Funny thing: when writing a post, I just make up those little quips and observations on the fly, and only when I see them later quoted elsewhere, fully realize what a nugget of gold I accidentally struck.

Posted by: Ilkka Kokkarinen at July 23, 2011 11:21 AM

That's why I always check "The Fourth Checkraise."

Posted by: vanderleun at July 23, 2011 11:37 AM

So it's only Americans who have mass shootings because of their damned 2nd Amendment? Oh, not so much. That said, dead is dead, and I seem to recall a nightclub fire where 87 people were killed (Happyland, 1990) with a $ worth of gasoline. And yeah, there have been other mass shootings in Europe too. Gotta be some way for the press to blame this on the NRA. Maybe ATF was running guns to Norway? Or was that the DEA, or the State Department? Any rate the Brady Bunch just had a press release where they claimed this incident proved the need for more gun control. In the US that is.

Posted by: RKV at July 23, 2011 12:10 PM

Sarah Palin.

Posted by: RedCarolina at July 23, 2011 1:02 PM

Did this guy have a permit for those weapons? Did he have a permit to own the police uniforms. Full auto weapons?

Well the UN won't care.

Posted by: Peccable at July 23, 2011 2:29 PM

Will the Norwegians demonstrate the moral clarity sufficient to kill this creep?

Posted by: ThomasD at July 23, 2011 4:28 PM

I am almost at the point where I would say that anyone who is physically able and mentally capable of getting a CC permit and arming oneself, and who fails to do so, is morally culpable. In Israel, this shooter would not have lasted three minutes because every staff and supervisor there would have been armed.

The only thing that holds me back is whether I (for example) am actually obligated to place myself at risk of life to engage a shooter at, say, a shopping mall, in order to prevent mass murders of defenseless shoppers. That is, being a private citizen who (say), chooses to be armed for self defense, am I actually obligated to run to the sound of the guns to defend others even when I myself am not threatened?

And no matter how I answer, shall we,Kant-like, say that my answer should be a general rule?

Not easy questions. In the aftermath of 2008's Bombay massacre, I posted some thoughts.

Posted by: Donald Sensing at July 23, 2011 6:46 PM

I saw an article that mentioned that Norway now faces a bit of a dilemma since not only do they not have a death penalty, their laws stipulate that the maximum sentence for *any* crime -- even mass murder, apparently -- is 24 years of imprisonment. Unless they can make those sentences back-to-back the guy is scot-free in 24. How sad is that?

Posted by: Grizzly at July 24, 2011 12:17 AM

There is no moral to this story.

Yes, there is: "Your inherent right to self-defense becomes a meaningless legalism when society takes away your means to enforce that right."

Posted by: BillT at July 24, 2011 6:38 AM

When Liberals bump up against these situations, moral equivalency will hamper decisions. Sensitivity like that 24 year sentence for crimes from jay-walking to mass killing is the outcome.

Let them wrestle with it. The Muzzies will visit soon.

Posted by: Peccable at July 24, 2011 8:50 AM

O Gerard, When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. First Olso, then Texas and now Seattle.

Posted by: Jewel at July 24, 2011 11:44 AM

As I looked at the picture in your post I was struck by a part of it that was not enclosed in the yellow rectangle.

On the bottom left corner, in the water, there is a person (a man? a teen?) who is partially submerged but doesn't appear to be floating.

The shooter seems to be facing toward him as that man raises one arm, in an almost pleading fashion.

One has to wonder, what was that person's fate?

Did this monster have mercy on him?

Did he survive?

Or did this photographer unwittingly capture forever a small, chilling glimpse into his last seconds on this earth?

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