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Emotional scarring from an event like the shooting in Colorado can take a lifetime to heal.

A mental health veteran talks about how to avoid desensitizing children to these violent acts.

Dan Aune says, "A tragedy like what happened in Aurora, at the theater, is a trauma that people will have with them for a long time".

Aune goes on to say: "they're gonna have what we call Post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD...it may just be driving by the theater, or a theater, it may be the news, will trigger all those emotions you had at that moment in time"

"There's some real structured cognitive behavioral practices that help people do it, there's normalizing the situation, as much as you can...folks who have had maybe little trauma, who are a little fragile emotionally, they will have a more difficult time".

"If you watch it over and over again, you see it, you play it, you begin to fantasize about it, it sorta normalizes all that violence".

His advice: "Watch what your kids are playing and doing, to the community, I would say look at people who are ostracized, disenfranchised, find out how to get connected with them, how they can have a part in the community".

Aune believes that the stigma around mental illness is a huge barrier for proper treatment, and that violent offenders need not only mental, but major spiritual help, as well.