prev
next
James Holmes built up Aurora arsenal of bullets, ballistic gear through unregulated online market
Crime scene tape surrounds the Century 16 movie theater where 12 people were killed in a shooting rampage July 23, 2012, in Aurora, Colo. / Getty Images
(CBS/AP) DENVER - In a world where Amazon can track your next book purchase and you must show ID to buy some allergy medicine, 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 availed himself of an unregulated online marketplace that allows consumers to acquire some of the tools of modern warfare as if they were pieces of a new wardrobe. The Internet is awash in sites ranging from BulkAmmo.com, which this weekend listed a sale on a thousand rifle rounds for $335, to eBay, where bidding on one armored special forces helmet has risen to $799.
A federal law enforcement source told CBS News that Holmes spent $15,000 fortifying his arsenal online. Authorities found a shipping label from BulkAmmo.com in a dumpster near Holmes' apartment, the source said. EBay was the vendor Holmes used to purchase some body armor, the source said.
Special Section: Colorado Movie Theater Massacre
Does naming a shooting suspect glorify his crime?
Miller: Aurora shooter must have practiced
"We're different than other cultures," said Dudley Brown, executive director of 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 apartment. The order, Weinman said, didn't stand out.
"There's a whole range of consumers who have an appetite for these products, and 99.9 percent of them are law-abiding citizens," Weinman said. But he said that "it makes me sick" that Holmes bought material from him. He added that he doesn't sell guns or ammunition and that he was "shocked" at the amount of bullets that Holmes allegedly bought online.
The federal law enforcement source also told CBS News that authorities obtained a video of Holmes picking up approximately 160 pounds of ammunition from a FedEx store.
Shooting rampage in Colo. theater
Authorities say all of Holmes' purchases were legal — and there is no official system to track whether people are stockpiling vast amounts of firepower.
During a news conference in Philadelphia on Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the government has to think about the issues raised by Holmes' alleged arsenal.
"We have tried to come up with a better system with our instant background checks so that we have the ability to make sure that people who have emotional problems, people who have felony records, other people cannot get access to these kinds of weapons," Holder said.
There is no restriction on the sale of bullets in the United States, except for armor-piercing rounds, which can only be bought by law enforcement, said Ginger Colbrun, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Hence the proliferation of websites offering Amazon.com-style wish-lists for hollow-point rifle rounds or tracer bullets.
There is a federal law that bars selling body armor to violent felons — which Holmes was not — but it is rarely used because there are is no requirement to check whether purchasers of the material have criminal records, according to Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence.
CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reported that the shooter had a hit ratio twice of what a police officer might have engaging with armed assailants in a street setting. That suggests that the suspect -- who is believed to have planned his assault with precision -- must have practiced shooting prior to the attack.(Watch at left)
Over four months, authorities said, Holmes received packages at his Aurora apartment and the University of Colorado medical school, where he was studying neuroscience.
The federal law enforcement source told CBS News that authorities interviewed a UPS driver who said he delivered about 90 packages to Holmes at the school's Anschutz Medical Campus in the last few months.
As the boxes piled up, Holmes began to shop for guns at sporting goods stores — because of the need to pass a background check to buy a firearm, they are still generally bought at brick-and-mortar locations.
The four guns used in the shooting were purchased legally at three Colorado gun stores between May 22 and July 6, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports. Those weapons included a Glock pistol from a Gander Mountain store in Aurora, another Glock and a shotgun from a Bass Pro Shops in Denver and an assault rifle from a Gander Mountain in Thornton, Colo.
- no previous page
- next
1/2
Popular on CBSNews.com
-
Photos: Underground shots of NYC's Second Ave. subway project New York City's Second Ave. subway was first conceived almost a century ago and when it is completed, it will extend all the way down the eastern side of Manhattan with 16 new stations. CBS News' Don Dahler reports on one of the most challenging public works projects in the country.
- Report: U.S. teacher training an "industry of mediocrity"
- Girl who lost feet in lawnmower gets prosthetics
- Day care worker accused of drugging snacks for nap-time
- Tornado briefly touches down on Denver airport runways
- FAA approval sought for 650-foot-tall Vegas thrill ride
- Shock as alleged Nazi unit leader, 94, found in U.S
- Report: Pregnant workers face routine discrimination
- Feds digging in Mich. field for Jimmy Hoffa's remains
Most Popular
-
01
-
02
-
03
-
04
-
05
Most Shared
Most Discussed
1. Why does the MSM report that James Holmes was acting crazy in jail, yet the local Colorado news station reports that he is completely normal?
2. Why do victims report that James Holmes methodically picked his victims, in contrast to the media's reports that he seemed to randomly spray gunfire?
3. According to news reports, James Holmes was an "outstanding marksman", however no one seems to be seeking out how he received this training?
4. Why did the University of Colorado remove Dr Lynne Fenton's (James Holmes psychiatrist) web page, and not disclose that she had been reprimanded on 3 different occassions for ethical violations in prescribing psychotropic drugs, one of which James Holmes admitted to police he was on at the time of his arrest? (The page reappeared but looks slightly different than the web archive page)
5. Why does the prosecution admit, yet the MSM is not reporting, that James Holmes did NOT tell the police about the notebook, and that no one has seen the contents of the notebook (It is reported that he told police about it, and that there are stick figures shooting other stick figures).
Please read the post and then see if there is something ELSE going on here...
No it doesn't. unarmed targets in a shooting gallery vs armed thug on the street, that's nothing alike!
Rather than penalize law abiding citizens by making them feel they have to buy a gun to protect themselves from bad guys with guns...why don't we pass laws preventing bad guys from easily getting their hands on those guns in the first place?
The only one who benefits when everyone has to arm ourselves for protection is the owner of the gun store...who makes a profit selling guns to criminals and crazy people...and then makes a bigger profit selling guns to the all rest of us so we can protect ourselves from the same criminals and crazy people to whom they just sold a gun .
That a gold mine for gun dealers. And a penalty to everyone else.
It's like The phone company who sells services to telephone solicitor allowing them to make annoying calls to their customers.... then sells their customers a service to block telemarketers calls.
Most of us who would prefer to use any extra money to buy food and clothing for our families.....Now, we are expected to pay hundreds of dollars to buy a gun and bullets just to protect ourselves from the mentally unbalanced killer to whom irresponsible gun dealers have just sold weapons.. It's basically a TAX on every law abiding American.
Imagine how absurd the argument would be if pool owners refused to build protective fences around their pools ...and instead insisted that everyone else buy and wear a life jacket at all times...instead.
Imagine how absurd the argument would be if an owner with a vicious dog insisted that his neighbors buy protective clothing to ward of any possible attack..instead of making sure his attack dog is muzzled, leashed and behind a secure fence.
Making every one else pay a price because irresponsible gun dealers are too lazy to do their homework and sell guns to anyone who is breathing is the wrong answer.
The nation of Israel can teach us something about gun ownership. Israelis are even more security conscious than we are in the US.
Gun owners in Israel
1. are limited to owning one pistol, and
2. must undergo extensive mental and physical tests before they can receive a weapon, and
3. are limited to 50 rounds of ammunition per year.
In 2008, 61 people in Israel died from gun homicides, according to the website gunpolicy.org. (.83 deaths per 100,000 population) . In comparison
in 2008 9,484 people in US died from gun homicide...4 times as many as in Israel which is in a constant state of war (3.12 deaths per 100,000 population) .
Lior Nedivi, a former police officer, said that gun massacres don't occur in Israel because gun owners here undergo more comprehensive psychological screenings than do U.S. gun owners.
"It's not guns that kill, it's people that kill," Nedivi said. "If this person in Colorado will be screened now, they will say he has mental problems. In Israel, most people like this don't get a chance to get a gun."
They don't have crimes like this in Israel because active military, which is a significant percentage of the population, is armed everywhere.
pools kill 10x more kids than guns, btw.
Imagine if some feelgood lawmaker wanted to restrict the depths of backyard pools to 4" to prevent accidental drowning depths, and required poolcovers with childproof locks.
How does a guy that is out of work, drawing unemployment, looking to move, purchase over 15,000$ in gear in a short period of months? You need money in the bank for these items, where did it come from? His grant was only 26,000$ per year and it was given out in monthly instalments, and he was not even receiving it at the time of the shooting. Did you see him in the court looks like psychotropic drug use, have they done a full toxicology screening? What exactly was he working on while he was involved in research?
The world and motives are controlled by money, follow the money trail. How does a guy that is on a limited budget buy over 15000$ in equipment while most people are just struggling to get by? Tragic that people are dead but frankly more people die from traffic accidents daily, harsh yes but true.
They are already starting to use the shooting to attack the 2nd amendment even before all the facts are in or a complete investigation is carried out. I bet you they will grab all the guns in Colorado as fast as they can.
..................................Maybe we need to completely RETHINK our very failed WAR on DRUGS, since just like Mexico, they're interconnected!
Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome, is the true definition of INSANITY, and you conservatives fail to understand that simple premise!
=====
mecanik-2009 July 24, 2012 7:55 PM EDT
Yah right. Your a real expert on that.
=====
Ignorant and outrageous posts like that prove absolutely nothing!
Even though the NRA might be older than 50 years, my point still stands: "We didn't have a NRA special interest lobby like this 50 years ago either!"
The NRA has been on steroids for LESS than 50 years, with hundreds of
millions spent on lobbying congress and outrageous advertisements over the past 25-years, and now even gives grades for congresscritters!
Yes, I'm an expert on the NRA, and you can bet on it!
During the 2008 presidential campaign, the NRA spent $20 million on disingenuous ads telling republicans that Obama was coming to take their guns, and the REDNECK economy has been booming ever since!
I'm willing to bet they will spend $50+ million this year with LIES and DECEPTIONS against the BLACK MAN in the White House!
The Second Amendment protects my RIGHT to buy that stuff in order to defend myself from the gun-toting idiots.
But what I don't understand was the lack of an alarm on that door. I thought movie theaters had all alarmed their emergency exit doors decades ago, to protect themselves from kids sneaking all of their friend in to watch movies on one ticket.