the seat above me.

My friend...the last thing I heard her say, "I got shot."

And I remember rolling down around on her blood.

There was man running over the seats yelling, "Jessie's been shot, Jessie's been shot!"

and he stepped on my head on the way out

and pushed my face more into this blood that kept running down,

and it was running all over my back.

'We've got another person outside, shot in the leg. A female.

'I've got people running out of the theatre that are shot.'

I could hear someone breathing on my left side.

Like, laboured breaths.

And I...that's when I think I knew that Jon had been shot.

People were just dragging and crawling

and running and screaming.

SHE SOBS

It was the most horrific thing I'd ever seen.

God, there was, like, so much blood.

It...it's not like what you see in Hollywood at all.

I kind of slid out from under the seats and Jon was unresponsive.

I was shaking him and saying, "Jon, come on, we've got to go."

But where is the gunman?

Afraid he's still at large, Jansen Young hides behind a rubbish bin.

I heard the police scream, "Freeze!" to someone,

and even then, I didn't feel safe.

I heard people screaming in the back that they got him back there.

'Yes, we've got rifles, gas masks.

'He's detained right now.

'I've got an open door going into the theatre.'

It was unreal. The people that...

..young people my age...

..there was kids there my son's age.

Teenagers, and they were shot and they were covered in blood

and you don't...

..you don't see that in the movies.

And we were in the movies.

RADIO: 'I need a marked car, behind the theatre, Sable side.

'The suspect in a gas mask.'

'OK, hold that position. Hold your suspect.'

Surrendering without a fight, police discover a young man with dyed orange hair,

staring blankly, declaring, "I am the Joker".

Across town, the University of Colorado Hospital

goes into its disaster plan.

Physician, Dr Camilla Sasson, is on duty,

and tells me how the hospital dealt with the incoming casualties.

We saw 23 patients, total, and they came in mostly through police cars.

And I would say our first nine, ten patients that we saw

were very critically injured.

We had gunshot wounds to the head, to the chest, to the belly.

You know, I've been doing this for about 10 years,

and they were some of the most horrific wounds I've ever seen.

It takes a lot to do that to an emergency room doctor.

This is actually the ambulance bay

where all of our patients were coming in.

So it was just police car after police car

that was coming in that night.

We would literally bring a stretcher out right up to here,

move it out to the little ambulance bay right here,

and then take the body out of the back of the police officer's car,

put it on the stretcher.

Myself and Dr Block would assess the patients right here.

-Just two of you?

-Just two of us would actually assess them coming in.

We'd look and see how critically injured they were and then they'd go to the left here,

which is our resuscitation bay,

or to this little sort of MASH unit that we had created,

where all of our very critically ill,

but maybe didn't need to put on a ventilator patients would stay.

As an ER doc, I'm sick and tired of taking care of gunshot wound victims.

It's really hard to have to take care of patients time and time again,

when we know that, you know, they weren't doing anything wrong.

The fact we were able to keep 22 of these victims alive,

to me, is really a miracle.

Back in the cinema, it's selfless heroism that saves lives.

Four men die because they put their bodies

between the gunman and their girlfriends.

One of them is Jonathan Blunk.

He completely protected me by telling me what I needed to do

and pushing me under that seat further.

He knew he was saving my life.

AJ loved to make people smile, no matter what mood they were in.

He would always find a way to do it. He was a really amazing guy.

Jessica Redfield, aged 24,

the intern who dreamed of being a national sports broadcaster,

dies instantly from gunshot wounds.

And what about players coming in now through the entire season?

You think the guys coming down from the NHL,

you're going to have guys coming in from the Coyotes,

how does that change the dynamic of the team?

At the University of Denver,

there's a memorial to one of their students, Alex Teves,

another of Holmes' victims.

I'm here to meet one of Alex's former tutors, Max Wachtel.

So it's the neo-personality inventory.

'He's a leading forensic psychologist

'who assesses mental health in cases of serious crime.'

-Nice to meet you.

-Hi, nice to meet you too.

'I want to find out what turns a bright college boy like Holmes into a mass murderer.'

A lot of times, they tend to have some sort of an undiagnosed

mental illness.

Usually it is something like

depression or bipolar disorder,

It doesn't tend to be a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia.

And why is it that they're often young men?

I think as a society, in the US, males are trained to be unemotional,

and to deal with any sort of problems on their own, without talking about it.

That ends up a lot of times leading to anger, frustration, rage.

You know, thoughts of vengeance.

Is there anything different or special in James Holmes' profile

that would make him likely to be a killer one day?

You know, honestly, no. Everything that we know about him so far

is that he was kind of a normal kid.

Maybe a little bit quirky. You know, I think he was smart.

He may have had a little bit of trouble relating to other people because of that.

But nothing out of the ordinary.

It seems like the kind of picture you would see taken from a webcam.

'Max also gives me his take

'on the few pictures we have of James Holmes.'

In retrospect, you see the cocky expression, the red hair.

It seems like a fairly normal kind of picture, though,

that you would see on Facebook or Twitter, I think.

This picture, he's got that raised eyebrow,

he's got the smirk on his face.

That very intense stare.

I'd have to wonder what's going through his mind there.

This was a picture from an adult website he had joined.

He'd Photoshopped this woman licking him.

Certainly a fairly disturbing image.

He's got that intense look on his face again.

In court, the crazy hair, the jail scrubs...

He's kind of blankly staring.

His demeanour in court would be referred to

as having "flat affect", or "flat emotion",

meaning, just nothing there.

-Emotionless.

-Emotionless.

You do see this presentation in some people who have mental illness.

I think a lot of people are concerned that he's faking this,

and that's certainly possible.

In custody, Holmes apparently confesses to a scheme

that bears the hallmarks of his comic villain hero, The Joker.

He's booby-trapped his apartment

with 10 gallons of petrol and 30 grenades.

Police also find a Batman mask.

It's much easier to buy guns in the US than it is back home,

but I want to find out just how easy.

Jake Meyers runs Rocky Mountain Guns and Ammo.

Not a place used by Holmes.

-Hi!

-Hi, how's it going?

Good, thanks. Nice to meet you. My name's Amal.

I'm Jake. How's it going?

'If Barack Obama is looking for votes, he won't find them here.'

This one holds 15 rounds.

A lot of people like this for carrying concealed purposes,

because it's lightweight.

It's made of, basically, plastic.

'Aurora has had an effect here, but not quite what I was expecting.

'Jake told me that in the days after the shooting, sales had tripled.'

The first couple days, I did see a real big influx in gun sales,

but what I mostly saw was people wanting to take classes

and learn how to use a firearm or protect themselves.

The day after the shooting, actually,

-we had about 20 people lined up outside waiting to take classes.

-Wow.

'So if I wanted to buy a gun, how easy would it be?'

Jake, today I've brought my passport,

and I wanted to know if I could just come here and buy a gun.

You wouldn't be able to use just your passport.

You'd have to have some sort of state identification card,

either ID or driver's licence.

So if I was American, and I had a driver's licence,

I could just come into the store...

Yeah, you'd have to have a driver's licence

-or identification card from this state.

-OK.

Um, and it's basically, in this state,

-we do what's called an InstaCheck.

-OK.

It takes anywhere between about five minutes to an hour

-to do a background check.

-OK.

They do a federal background check on you

to make sure you have no felonies,

you're not running from the military, or something like that.

Yeah!

And then they send me back either an approval or a denial,

and if you get approved,

you walk out of the store that day with a firearm.

But I find that not everyone in this state loves guns.

In April 1999, a school just 20 miles from Aurora

would become forever linked with gun crime.

Its name? Columbine.

12 students and one teacher were killed

when two high school seniors carried out a carefully planned attack.

It was captured on the school's CCTV.

OPERATOR: 'Jefferson County 911?'

'I'm a teacher at Columbine High School.

'There is a student here with a gun.

'The school is in a panic, and I'm in the library.

-SHE SHOUTS

-'Students, down under the tables!

'Kids, under the tables!'

'Who is the student, ma'am?'

-'I do not know who the student is.'

-'OK.'

'I saw a student outside... Oh, dear God!'

'I want to hear from young people

'who had picked up their lives after such a terrible experience.'

-Hi, Lindsey!

-Hi, Amal! Nice to meet you.

'Lindsey Benge survived the Columbine massacre,

'but two of her close friends, Daniel Mauser and Rachel Scott,

'weren't so lucky.'

The worst was finding out, you know,

that you had the friends who passed away.

For me personally, Dan and Rachel, specifically.

And then kind of going through that.

There's that whole denial phase

where it just doesn't make sense.

And you can't wrap your mind around it.

And then you're just angry and frustrated,

and you're going through all the stages of grief,

but you don't know how to handle it.

And I think at that age, you shouldn't know how to handle it.

What do you think about what's just happened a week ago in Aurora?

I mean, it seems to me pretty similar.

Yeah. I mean it's...it's surreal.

It's almost unfathomable

that it keeps happening.

It's like somebody keeps hitting the rewind button

and all of a sudden, you're seeing shots of memorials

and shots of family members trying to find their loved ones.

And, it's just...it's absolutely devastating.

Why do you think it is? Why here? Why again?

I think because it can.

Everybody wants to pinpoint one specific reason why,

and there's never just one single reason.

You know...

Guns are far too accessible in the States.

And, unfortunately, it's become such a polarising subject

that anytime somebody wants to have a reasonable, rational conversation

about gun control,

it's like people stick their fingers in their ears

and they don't want to hear it.

'I've come to see the memorial near the school.

'It's now a tragic symbol of how little America has moved

'on the guns issue in the last decade.'

I don't really know if America

is learning a lesson or not, in regards to guns.

If you see this and you see Aurora

and you see all the suffering, and how everyone is distraught,

it's just not right.

It's just not fair.

I don't really know to what extent

America WILL ever change or IS going to change.

I really don't know.

Daniel Mauser's father, Tom,

has spent the last decade campaigning for tighter gun laws

in memory of his son.

He's been shocked by the level of opposition and abuse he's faced.

I ask people to think how they would feel

if it happened to their child.

You have to imagine that,

otherwise you won't really see

what the impact of guns is.

In terms of it being part of our culture,

I think there is a sense of...you know,

that sense of having a right to bear arms.

But it can't be an absolute right.

There have to be restrictions.

We have to keep guns away from people who shouldn't have guns.

We shouldn't be giving this kind of firepower

to people who are mentally disturbed.

How difficult has it been to campaign?

It is very difficult.

We're fighting a lobby, the gun lobby, that is so powerful.

It's one of the top two lobbies, strongest lobbies, in Washington DC.

What kind of responses have you had

from the more extreme gun campaigners?

It's been difficult at times.

You find yourself in America,

when you are a gun control advocate, you find out quickly -

especially a very public one like me -

that you'll face some pretty strong and nasty opposition.

I've had people write to me and say,

"You're campaigning against guns

"on the grave and the corpse of your son."

That's the kind of thing they say.

Um... I mean, it's despicable stuff,

but you know, I can't let that get to me.

I can't let them intimidate me.

I have to keep doing what I'm doing.

I find it confusing that despite so many gun deaths in America -

more than 31,000 in 2009 alone - guns seem more popular than ever.

So I've come back to Lead Valley Gun Club,

the place James Holmes tried to join, to speak to the owner,

a man who trains people how to fire guns properly.

This is just a representation of some of the firearms

that are available in the United States...

'This is the closest I have ever been to guns and firearms.

'But there's more to come.

'Glenn believes the only way I can really start to understand guns

'is to fire one.'

A .22, Western-style of the original Western revolvers,

but this is a .22, one of the firearms you will be firing.

This is a 38-calibre revolver, which is a double action revolver,

which is the firearm that was used by most police officers

and people in law enforcement

all the way up until probably the mid-to-late '80s.

So if I just put that in and fired it would literally...

If it had ammo in it, yes. You put it in and pull the trigger.

It'd kill someone.

-Any firearm, no matter how small, has that capability.

-Yeah.

And then the last one here,

this is a 9-millimetre pistol that is available.

This is the other firearm you will be firing today

that is made by Smith & Wesson.

There is basically three safety rules that you follow at all times.

The first one is, always keep a gun pointed in a safe direction.

Never, never allow the muzzle to point to anything

that you do not want destroyed.

Number two rule, always keep the finger off the trigger

until you are ready to fire.

And always keep the gun unloaded until ready for use is the third main safety rule.

Well, I think I'm ready.

It'll be a lot of fun. You'll find out after you fire it. It's a lot of fun.

This club is for responsible gun owners

and used by many young, experienced shooters.

Usually we go up to the mountains where there's a national forest

where you are able to shoot as long as you are away from the road, with a proper back stop behind you.

It's just a pure competition sport for me. It's just like with any other sport,

basketball, football, it's just something you want to get good at.

This gun right here is mine.

This is a civilian version of the M-16.

Since this is my rifle, I know it very well.

A lot of the tragedies... I have many friends my age,

the younger generation - they feel they definitely want

to protect themselves more

so if they're in that situation late at night at a movie theatre and something like that happens

where usually their defence is off,

they would like to be able to protect themselves.

A lot of people my age have gone to get concealed carrier permits

so that they can carry handguns or become more familiar with weapons

so they just feel confident with them.

Go ahead, just stay up on top. Go ahead.

'Confidence is one thing I don't feel as I prepare to fire a gun for the first time.

'But I am confident I am in safe hands.'

We're going to start with the .22. Full arm length out.

-Push it all the way out. See your sights now?

-Yeah.

-Align that sight.

-So it's on the thing?

-Yeah.

-Now use this thumb, cock that hammer.

And keep your finger back.

Add pressure to the trigger and it will go off.

Don't squeeze it, just start adding pressure, let the gun surprise you.

Steady, even pressure.

-GUN FIRES OK.

-Wow!

-All right?

-OK.

-God, it's so heavy.

-Sure.

-I'm shaking.

-Go ahead.

BANG

That's it.

Right, range is hot.

The Second Amendment in the Constitution is for civilians' rights to bear arms

and as far as that, we've had guns since our nation's birth, since the American Revolution.

Um, we're trained in 'em since then,

so civilians, definitely as part of the Constitution, have a right to do that.

Next for me, the more powerful 9-millimetre Smith & Wesson semi-automatic.

Now, have a long, hard squeeze on this one first time around.

-Do I press hard?

-Just start pressing, you'll feel it.

Just keep adding pressure.

It will start to pull the trigger in a minute.

Don't rush it, just keep pulling. You almost had it.

-Oh, my God!

-It's a hard pull on this one first time around.

Pull real hard.

-Whoa!

-OK. Feel the difference?

-Whoa!

Now, put your finger out of the trigger guard. All right?

SHE LAUGHS All right.

That's it.

-That's better. You hit a bull's-eye on that one.

-Sorry...

No, that's where it's supposed to go!

-That's better.

-Wo-ho!

'I guess it gives me a sense of power because I know what it can do.'

It's a different experience, may I say.

-See where the holes are?

-All of them in the centre!

See the difference in size? Those are the ones I fired.

-That is the 9-millimetre you shot.

-Tiny.

-Quite a bit of difference in size between the two of them.

-That's...

I could fit my pinky finger in there.

People have talked about tightening gun laws. What's your view on this?

Er...my view on that is pretty simple.

We had a shooting here a while back and the kids that did it broke 22 gun laws

in order to be able to get the firearms.

So 23 is going to stop them?

'I think this has changed my view slightly, although I still firmly believe

'that there should be more gun laws enforced

'to prevent things like Columbine'

and what's happened in Aurora.

But I do understand where they are coming from - that this is part of their culture.

Guns are part of American society.

And a lot of Americans feel safer having a gun, being able to protect themselves.

It's not the gun laws or the guns that cause the problem - it's the nut behind it that uses it.

Police can't be every place. They never are.

They were at that theatre prior to the shooting and left

because there was no problem.

Two days after the shootings,

President Obama visits the hospital

where some of the victims are being treated.

He is photographed with eyewitness Stephanie Davies.

She saved the life of her friend Allie Young, who'd been hit in the neck by Holmes.

'With the Presidential elections only a few months away,

'I wonder how big a role the gun debate is playing on the campaign trail.

'Answer - next to none.'

I've been having a look at several newspapers

and I've looked online as well.

All the politicians seem to have other things to speak about.

We have Mitt Romney speaking about Israel, there's a lot about,

you know, Obama here, trying to intensify the campaign,

heading into the final stretch.

None of them really mention gun control or guns,

which I find really surprising especially at this time

and after what's just happened in Aurora.

'But I still think politicians should be talking about guns.'

'The emergency services called after a gunman started shooting at the congregation...'

A week into my trip, there's news of another massacre

over 700 miles away in Milwaukee.

Once again, I am forced to question my views.

I've just been watching BBC World News,

where seven people have been killed in Wisconsin, in a Sikh temple.

I've been here for seven days now in Aurora,

and this is the second massacre killing that's been going on.

Um, clearly there must be something wrong in the US in regards to gun control,

and I'm pretty surprised that no-one's really speaking about it.

'So why is it that gun control seems to be the one issue politicians won't touch?'

That would be political suicide.

In the US, in an election year, when you are running for President,

you don't say anything bad about guns.

If Mitt Romney suggested some sort of gun control,

he would no longer be the Republican nominee.

The people would freak out and he would be gone.

President Obama I don't think would get as much political fallout from it directly,

but a lot of Obama's political supporters in more conservative states, more conservative districts,

there is absolutely no way that they would get re-elected

if he were to say something about that.

So maybe we just have to press the politicians.

A few days later, it looks like I might get a chance.

With tight security, President Obama makes a second visit to Denver.

I decided this was one party I couldn't miss.

Like all American political rallies these days, the audience is made up of handpicked supporters.

As many of you know, I was in Aurora

to meet those who lost loved ones during that terrible shooting.

Unfortunately, since that time,

we have had another tragedy in Oak Creek, Wisconsin,

where six members of our community were killed as they entered into a house of worship.

So I think we can all acknowledge,

we've got to put an end to this kind of senseless violence. CHEERING

A worthwhile aim - but he doesn't say anything about guns.

It's almost as though guns didn't play any part

in the Aurora killings.

'This is a pretty stage-managed affair.

'Try as I might, I don't get a chance to question the top man.'

Unfortunately, we won't be able to get a word with him,

but I would've loved to ask him what he thinks about guns and gun control

and if anything is going to change, or if anything is going to be done.

He did mention Aurora and Wisconsin, but, you know,

he never mentioned what is going to happen with the guns.

GUNFIRE, SCREAMING

The politicians may not want to talk about guns,

but the authorities have responded, and this is how.

'If you were ever to find yourself in the middle of an active shooter

'event, your survival may depend on whether or not you have a plan.'

'This safety video from the City of Houston mayor's office

'advises the public on how to deal with an armed intruder.'

'There are three things you could do that make a difference.

'Run. Hide.

'Fight.'

'In Texas, they clearly think a gunman on the loose

'is a possibility worth planning for.'

'Encourage others to leave with you,

'but don't let them slow you down with indecision.'

They're clearly stating that the right to bear arms is something

that they are going to keep in the United States, therefore,

we should do other things in order to stay protected.

But guns are going to be there anyway, so you'd better do something

in order to save your life, which is either run, hide or fight.

Earlier this week, there is more confirmation that getting

caught up in a shooting is a real possibility.

Three people are shot dead on a university campus

100 miles north of Houston.

People versus James Holmes, 12CR1522...

Whilst I'm in Denver, James Holmes makes his second

appearance in court.

If he's found guilty, what should happen to him?

Some people have called for capital punishment.

Colorado is one of the US states where the death penalty

is still legal, actually,

although the last person who was sentenced was 15 years ago.

'I'm heading out of Denver, 100 miles north-east of the city,

'to see the place where many of the state's serious offenders are held.

'This is Sterling Correctional Facility,

'Colorado's biggest high security prison.

'It's a sobering sight.'

There's three men in that maximum security prison on death row.

'Could James Holmes be joining them?

'If convicted, could he be sentenced to death?

'It's a chilling thought.'

If James Holmes does get sentenced,

he might be facing the lethal injection.

;And is that something that survivors of the dreadful

'night in Aurora believe SHOULD happen?'

Nope.

Not that I am against the death penalty, but let's not make

life easy for this man. He hasn't made life easy for very many people.

Honestly, I would put him in general population in jail and say,

"Fend for yourself. Figure it out."

I heard a lot of people say they'd prefer it if he suffered in jail.

Rot in a hole in a cell. My personal perspective is...

..To be honest, I don't know what to do.

I think it really all comes down to how much damage he's caused

and how much, how much...

how much punishment he should get, but for me, I think...

..he should definitely get the death penalty.

I don't know, I have a couple of little things going on in my head.

Part of me wonders, like,

if he wanted to be dead... he'd have shot himself.

So part of me says I want him to fry.

Just because I know that's not what he wants.

But... The other part of me hopes and prays that God fill his heart

with a bunch of guilt, and that he has to wake up in a 4x4 cell

every day and deal with himself and live with it.

I think the death penalty is an easy way out -

it's like going to sleep before surgery, it's peaceful.

He doesn't deserve a peaceful death.

That's how I feel - my friends didn't get one...

..why should he?

BAND MUSIC PLAYS

In the days after the shootings, the people of Aurora come

together to offer prayers for the 12 lives that have been lost.

Tonight we come together to pray and to be with one another.

Some of us are survivors,

family members, or friends of those who suffered through this senseless and evil act of violence.

CHOIR SINGS

It's the first step towards rebuilding a community that

has been shattered by that terrible night.

But it will be a long road.

I'm going to do this, and I'm going to get through this,

but it's going to be hard. For ever, I'm going to be reminded of this.

I'm slowly getting better by the days,

but I know it will come back and haunt me for the rest of my life.

Others are still coming to terms,

not just with the horror of what they saw,

but also with the feelings of guilt

that they survived and some of their friends didn't.

I feel a little bit bad for not helping people in there,

but...I was scared.

I was scared.

'I've been in Colorado for two weeks,

'but my journey is now coming to an end.

'Before I leave for London, I want to take one last look

'at the memorial, and pay my last respects to the 12 people who died.

'It's also a chance to reflect on what my journey has taught me.'

Guns are something that, you know, Americans

and people in Colorado believe are part of their right, and

they have the right to bear arms, so it's something they're not going

to let go so easily, something ingrained in their culture.

I don't think politicians are willing to even start with

this conversation, you know,

it's something they've completely blanked.

But attitudes, for me, have to change in the people.

I've realised here, I mean,

there's almost something like "America equals guns",

and in order to take that away,

it's no longer America, they feel, so it's going to be very hard.

I don't think it will change.

'My big fear is that Aurora will change nothing.

'That in a year's time, I will be back, maybe in another state,

'or another city, reporting on another massacre.'

BARACK OBAMA: The people we lost in Aurora loved, and they WERE loved.

They were mothers and fathers, they were husbands and wives,

sisters and brothers, sons and daughters,

friends and neighbours.

They had hopes for the future,

and they had dreams that were not yet fulfilled.

Life is very fragile. Our time here is limited and it is precious.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd