DENVER — Firearms sales increased in the wake of the Colorado movie massacre as buyers express fears about personal safety and lawmakers use the shooting to seek new weapons restrictions.
In Colorado, the site of early Friday shooting that killed 12 and injured dozens of others, gun sales jumped in the three days that followed. The state approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase firearms — 25 percent more than the average Friday-to-Sunday period in 2012 and 43 percent more than the same interval the week before.
Dick Rutan, owner of Gunners Den in suburban Arvada, Colo., said requests for concealed-weapon-training certification “are off the hook.” His four-hour course in gun safety, required for certification for a concealedweapons permit in Colorado, has drawn double the interest since Friday.
Day-to-day gun sales frequently fluctuate, but the numbers also look strong outside of Colorado, too.
Seattle’s home county, King, saw nearly twice as many requests for concealed-pistol licenses than the same time frame a year ago. Connecticut processed 38 percent more gun-related records over the past several days compared with the same period two months before. Florida recorded 2,386 background checks Friday, up 14 percent from the week before. Oregon checks on Friday and Saturday were up 11 percent over the month past. Four days of checks in California were up 10 percent month to month.
In central Arkansas, gun sales have been up at some businesses, but not at the rate seen in other parts of the country.
Don Hill, the owner of Don’s Weaponry in North Little Rock, said he has seen a slight increase in sales — for weapons and ammunition — since the Colorado shooting.
“We’ve seen a little [increase], it hasn’t been dramatic,” Hill said.
At Fort Thompson Sporting Goods in Sherwood, sales have been good all summer, said general manager Louis Janski. Janski said customers have been talking about the Colorado shooting and some have purchased larger weapons for defense, but sales haven’t spiked since then.
“It hasn’t really gone crazy,” Janski said.
Representatives from both businesses said sales usually pick up when a new gun law is in the works.
Authorities have said that the suspect in the Colorado rampage, James Holmes, methodically stockpiled weapons and explosives at work and home in recent months. He purchased thousands of rounds of ammunition and a shotgun, a semiautomatic rifle and two Glock pistols, authorities said.
Early Friday, clad in headto-toe combat gear, the gunman burst into a midnight showing of the new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, tossed gas canisters into the crowd and opened fire. The shooting killed 12 people and wounded dozens of others.
Police in the Denver suburb of Aurora say Holmes also booby-trapped his apartment. Holmes is now in solitary confinement at a local jail.
Meanwhile, the university Holmes once attended confirmed Wednesday that it received a suspicious package two days earlier that was turned over to authorities, but it wouldn’t confirm its contents or sender.
The University of Colorado, Denver said the U.S. Postal Service delivered the package to its medical campus Monday, and it was immediately investigated and turned over to authorities within hours.
Fox News’ website reported that Holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student, sent a notebook to the university containing scribblings of stick figures being shot and a written description of a coming attack. The package containing it was addressed to a psychiatrist at the school, the website reported. It was unclear if Holmes, 24, had had any previous contact with the person. The neuroscience program he withdrew from on June 10 included professors of psychiatry.
NBC News, citing unnamed sources, reported that Holmes told investigators to look for the package and that it described killing people.
The FBI and other law-enforcement agencies refused to confirm the reports to The Associated Press.
U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Rupert said the agency’s inspectors have no direct knowledge of the package reportedly containing the notebook. He said no one has contacted the Postal Service for assistance in the investigation.
Citing unnamed law-enforcement sources, Fox News’ website reported that Holmes sent the notebook in a package that had sat unopened since July 12.
The university said the report that the package sat uninvestigated that long is inaccurate. A spokesman declined to comment further, citing a gag order issued by a judge in the case.
Also Wednesday, a father who took his teenage children to the movie and was killed in the shooting was mourned, the first memorial service for one of the victims.
Fifty-one-year-old Gordon Cowden was the oldest of the 12 people killed in the attack. His teenage children escaped unharmed.
Cowden lived in Aurora, the Denver suburb where the theater is located.
Funerals were planned later this week in towns from San Antonio, home of aspiring sportscaster Jessica Ghawi, to Crystal Lake, Ill., hometown of Navy intelligence officer John Thomas Larimer.
Information for this article was contributed by Sean Beherec of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and by Alex Brandon of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 07/26/2012