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[Leafsnail]

This dude is nuts. Just as nuts as a person who voluntarily shoots up any place, for any reason. There is no justifying murder.

You seem to be creating a false dichotomy - either he's nuts, or the murders are justified.  It's possible to be responsible for your actions (IE sane) and still do something bad.  Just writing off every criminal as "nuts" isn't productive or accurate.

[kaijyuu]

Utilitarianism vs deontology, ahoy!


Anyway, in reality, that sort of situation rarely exists. Generally they fall under "self defense" which most people wouldn't call murder anyway. So outside of fantasy situations and self defense, killing someone is pretty much never justified. You're never going to come across someone about to pull the End The World lever while you have a shotgun in hand.


It's extremely dangerous to use that sort of logic to justify political killings, too. Unless you think the Reign of Terror was an excellent idea, killing people for having different political opinions or being of a different social class is unambiguously bad.

This dude is nuts. Just as nuts as a person who voluntarily shoots up any place, for any reason. There is no justifying murder.

You seem to be creating a false dichotomy - either he's nuts, or the murders are justified.  It's possible to be responsible for your actions (IE sane) and still do something bad.  Just writing off every criminal as "nuts" isn't productive or accurate.

Bit of a miscommunication here that's my fault; I use "nuts" in this situation to mean either actually insane, or just using horrible logic. Someone who does something stupid due to being a victim of their own logical fallacies would be "nuts" to me, not just someone who's mentally ill.


So the dichotomy here (that isn't false) is either A) killing someone is justified (self defense, etc), or B) they're insane, stupid, and/or ignorant.

[Leafsnail]

That's still a massive false dichotomy.  At the very least you also have crimes of passion (acting under the influence of your emotions), crimes of desparation (acting because you see no other option) and crimes of plain selfishness (doing something you know is wrong but deciding that your needs are more important).

[Neonivek]

Yeah someone can be nuts and be doing it for the best intentions... or nuts and doing it for selfish reasons.

Either way... That was a nut anyhow.

What is the difference between a nut and a Not-a-Nut commiting the same crime? The thought process involved. The thought process that this person didn't take the time to use or simply used a crazy one.

What was the person actually trying to achieve and what was the cost?

Well one could argue that is never the case because the price of society condoning murder is too high

This is why Utilitarianism is a lot more logical then people realise.

[Grek]

To the people saying the shooter was sane: He had his pockets stuffed with chicken sandwiches when he went to go shoot up a place. Obviously insane.

[Zangi]

Maybe he thought...  Sandvich anyone?

[Urist Imiknorris]

TF2 causes shootings!

[kaijyuu]

At the very least you also have crimes of passion (acting under the influence of your emotions),

I have never bought this excuse. The best you could convince me of is momentary insanity. Otherwise, it probably falls under "stupid" for thinking "because I'm really angry and want vindication" is a legitimate excuse for anything whatsoever. 

crimes of desparation (acting because you see no other option)

Probably justified.

and crimes of plain selfishness (doing something you know is wrong but deciding that your needs are more important).

I legitimately question the sanity of someone doing something they know is unjustified. I can see knowingly doing something "wrong," but that always falls under crimes of desperation.

[Neonivek]

Mind you this isn't the kind of Crime excusing Insanity.

This is sort of the "You are guilty you guilty person" Insanity.

--

Crimes of Passion are rarely used to excuse a crime outright. They are used as a mitigating factor against cold killing especially in situations where people feel even they might have snapped.

Crimes of Desparation are mixed and controvercial a lot of the time. Once again they tend to fall under the same mechanics as Crimes of Passion in that they are usually used as mitigating factors in that you weren't EXACTLY wrong but that your judgement was poor and lead to a needless death.

Crimes of Selfishness tend to be justified on a personal level simply because a person can simply rate himself the greater good.

[Leafsnail]

Neonivek says it nicely - the first two are generally mitigating factors rather than "excuses".  I'm not sure why you need this to be so damn black and white (either the murder is perfectly justified or that person is "nuts").  You seem to miss out on the possible nuances of crimes of desparation - even if you're in a bad situation you shouldn't harm innocent people over it.  Other than that, I don't see why you're refusing to accept the existence of selfishness.  I acknowledge that not it's not present in everyone, but there are people who would rate their own happiness as paramount and disregard others - you must have seen this behaviour in businessmen or serious criminals, especially of the organized variety.

In this case it could be that he simply ended up regarding the need to show his political views as more important than his target's wellbeing or rights.  He wouldn't be "nuts" in this case.  Of course, he could well be insane, but I don't think we have the information to decide that yet.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

My first time playing Liberal Crime Squad ended in a similar way, I think.

[Sensei]

This picture is the main thing I took away from the article.

Stare into it. See what man has wrought.

[Il Palazzo]

To the people saying the shooter was sane: He had his pockets stuffed with chicken sandwiches when he went to go shoot up a place. Obviously insane.

To the people saying the shooter was insane because of the Chick-Fill-A sandwiches: You must've missed the whole Chick-Fill-A anti-gay marriage thing(that I linked to earlier btw).

WinShape is the vehicle through which Chick-fil-A, and by extension the Cathys, have made about $5 million of donations to anti-gay marriage groups since 2003, with $1.9 million of that donated in 2010 to outfits including the Family Research Council and Marriage & Family Foundation. They’ve written checks to Exodus International, famous for “ex-gay” conversion therapy, and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, whose website includes a testimonial from a coach “delivered” from homosexuality.

The fact that he brought the sandwiches to the shooting was obviously a statement in line with the rest of his behaviour.
Condemning him for what he's done is most proper, but I think it can be done without involing name-calling.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I know about the Chick-Fil-A controversy, but filling his backpack with the sandwiches because he hates the FRC is still really weird.

[Urist_McDrowner]

We don't know the whole story with the sandwiches. Maybe he spit on them, or peed on them, or filled them with bullets.