My thoughts are with Oslo...

[Hosh]

Is it just me, or are things like this just impossible to understand?

In fact, I don't think I ever want to understand them...

 

[Bukfan]

It's difficult to understand a nut who shoots and kill 85 innocent teenagers. He was member of an extreme right-wing Christian and anti-Muslim group. Apparently, his target was the Norwegian Labor government in Oslo where he put his bomb to explode among some government buildings (7 killed), and then he went on to kill the 85 teenagers at the Labor Party's youth summer camp. A kind of Norway's own Timothy McVeigh.

 

[Erik]

The best response I've heard so far comes from a 4 yearold:

"I feel sorry for everybody. Also for the bad man. Do you think he gets food in jail?"​

Otherwise I'm afraid this guy is a product of the internet, or more specifically: "internet radicalization".
An insightful article can be read here. Reads like something from mjp's mailbag...

 

[hoochmonkey9]

yeah, the bombing part was bad enough, but to think of those poor kids trapped on an island with a nutjob shooting at them for 90 minutes really sickens me.

I have a niece and nephew (11 and 15) by marriage that live in Norway and for a while there my stomach was flip-flopping. but they live in Bergen.

 

[mjp]

The island was a horror show, yes. But as I was reading about how long it went on, I couldn't help thinking that if someone else on that island (who wasn't deranged) had a gun, a lot fewer people may have been killed.

I'm not a gun nut (gun owner, yes, nut, yes, but not a gun nut), just saying.

 

[Hosh]

Or maybe if everyone stopped, took a deep breath, and realized the rest of their fellow humans aren't out to stick it to them, and that mindless political/national/social/financial/religious dogmas have painfully little to do with our everyday routines -- maybe then this blossoming distrust on this planet would ease up a little...

Oh, what am I thinking...let's go kill something!!!!

it's all so
fucking
stupid.

 

[mjp]

Yes, peace and love, but the gun genie is out of the bottle and it's never going back in. If we never manufactured another gun, we would still have gun murders for 150 years. Until the pocket death ray is invented, anyway. So what's the answer? Is there an answer?

Someone creeping up behind Anders Behring Breivik and putting a bullet in his head after he claimed his first victim would have been a good thing. You can't argue that. Or I suppose they could have just reasoned with him instead. :nw:

Even Gandhi would have shot that fucker.

 

[Erik]

I guess thats what makes the US so safe, isn't it... there's always someone there to put a bullet in the bad guys head. :confused:

The guy was wearing a police uniform with bullet proof vest. He was calmly, with a friendly voice, telling the youths they were safe and told them to gather round him for protection.
But maybe the kid creeping up from behind, with the tiny little gun, could aim his shaking hand at the guys shooting arm, instead of his head, just in case he was a real police man.
Jeezuz. :(

Last year we had 29 murders (police cases) TOTAL in Norway, how many did the US have?

Here's a more balanced look at this tragedy.

 

[Bukfan]

Plus, you can't take precautions against a psycho thing like this, because it had never happened before, not in Norway, at least. Even if they had a gun on the island it would'nt have helped much, because you of course trust the friendly "policeman", and when he starts shooting, it's too late. Maybe an adult with a gun, who was a marksman like the psycho, would have stood a chance against the psycho, despite him wearing a bullet proof vest, but that's pure speculation since it was impossible to foresee something like this happening.

From the Huffington Post article:

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has stated clearly that the terror will be met with more democracy and more openness. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has made clear that tomorrow's Norway will be fully recognisable. Not only have these phrases been repeated. They have been implemented. The city centre was quickly reopened. Norwegian politicians and the Royal Family have spent the last days meeting with large crowds of people, with limited security, always at a discreet distance.
Even more interesting, perhaps, there hasn't even been a public outcry for more security for the politicians to address. No opposition politicians, not even social media voices, have demanded more public security or pointed to the lack thereof as potential discouragements to the attacks. There has been no visible debate on gun laws or even on the sale of fertilizer, used by the attacker.

That's great, I think. We can't destroy our free way of living with having more and more security, just in case another psycho might go on a killing spree some time in the future. We already have pretty tough terrorist laws which have limited our personal freedom due to the extensive surveillance of citizens the law now allows the police to conduct, etc.etc. If we continue to walk down that road, we will end up living in a police state with "Big Brother" following our every move. That said, we should of course use common sense in order to prevent such a thing from happening again (if it's at all possible, which I doubt), but we should'nt go overboard having strict security here, there, and everywhere. Or as the Norwegian terrorist expert put it:

Norwegian terrorism expert Tore Bjørgo explained in an interview that more extensive computer surveillance could possibly have detected the attacker's plans. But quickly added: "Although this is obviously a level of monitoring the Norwegian people would not agree to."

 

[mjp]

But maybe the kid creeping up from behind, with the tiny little gun...

Who said anything about a kid with a tiny gun? Was it the island of unsupervised children? Were there no adults there? I was just hypothesizing anyway...one adult with a rifle or even a .38 or a .45 pistol = end of slaughter and 50, 60, 70 or more kids alive today. How the hell is that a bad thing or a controversial idea?

And I was just hypothesizing. It's only a thought that came to me when I read about the protracted 90 minute killing spree. You know, I start thinking, "Jeez, how could that have been stopped?" That's just where my mind goes. It's better than thinking about the terror and carnage.

Last year we had 29 murders (police cases) TOTAL in Norway - how many did the US have?

More than twice as many people live in Los Angeles county than live in the entire country of Norway, a country that would fit inside the state of Montana, so you can't really compare the two countries. Plus we have a lot of guns and no King.

To say, "Oh well, there's nothing that could have been done to stop this guy," is a weird, defeatist attitude to take, seems to me. But what do I know. I'm not trying to get up anyone's ass. It was a horrible, unfortunate thing.

 

[jordan]

mjp i see your point, but that line of reasoning gets bandied about whenever one of these unthinkable tragedies happens - i remember fox news making a big point about it after the virginia tech shooting... it's quite a solution - bring guns to class, guns to summer camp, guns to the opera, guns to wherever some lunatic decides to go on a rampage next. it's like airline security - they tried to hide explosives in a liquid emulsion? no shampoo! they tried to hide a bomb in a shoe? shoe inspections! they tried to hide explosives in their underwear? nude imaging scanners! you'll never catch up with it. violence like that is horrific in part because it so rare and absolutely unexpected. if norway were a war-torn land, everyone would have guns, but the rampage would have been just another day at the office. as it happened, a relatively peaceful land was shocked by violence, but i don't think it would help to propagate the idea that a more violent mindset to begin with is the solution.

 

[Hosh]

If someone wants to die to make their point -- be it a shooter on a campus, a terrorist on a hijacked plane, a psycho-tard dressed like a cop, or a Japanese pilot in a fighter plane -- I don't know if there's a way to "outplan" them. I'm glad it's not my job to try and figure it out.

If we're talking prevention, I suppose trying to figure out what he hated, why he hated it, and what, if anything, incited him might be a decent way to start tying to find an answer or two.

Though I will admit that a Navy Seal Team 6 would've been a handy thing to have around on the island...

 

[mjp]

i don't think it would help to propagate the idea that a more violent mindset to begin with is the solution.

I didn't and wouldn't try to propagate that idea because I don't believe that guns create a violent society. They didn't call the Colt .45 The Peacemaker when they created it back 1n 1873 to be ironic.

Poverty and injustice cause crime and violence. Which is why the county of Los Angeles has more murders every year than the country of Norway. Guns are not the problem (bullets are! Har har...). In a just society all the guns would rust from lack of use.

Injustice or perceived injustice is at the heart of what made the Norwegian shooter lose his marbles. All of that nationalism or fascism or whatever you want to call it, what drives that? The idea that someone is taking away something that's yours or that you have a birthright too. It's imbecilic, but a good number of people in the world are imbeciles.

I don't know if there's a way to "outplan" them.

Not to belabor the point, but you don't need a plan. Norway has a lot of guns, most of them rifles, used for hunting and "sport" (yet they still have a low murder rate - hmmm...) It isn't outlandish to think there may have been a rifle on an island full of kids who need protection. They might need protection from a wild boar or a homeless guy (if they have those in Norway).

Anyway, again, it was just a thought I had as a reaction to something that could have been somewhat less tragic, at least in scope, had someone had a shot at the shooter. But then again, people react differently under stress. We can't forget that the World Trade Center was brought down because the people on the planes were afraid of being cut by the point of a razor blade sticking out of a box cutter. So taking on a fully armed nutjob would certainly not be an easy thing to do.

 

[Erik]

If we're talking prevention, I suppose trying to figure out what he hated, why he hated it, and what, if anything, incited him might be a decent way to start tying to find an answer or two.

Here's a way of DOING prevention, not just talking it. (and without one shot fired...)
(more here)
This method recently worked well in Egypt & Tunisia as well...

MJP: of course there were hired guards and other grownups on the island. One was a policeman. He died trying to stop the bad guy... (they didn't bring their guns to summer camp though, do they in the US?)

 

[mjp]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but I fear I'm beginning to sound like one.

A million people standing silently in the street will never stop a lunatic intent on carnage or prevent a lunatic from doing something he feels compelled and motivated to do. They might slow him down, since it would take him a while to get through all that. But they wouldn't stop him. They (in Egypt and Tunisia) will not ever stop empty-headed radicalism either. Not in a million years with a million marches or sit-ins. Never.

As for adults having guns on the island - all I can say is I would have been petrified if no adults had guns in some of the remote places we camped as a kid in northern Minnesota. Not to shoot lunatics with, but for emergency protection against large (and very, very large - like, bear large) wildlife.

I don't know what the hell was on that Norwegian island. Maybe there was no reason for anyone to have so much as a sharp stick. What do I know? It's all theoretical anyway since I wasn't proposing a solution, just putting my random thought out there. I was not, and am not, suggesting that everyone carry guns around to pick off nut cases when they come unhinged.

But I do carry a very sharp knife in my pocket, and if by some strange twist of fate I found myself behind someone who was indiscriminately shooting people, I'd pull it out and stick it in his fucking neck as hard and as deep as I could. Yes, in a savage attempt to kill him! Because a violent action like that is the only way to stop someone who is doing something utterly insane like randomly shooting people.

If someone had taken the Norwegian shooter out - in a violent fashion - everyone on earth would be hailing them as a hero. They'd give them a fucking medal, they wouldn't get all angsty about whether what they did was moral or polite or civilized. That's all I'm saying. You can't fight fire with hugs or daisies or "more democracy." The world and its people often suck, and sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to keep things on the level. That's all.

And that's more enough from me, I'm sure.

 

[Hosh]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but I fear I'm beginning to sound like one.

I think we all know that is you were trying, you would totally succeed!

Even the Dali Lama can appreciate the need to defend one'e self, and morally get behind the decision. I don't think our opinions are as dispirate as they're coming across. And if the folks on the 9-11 planes knew they weren't going to survive (as those on flight 93 suspected) I think the outcome would've been different.

And yes, if I was there, I hope I would try to kill the shooter too.

 

[number6horse]

Albert Einstein was a pacifist until he saw what Hitler was really up to. His reasoning was (roughly) "In the face of new evidence, one must adjust one's conclusions."

I know in my heart that violence begets violence... but I also know that I cannot stand by when it happens in front of me. And I've gotten my ass kicked for it sometimes, too.

 

[Ponder]

 

[mjp]

We can't forget that the World Trade Center was brought down because the people on the planes were afraid of being cut by the point of a razor blade sticking out of a box cutter.

On a side note here, I watched a documentary not too long ago about those snakes on the planes, and they had more than box cutters. A couple of them had knives with three inch blades, which were legal to take onto an airplane at the time.

Three inches sounds small (that's what she said!) but the knife in my pocket has a three inch blade, and it's not a trivial weapon. It's an entirely different can of beans than a box cutter, so I've had to change my opinions of the passengers on those planes.

The caveman part of me still believes the men should have tried to make a move regardless of a knife, since they outnumbered the snakes, but that's easy for me to say. The pilots were dead anyway, so it's probably a moot point. Either way, I'm pretty sure that reasoning with the hijackers or having a peaceful protest in the aisles wouldn't have changed the outcome.

 

[jordan]

i think the terrorists promised the people on the planes that they would land them safely after hijacking them and that the people would live through it, unless they interfered. it wasn't so much getting cut as it was not realizing the suicidal intent of the hijackings. that's why the passengers on flight 93 fairly easily overpowered the hijackers and crashed the plane - i'm sure a few did get cut in the skirmish, but they knew they were going down either way.

 

[mjp]

According to the documentary I mentioned (sorry, don't remember what it was, but probably one of the PBS doc shows), they cut a flight attendant's throat to get the ball rolling and to demonstrate what would happen to anyone who tried to stop them. On one of the planes at least. And passengers on all of the planes heard the chaos and murder that was going on in the cockpits, so I don't know. Of course everything we know about that morning is from phone calls made from the planes, so I suppose it's all third-person reports.

Do you really think people would just sit on their hands because hijackers promised their safety? Man, I don't know. It's a crazy situation to try to put yourself into. You never know what you may or may not do.

 

[bospress.net]

The advice at the time was to ALWAYS cooperate with hijackers. It was good advice until that day as all other hijackings were of the more typical and now-quaint variety where a political radical hijacked a plane to take them to Cuba, etc, etc. In those cases, it was always better to cooperate. This was always the advice that passengers were given. The same applies at a bank, of course. If I am in a bank and a bunch of guys with guns some in and tell everyone to lay on the floor and we will all be safe, I'm doing it. Someday, they may do that and then detonate a nuclear bomb. Until that day, I'm hitting the floor and letting them take the money.

Of course, knowing now that people hijack planes to fly them into buildings will make it nearly impossible to repeat that method of terrorism as your average passenger will not sit back and stay calm.

Bill

 

[Ponder]

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/norway-massacre-the-killers-mind/