Colorado shooter James Holmes was able to acquire large amounts of ammunition and rapid-fire weaponry despite his erratic behavior.

If the mass shooting this summer during a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises has receded in the public’s memory given the recent horror in Newtown, Connecticut, court proceedings in Centennial, Colorado, this week have thrust it back into view.

We’ve learned heretofore unknown and certainly unpleasant details from the day of the shooting. Prosecutors played a tape in which a panicked moviegoer calls 911, but the dispatcher can’t hear him over the sound of gunshots—30 of them in 27 seconds.

An officer testified that, when there weren’t enough ambulances around, he crammed victims into the back of his patrol car. They were so badly injured that he testified he could hear blood “sloshing around” on the floor of his car when he made turns.

Other details that we heard piecemeal before have been confirmed: about the types of weapons Holmes used and his efforts to obtain them.

Crucially, looking at the evidence presented by prosecutors this week, it’s easy to see several points at which sensible gun control legislation could have stopped the slaughter. Here are the three most obvious ones:

Tracking large-scale ammunition purchases.

Better mental health screenings for weapons purchases.

Banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/george-zornick