It appears that the shooter in the Aurora, CO tragedy was a gifted individual. And that his giftedness may have contributed to the tragedy. As a gifted person and the parent of a gifted child I have to say that giftedness is a two edged sword. Gifted kids face many challenges. Among them are being bored which leads many to involvement in crime and drugs. Bullying and ostracizing are common among gifted kids. Gifted kids also suffer from form of autism and Asperger's syndrome which prevents socialization. Being gifted is no picnic. Teachers often resent gifted kids who have never ending questions and demands. You can be very smart and not be gifted. Giftedness brings a different way of thinking and seeing the world.
There is no excuse or justification for what this monster did. I seek to prevent another occurrence, not to spare this guy from the full punishment the law demands.
But we need to do a better job of identifying potential problems in the future. The program that my kid was in in Illinois was crap. I home schooled him for a year before I was able to get him in an IB school, which helped. And he was bullied in middle school badly. I too was badly bullied as a child. My child is also gay which makes things even more difficult. He suffers from depression as do I. And it is not easy when the whole class resents you because you have the misfortune to know all the answers.
The shooter is morally responsible for his actions. Because of his skills he should know better than anyone else how horrible his actions were. But we need to find out what went wrong. So we can hopefully get to the point where we can intervene before it is too late.