Instructor Plays
Pivotal Role
Oregon Music Hall
honors Calvin Walker
See Metro, page 9
Gun Violence
in Portland
Residents, police and
gun control advocates
are alarmed
See page 3
Volume X X X X I
‘City of Roses’
Established in 1970
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • July 25, 2012
Number 28
Committed to Cultural Diversity
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A movie theater in Aurora, Colo, is surrounded by police after a gunman terrified a packed audience at the premiere of the latest Batman movie by using teargas, a
semi-automatic rifle, shotgun, and pistol to kill 12 people and injure dozens more. Authorities said the weapons were easily purchased over the Internet.
Stocked-Upfor Rampage
Theater shooter easily
acquired deadly arsenal
(AP)— In a world where Amazon can track your next book
purchase and you must show ID to buy some allergy medi
cine, James Holmes spent months stockpiling thousands of
bullets and head-to-toe ballistic gear without raising any red
flags with authorities.
The suspect in the mass theater shooting on Friday in
Aurora, Colo, availed himself of an unregulated online mar
ketplace that allows consumers to acquire some of the tools
of modem warfare as if they were pieces of a new wardrobe.
The Internet is awash in sites ranging from BulkAmmo.com,
James Holmes
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a sale on a thousand rifle rounds
for $335, to eBay, where bidding
on one armored special forces
helmet has risen to $799.
"We're different than other
cultures," said Dudley Brown,
executive director o f Rocky
Mountain Gun Owners, which
advocates for firearms owners'
rights. "We do allow Americans
to possess the accoutrements
that our military generally has."
Gun rights activists like Brown
celebrate that freedom, but even
some involved in the trade are troubled by how easily Holmes
stocked up for his alleged rampage.
Chad Weinman runs TacticalGear.com, which caters to
police officers looking to augment their equipment, members
of the military who don't want to wait on permission from the
bureaucracy for new combat gear, and hobbyists like
survivalists and paintballers. The site receives "thousands"
of orders daily, sometimes from entire platoons that are about
to deploy to war zones.
On July 2, Holmes placed a $306 order with the site for a
combat vest, magazine holders and a knife, paying extra for
expedited two-day shipping to his Aurora, Colo, apartment.
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