Colo. Gov. Hickenlooper: More Laws Would Not Have Stopped Tragedy

Sunday, 22 Jul 2012 10:56 AM

By Amy Woods

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper said no law could have prevented suspect James Holmes from carrying out the act of terror that rocked an Aurora movie theater early Friday morning and left 12 dead.

“This person, if there were no assault weapons available, if there were no this or no that, this guy’s going to find something. Right? He’s going to know how to create a bomb. Who knows where his mind would have gone. Clearly a very intelligent individual however twisted. That’s the problem, this is a human issue in some profound way,” Hickenlooper said during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."

“The people around him had no idea that this was something he was capable of,” said Hickenlooper.

“How do you prevent this?” Hickenlooper asked host Candy Crowley.” “How do we preserve our freedoms…and all those things that define this country, and yet try to prevent something like this [from] happening? Let me tell you, there’s no easy answer. There isn’t.”

The governor described the suspect as a “deeply troubled, twisted, delusional person.”

“I am speechless,” he said. “I can’t conceive of a motive. In a funny way, this guy is a terrorist, right? For whatever twisted reasons that we can barely even imagine, he wanted to create terror. He wanted to put fear in people’s lives.”

Hickenlooper said Aurora will have a vigil at 6:30 p.m. today, following a visit by President Barack Obama. He said he spent Saturday visiting victims in the hospital and reaching out to the families of those who died.

Despite the horrific tragedy, spirits remain high, he said.

“It was amazing how buoyant the spirits were in many of these (hospital) rooms,” he said. “There’s a resiliency…it was an American quality. Trust me, we will rise above this. I guarantee it.”