Colorado Volunteer Group Gives Free Tickets To 'Take Back The Movies'

Batman would be proud.

It wasn't necessarily widespread, but it was a rushed conclusion heard often enough on television and online in the wake of the July 20 early-morning shooting spree in a packed Aurora, Colo., movie theater premiering "The Dark Knight Rises": "I can't believe it's not even safe to go to the movies anymore!"

A bit rash? Perhaps. But few could be blamed. If it could happen once, it stood to reason, why couldn't it happen again, anywhere, at any time? Was some equally disturbed, zealous copycat lifting up 24-year-old James E. Holmes as some hero so beyond possibility?

Besides, association can be an odd force at the best of times. Aurora was no more a likely stage, based on its profile, than any other loaded metropolitan multiplex where gunmen far more often let bullets sail with impunity.

In a climate of renewed anti-gun fervor and cries for tightened regulation of assault weapons, someone had a bold stroke to be "pro"-something: the organizers of TakeBackTheMovies.blogspot.com declared themselves zealously pro-enjoyment, pro-escapism and pro-kindness.

They're pro-movies.

Between 60 volunteers who showed up at five Denver-area theaters yesterday, 1,300 theater patrons received free passes purchased by Take Back The Movies. A post on the blog called "Time to turn on the lights" told of a mother, her teenage son and his friends who distributed tickets at the Arapahoe Crossing theater where Holmes went on his killing spree - the same where friends were shot just after midnight, at the same screening her own daughter nearly attended.

A father and his six boys were dumbstruck by the gesture. Another greeted the woman with more skepticism at the unprecedented gesture.

"Do you guys work for the movie theater?" one stunned patron asked.

"Nope"

"Well, who's paying for the tickets?"

"We are."

"What are you, rich?"

"Nope. A bunch of us wanted to show that there are more good people in the world than bad."

Being "against" anything comes easy. It comes too easily. Anger, sadness, blame and indignance rise like bonfires.

Be "for" something.