MY TAKE ON THE AURORA SHOOTING

While the facts continue to be investigated and revealed, some of the information in the public realm as of Saturday raise my concern.  For one, Gary Martin had been called into a room where he was terminated... after being on the job for 15 years.  Aurora police said they had arrested Martin six times on charges that included traffic violations and domestic violence. His last arrest in the city was in 2008.  His most recent arrest was two years ago, when Oswego police picked him up on charges of disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property.  

Normally, if an employee is going to present serious problems to the work environment, you know it within six months... maybe a year.  The fact that he had a lengthy record of domestic violence, disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property leads me to believe he was probably a troublemaker on the job.  Sometimes, management is afraid to confront such behavior; he at least should have been refereed to mandatory counseling.  I cannot think of a justifiable reason to keep a troublemaker on the job for 15 years.

Secondly, if you're going to discipline or terminate an employee with this kind of track record, you should always have a security guard in the room.  

Third,  I'm going to assume that the five fatalities were all either in the room or in the immediate vicinity of the room, and it further appears that all five were killed in the immediate bursts of gunfire.  After that, Martin evidently started to roam the plant and warehouse, shooting at other employees indiscriminately.   There is absolutely no indication that any other employee had a gun with which to shoot back, and about five minutes elapsed from the first shot to the arrival of law enforcement.  

Finally, Martin bought the gun used to commit the shootings in 2014 and there was no evident reason to deny the sale at that time.  However, five days after taking possession of the weapon, a Smith & Wesson 40-caliber handgun, Martin tried to obtain a concealed carry permit.  During the fingerprinting and background process it was discovered that he had a felony conviction for assault in Mississippi in 1995.  They therefore turned down the concealed carry permit but failed to seize his gun, which should have happened because he had a felony conviction.  

Five innocent lives were lost and a dozen people including five police officers were wounded.  It seems to me that there's a helluva lot of blame to be spread around. 

That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.