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Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Sunday suggested that assault weapons may be used in so many mass shootings because of their depiction in video games, but he stopped short of calling for reinstating a ban on those military-style, urban-warfare firearms.

CNN host Candy Crowley on Sunday reminded Hickenlooper that he had said there was very little that could be done to stop a determined mass killer after the theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado this year and asked him if he still felt that way after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last week.

"That's true," the Colorado governor agreed. "What you can do is expand your capacity, your framework within a state or within the country to have more people paying attention and trying to detect folks that are unstable on the verge of real trouble, try to catch them at a certain level."

"But certainly the culture of violence -- and look at the level of violence in our media, video games," he added. "The depiction of assault weapons again and again. There might well be some direct connection between people who have mental instability and when they go over the edge, they transpose themselves, they become part of one of those videos games. And perhaps that's why all these assault weapons are used."

But Hickenlooper dodged Crowley's question when she asked if it was time for "a law banning either these high-capacity magazines or, again, re-instituting the ban on assault weapons."

"The access to guns is going to get discussed," he insisted. "Our country is based on -- that Second Amendment has been shown repeatedly, it does protect people's rights bear arms, to have guns. You know, my grandfather taught me how to shoot and clean a 12-gauge shotgun and showed me how to hunt and I've shown my son. I mean, that tradition is very powerful throughout this country."

"But, you know, discussion around assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and what type of -- should there be wait? You know, one of the things we're doing in Colorado is looking at expanding the time if someone's had a mental-illness hold, expanding the time they have to wait before they can get access to a firearm. Those kinds of things, I think those discussions are going to happen, I mean, in real time over the next couple of months."

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Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) says that there is no doubt in his mind that last week's shooting at a theater in Aurora was an example of domestic terrorism.

"You know, in a funny way this guy is a terrorist," Hickenlooper said of James Holmes, the man who is suspected of killing at least 12 and wounding 58 others.

"He wasn't a terrorist in the sense of politics, but for whatever twisted reasons we can barely even imagine, he wanted to create terror. He wanted to put fear in people's lives."

But the governor told CNN's Candy Crowley that he couldn't think of "any way in a free society" to have determined that the shooter was amassing an arsenal, which included an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle with a 100-round magazine, two Glock handguns, a Remington 12-gauge shotgun and various types of body armor.

"He was buying things in different places," he explained. "Certainly we can try -- and I'm sure we will try -- to create some checks and balances on these things. But this is a case of evil, right? Of somebody who was an aberration of nature and, you know, if it wasn't one weapon it would have been another. I mean, he was diabolical."

"What I hear from you is that you would be open to people who want to suggest a gun law or something that might prevent this sort of thing, but at the moment you can't imagine what that would be?" Crowley asked.

"I'm happy to look at anything," Hickenlooper agreed. "Again, this person -- if there were no assault weapons, there were no this or no that, this guy's going to find something, right? He's going to know how to create a bomb, he's -- I mean, who knows where his mind would have gone."

In Sunday's comments, the Colorado governor seemed to be backing away from a statement he made as Denver mayor in 2008 when he promised to consider tougher gun laws.

"Hickenlooper will look at Denver's gun laws to ensure they are as effective as they can be in keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals and young people," The Denver Post reported at the time.

"Let me be clear: This community will not accept violence — not a day of it, not a week of it, not a month of it — and certainly not a summer of it," he said following a series of shootings in Denver. "There are a number of other cities addressing gun laws. .... We want to look at the matrix of our existing laws and see if some of these other laws are able to help."