alp227

He have already be sentenced to 21 year behind bars - and even though the court deiced him to be sane - he might as well be insane as he absolutely must have got something wrong...

by the way - another tread about this is also active

Diclotican

The lynch mob mentality clouds people's judgment and common sense. Sane people do not run around shooting and killing 77 people (most of which are unarmed and innocent children). The man is insane, crazy, out of his mind...how else do you rationalize his views. You have to otherwise accept his reasoning for this crime to be a rational and acceptable conclusion for the internal struggles that he was facing, or that he came to an irrational and "crazy" solution on his own.

All murderers are "insane" to some extent by the common use of the term.

Picking unarmed and children is actually a point in favor of his sanity. He didn't want targets that could fight back and end his killing spree prematurely. The amount of planning that went into it is another point in favor of his being sane. He ensured maximum damage to cause the maximum amount of fear. He had a goal and he did everything he thought he could to further it.

I couldn't give a rat's whether he spends a couple of decades in a prison or the same in a secure mental ward, so not sure how a lynch mob mentality is assumed. Hell if given the choice for myself I would say the latter is a worse punishment, as it limits opportunities for normal social intercourse.

I don't grasp why some people think murderers/mass murderers are by definition insane. The word "insane" does not mean violent. It doesn't mean murderous. It doesn't even mean murderous on the wholesale level. I'm sure you know this of course but to set up a discussion point:

in·sane [ in sáyn ] 1.legally considered as psychiatrically disordered: considered legally incompetent or irresponsible because of a psychiatric disorder
2.lacking reasonable thought: showing a complete lack of reason or foresight
3.people legally considered as psychiatrically disordered: people who are considered legally incompetent or irresponsible because of a psychiatric disorder

1. Is out. Norway's courts - never held up as an example of judicial bloodlust, declared him legally sane. We can see why I think. Breivik is not incapable of stating his case or helping in his defense, and he has made no attempt to disavow responsibility; he has even explained his reasoning at length. His reasoning being abhorrent and aberrant does not make him incapable of understanding or explaining it.

2. Is out. The foresight of planning this attack per se throws it out - choosing a location where help would be delayed and a target that would be unprotected and little threat while choosing and amassing the most effective weapons. His actions were unreasonable to say the least (as in excessive and abnormal) but his thought was not unreasonable (as in the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences).

3 just repeats 1.

The problem here is English uses the same word to mean different things in different contexts. Certainly nobody sane thinks mass murder is an action within reason. This does not mean anyone doing it lacks the ability to reason mentally.

It means he is not so dissociated from reality (as we know it) that he wouldn't be able to understand the charges against him, or unable to assist in his criminal defense.