He was about a quarter mile away from the crowd. Some of his rifles may have had, but I seriously doubt he was using scopes. At that distance, people look like gnats. To say he was truly witnessing the results of his spraying is dubious at best.
He certainly got to watch the panic as the crowd scattered. He certainly didn’t see the sniper shot super-slo-mo super-closeup head-splosions so beloved of Hollywood.
Whether what he saw made him feel exhilarated, liberated, satisifed, disgusted, sad, or nothing at all is gonna be impossible to say.
Whatever this is, it isn’t warfare. Comparisons to the feelings of soldiers are really inapt. Comparisons to the motivations or morals of soldiers is frankly despicable. Regardless of whose soldiers someone is comparing to.
Totally agree. He planned everything. He might be extreme on the anti-social scale but he wasn’t ill. Culture is a construct.
I’m not sure how you could say that. Fucked up crazy people can be meticulously plotting, too.
You seem to have very strange definitions of “ill” and of “culture”.
Not to derail the thread, but American aircrews who firebombed Tokyo reported the stench of burning human flesh at low altitude, and some saw people burning alive.
While the depression info adds to the picture it doesn’t really explain the amount of time spent prepping for this or why he wanted to kill people in this manner. He had tens of thousands of dollars wrapped up in guns and untold hours planning it. This wasn’t just about killing people. He could have killed many more for much less money time.
“One of the things I learned in the war is that—we’re not the top species on the planet because we’re nice. We are a very aggressive species. It is in us. And, people talk a lot about how well the military turns kids into killing machines and stuff. And I will always argue it’s just finishing school.”
Karl Marlantes
USMC Veteran, Vietnam
(from Ken Burns’ documentary The Vietnam War)
Seems like “Don’t speak ill of the dead” is kicking in here.
“He was quiet and kept to himself” is a cliché at this point, so it adds nothing new and is probably just ritual phrasing.
We’ll probably never know his mental state since he’s dead and can’t be examined. Unless more information comes out like he had been diagnosed with some condition it’s all just speculation based on what is known about him, what he’s done, how he lived and interacted with people and what the people who knew him remember about him.
But since we’re engaging in amateur speculative psychology here anyway, my guess is the depression was just a side effect of a psychosis that went on undetected by others around him for a very long time. What finally pushed the button to move from a long term fantasy into action will probably also never be known.
Some of the characteristics that stood out in descriptions of him in these interviews of those who knew him:
None of these characteristics in themselves can be used to diagnose psychosis or anything else but this profile isn’t in conflict with the profile of most anyone who is psychotic.
Add to that the downward trajectory his life was taking as he aged, possibly began to have health issues, and devoted almost all his time to video poker.
He had no strong relationships; a kept girlfriend and prostitutes were his love life. He was loosely in touch with one brother, had a very elderly mother, and was estranged from the rest of his family. No friends other than casual acquaintances who barely knew him. Of the girlfriend, brother and mother - he was their support system but none of them were his. There was nobody who was going to ring an alarm bell if he was slipping into a dangerous psychotic state.
So does anybody actually believe ISIS’s claims of responsibility at this point? This guy just doesn’t seem like their type.
I don’t believe he had much if anything to do with ISIS, but ‘heavily armed loner who hates the world’ sounds like he would fit right in.
I wonder at what point the police will consider the investigation complete, and all the details will be released to the public.
Regards,
Shodan
This guy is exactly the type of recruit they would seek out for a suicide mission. Willing and able.
But on the other side of the coin I doin’t think ISIS is his type of organization. He would be above it unless they were doing his bidding.
What might exist is help from ISIS to accomplish his goals and that would be a mutually inclusive arrangement. I doubt you have to pass a written exam on Islam to become a member of the suicide brigade.
If he accepted help from ISIS I wouldn’t give them credit for it.
I’m curious if anyone has seen a breakdown on how many of the victims were wounded directly by gunfire and how many were injured by other means? I’ve been trying to watch and so far the closest thing I’ve found is this Chicago Tribune story:
Obviously “many” and “more than” leave a fair bit of uncertainty, and there could be lightly-wounded gunshot victims. Has anyone seen a more definitive answer?
Or like it was explained in earlier in this thread, and the math wasn’t even done on paper…
Ill means sick with disease
Culture decides which actions are acceptable. We might think this guy was ‘ill’ because he killed many people. There were literally of thousands of Germans who killed many more than him during the Holocaust. Most survived the war and lived normal (as far as we know) lives. They use what Robert Lifton called personality doubling to deal with their dual lives.
If he has any brain defect found in autopsy that might have influenced his actions then we might be able to say he was ill. Otherwise no.
There’s no reason some of the victims couldn’t have had gunshot wounds AND escape/crowd/trampling injuries, too. I can’t point to discreet source on line but some of the not-so-seriously-injured people interviewed on TV shortly afterward described running, leaping/climbing over fences and other obstacles both while being shot and shortly afterward. There is some overlap between the two groups.
Given the condition of his brain when they found him, identifying any defects might prove challenging.
I saw the pic and he swallowed his pistol. The upper parts of his brain might be intact.