AURORA — The theater shooting that left 12 people dead and injured 58 others was “not just an incident but a pattern,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Thursday morning.
Flanked by a group of pastors, including Thomas Mayes of Living Water Christian Center Church in Aurora, Jackson called the early morning massacre domestic terrorism.
“This is not an issue of guns for the house, or keeping guns for hunting but rather, domestic terrorism,” Jackson said. “None are safe in the rise of domestic terrorism.”
Jackson said he isn’t seeking to eradicate gun ownership but will continue to seek a national ban on assault-type rifles. The national ban expired in 2004. “You don’t hunt with an AK-47,” he said.
James Eagan Holmes, 24, is accused of using a shotgun, an assault-style rifle and a .40-caliber handgun to fire on a sold-out showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” early July 20. Police say Holmes had purchased about 6,000 rounds of ammunition and was using a 100-round magazine with the rifle.
A national coalition of law enforcement groups on Thursday renewed its call for background checks on all gun buyers — not just those purchasing through dealers — and a ban on high-capacity magazines.
The National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, which is made up of nine police-leadership organization, made its call as U.S. House of Representatives condemned the mass shooting and expressed condolences to the families and friends of those killed and injured at the theater.
Also making a note of the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981 by former Evergreen resident John Hinckley Jr., Jackson blamed a frail economy and too-few options for psychiatric health care for a perceived rise in gun violence.
“We’ve seen these massacres before, and we still have the toleration level,” Jackson said. “We hope this will become the tipping point to rethink this.”
Jackson, who witnessed the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis in 1968, noted the constitutional protections for gun ownership but said, “Something must be done.”
“I am convinced this kind of access to weapons emboldens international terrorists,” he said. “We have gone from protection from the wild to a state of war.”
While walking around the perimeter of the apartment at 1690 Paris St. in Aurora where Holmes lived, Jackson talked about the recent comments by President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney concerning gun control in the wake of the theater shootings.
“They are both aware of the dangers of the assault weapons,” Jackson said.
On Wednesday, at the National Urban League Convention in New Orleans, Obama called for more rigorous background checks for people who attempt to buy guns and restrictions to keep mentally unbalanced individuals from purchasing weapons.
Romney said changing the law would not necessarily keep people like Holmes from committing an act such as the theater shooting if their mind was set.