Gotcha Morning | 'The Dark Knight Rises' Shooting

President Obama and Mitt Romney essentially put their campaigns on hold today out of respect for the victims of the horrific shooting at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises early this morning in Aurora, Colorado.

What was supposed to be a rousing political rally in Fort Myers, Florida turned into a short, solemn speech by the President, ending with a moment of silence and an incongruous chant of "four more years" from the audience.

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Meanwhile, on Good Morning America, ABC News reporter Brian Ross had a little more trouble keeping politics out of this story, mentioning on air that there is a "Jim Holmes" listed on the Aurora Tea Party website. As it turns out, that's not the same "James Holmes" in custody for the shooting. This is not unlike the reaction of some reporters after the Arizona shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords, who jumped to conclusions that the shooter was somehow connected to the Tea Party (and particularly Sarah Palin).

President Obama chose not bring up gun control in his speech but as always happens after mass shooting like this one, those questions rightly become part of the conversation. Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas already took the opportunity to ask, "It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" With misguided statements like that floating around, it is the moral obligation of President Obama and the Democrats to ask how James Holmes got his murder weapons in the first place and how government regulation, not citizen vigilantes, can help stop these incidents from happening.