Free Republic

James Holmes, the gunman who massacred 12 people and left 58 others wounded in Aurora, Colorado last July 20, has decided he is now a Muslim so he can justify his barbarous assault. One prison source said, “He has brainwashed himself into believing he was on his own personal jihad and that his victims were infidels.” Holmes now prays five times a day, eats a strictly Muslim diet and has grown a thick beard. He also takes hours every day to study the Koran. Apparently some Muslim inmates have taken umbrage at Holmes’ conversion.

Explanation: Some auroras can only be seen with a camera. They are called subvisual and are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. In the above image, the green aurora were easily visible to the eye, but the red aurora only became apparent after a 20-second camera exposure. The reason is that the human eye only accumulates light for a fraction of a second at a time, while a camera shutter can be left open much longer. When photographing an already picturesque scene near Anchorage, Alaska, USA, last autumn, a camera caught both the visual green and subvisual...

Ginny Burdick, a Democratic state senator from Oregon, called for gun registration while laughing about a shooting victim and insulting gun owners as "Rambos" in a video posted to YouTube on Sunday, Twitchy reported. "There’s a real Rambo complex going on here," she said. "You know my favorite one was the guy who after Aurora [Theater massacre] brought his gun to the same theater so he could get the attacker again and he shot himself in the butt," she added, laughing. "And that's a much more likely scenario instead of heading off an intruder." Ironically, the video starts with Burdick...

<p>THE widow of a victim of the US theatre massacre is suing a psychiatrist for neglect, for failing to have the alleged shooter arrested despite him having "fantasised about killing a lot of people."</p> <p>The lawsuit, also citing the University of Colorado, alleges that Dr Lynne Fenton advised campus police about her concern regarding James Holmes, after he told her about the fantasy in June last year.</p>

MARIETTA — An incoming lawmaker who has introduced several bills calling for loosening of concealed weapons laws in Georgia was told Saturday that his proposed legislation doesn’t go far enough. Carrying a .45-caliber pistol on his side, Guy Bennett said his 22-year-old son was in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater where a gunman opened fire during a July 20 showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” killing 12 people and injuring 58 others. Bennett’s son’s girlfriend was among those hit in the mass shooting, but survived. Bennett, speaking to a panel discussion of eight current, outgoing and future Republican state representatives...

A gunman killed three people before police shot him dead Saturday in a shooting at a house in the Colorado town of Aurora, the same town that played host to a massacre at a cinema last year, police said. NBC television's local affiliate KUSA cited police as saying that one survivor escaped from the house, where an "armed and dangerous" man had earlier barricaded himself inside with hostages, AFP reported. "The barricade situation is resolved. The suspect is dead. There were also three other victims found dead inside," the Aurora Police Department announced on its official Twitter account. Aurora made...

As many as 40 officers, including SWAT teams and hostage negotiators, were on scene at the home in Aurora, Colorado, on Saturday, January 5. An “armed and dangerous” man was holed up inside a suburban Denver home early Saturday, possibly with as many as three hostages, police said.

School Safety: Critics of the National Rifle Association's call for armed security guards at our schools respond that one famous school did have a sheriff's deputy on scene. But without him, the toll would have been much worse. After remaining silent on the mass shooting at Sandy Hook, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre held a press conference Friday to condemn another tragedy in a gun-free zone and to advocate the placement of armed security guards at our schools as is done at airports, banks and other public venues. "It's now time for us to assume responsibility for our schools," he said....

Why did James Holmes pick the Cinemark's Century 16 Theatre in Aurora, Colorado, to commit mass murder on July 20, 2012? You might think that he chose the closest theater to his apartment. Or, that he chose the one with the largest audience. Yet, neither explanation is right. Instead the Cinemark theater seems to have been chosen because it was the only one that banned guns. Out of all the movie theaters showing the new Batman movie that night, it was the one theater within convenient driving distance where guns were banned.In Colorado, individuals with permits are allowed to carry...

James Holmes -- the shooter in the Aurora movie theater massacre -- was hospitalized after several "half-hearted" suicide attempts ... this according to law enforcement. According to cops, Holmes ran headfirst into a jail cell wall on Tuesday ... and while he sustained injuries ... they were not life-threatening. Holmes also reportedly stood on the bed in his cell and fell backwards ... in an apparent attempt to crack his skull open. He failed. Holmes -- who killed 12 people and injured 58 more during his July 20 shooting rampage -- has since been released from the hospital.

Explanation: Sometimes both heaven and Earth erupt. Colorful aurorae erupted unexpectedly earlier this month, with green aurora appearing near the horizon and brilliant bands of red aurora blooming high overhead. A bright Moon lit the foreground of this picturesque scene, while familiar stars could be seen far in the distance. With planning, the careful astrophotographer shot this image mosaic in the field of White Dome Geyser in Yellowstone National Park in the western USA. Sure enough, just after midnight, White Dome erupted -- spraying a stream of water and vapor many meters into the air. Geyser water is heated to...

Explanation: North America at night is easy to recognize in this view of our fair planet from orbit, acquired by the Suomi-NPP satellite on October 8. The spectacular waves of visible light emission rolling above the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario in the upper half of the frame are the Aurora Borealis or northern lights. Encircling the poles and extending to lower latitudes, impressive aurorae seen during the past few days are due to strong geomagnetic storms. The storms were triggered by a solar coronal mass ejection on October 4/5, impacting Earth's magnetosphere some three days later. The curtains...

Explanation: What's happening behind that mountain? A convergence of variable sky spectacles. One night in mid-September near Tromsø, Norway, high red aurora could be seen shimmering through lower green aurora in a way that created a striking and somewhat unusual violet glow. Suddenly, though, the sky flashed with the brightest fireball the astrophotographer had ever seen, as a small pebble from outer space violently crashed into the Earth's atmosphere. The glow illuminated the distant mountain peak known as Otertinden of the Lyngen Alps. The bright meteor, which coincidently disappeared behind the same mountain, was also reflected in the foreground Signalelva...

Explanation: Sometimes it's hard to believe what you see in the sky. During the Shelios Expedition to Greenland in late August, even veteran sky enthusiasts saw auroras so colorful, so fast changing, and so unusual in form that they could remember nothing like it. As the ever changing auroras evolved, huge shapes spread across the sky morphed from one familiar form into another, including what looked to be the head of a goat (shown above), the head of an elephant, a strange green-tailed comet, and fingers on a celestial hand. Even without the aurora, the sky would be notable for...

Space Weather Message Code: ALTK06 Serial Number: 294 Issue Time: 2012 Oct 01 0443 UTC ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 6 Threshold Reached: 2012 Oct 01 0439 UTC Synoptic Period: 0300-0600 UTC Active Warning: Yes NOAA Scale: G2 - Moderate Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 55 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude. Induced Currents - Power grid fluctuations can occur. High-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms. Spacecraft - Satellite orientation irregularities may occur; increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites is possible. Radio - HF (high frequency) radio propagation can fade at higher latitudes. Aurora - Aurora may be seen as...

Explanation: September's equinox arrives tomorrow as the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading south. The event marks the astronomical beginning of spring in the southern hemisphere and autumn in the north. And though the connection is still puzzling, the equinox seasons bring an increase in geomagnetic storms. So as northern nights grow longer, the equinox also heralds the arrival of a good season for aurora hunters. Recorded on September 20, these colorful northern lights were captured with camera and wide-angle lens near the Norwegian Sea coast outside Tromsø in Northern Norway. Shining at altitudes of 100 kilometers or so, the...

With 12 dead and 58 wounded, the July 20th shooting at the Cinemark Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado was sure to result in a lawsuit. On Friday, the first suit was announced, claiming Cinemark has “primary responsibility.” The theater did have responsibility for the attack, but not for the reasons that the lawyers bringing the case think. The lawyer bringing the suit, Attorney Marc Bern, with the New York city law firm of Napoli, Bern, Ripka and Scholonik, suggested the theater should have had security guards the night of the attack. Yet, checking bags or metal detectors at the...

Shortly following the Aurora tragedy, a non-gun-owner friend of mine, obviously upset, began to question me about why I supported ownership of ‘deadly assault weapons.’ Even as he continued his extended, impassioned diatribe, I could tell that he was yet another victim of the media’s ‘assault weapon’ disinformation campaign. --IMAGE HERE-- When he paused, I asked him what he thought an ‘assault weapon’ actually was. Looking at me as if I were mentally challenged, he said that everyone knows “assault weapons are military-style, fully-automatic guns capable of emptying a 100 round magazine in 3 seconds.” When I told him that...

Will it ever stop? Not at the rate we’re going. Will it stop with absolutist arguments from either side on the gun debate? Not with the ‘You’ll-only-pry-this-weapon-out-of-my-cold-dead-hands’ mentality nor with the ‘Make-all-guns-illegal' argument either. Why? Why does Aurora happen? What does it say about us as a culture, that this kind of thing happens here? That it happens here more than it happens any other place in the world? We’re not at war at home. We’re not in a place where suicide bombings happen, and we’re not currently engaged in a religious or territorial war within our own borders. Why...

Following the Aurora shooting, the subject of gun control has returned to our national dialogue. Earlier this week, I wrote about my plan for firearms safety. The article itself was quite popular in terms of readership, but not so much when it came to reader commentary. What I proposed was quite simple; that a thirty day waiting period for firearm sales be mandated by the government. During this time, law enforcement officials would conduct a series of comprehensive background checks on all purchasers. If nothing negative were to turn up, then an individual could retrieve his or her gun after...