The Lede is live-blogging the tragedy as more details emerge. A reader writes:
My prayers go out to all of the victims and their families. I worked at a movie theater while in high school. I’ve always believed that movie theaters should have tighter security than they do, simply because of the vulnerability of the viewer. The viewers are literally sitting in a small, dark box with audio/visual depravation. I’m also surprised that more drug deals don’t go down in movies. Other than people in hospitals, I can’t think of an easier target than those in a theater. I’m actually surprised that this doesn’t happen, on a much worse scale, more often. Over time, I’ve also become quite worried about attacks at large sporting events. It seems that packing 80,000 people into a stadium with relatively few exit possibilities dramatically increases our vulnerability to attack.
Meanwhile, Michael Grunwald believes that "there is nothing wrong with politicizing tragedy":
If advocates or experts or even politicians think their policy ideas can prevent the next Aurora—by preventing potential killers from obtaining guns, by making sure potential victims can carry guns, or by some other method—then by all means, now is the time to spread the word. Pretty soon, the pundits will be back to “you people” and "you didn’t build this" and whatever new verbal gaffe overwhelms the competition to lead the free world.
The Dish 