Lone Wolves in the USA (new title)

[carl]

So, are these folks "Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity" ? No !

Exactly. As you said, their insanity only extends so far. Their reaction to the exigencies of life is irrational, but all of their actions are those of perfectly rational people. They don't like the way the world makes them feel and they want to feel better. The way they choose to feel better is nuts but that is as far as their insanity goes.

Then their actions become those of a sane and evil person. How can he feel better? He can hurt them. How can he hurt them? He can kill them. The more he kills the more they will hurt. If he kills children, they will feel even worse. He can feel even better if he can anticipate that everybody will know him and want to want to learn about him.

So where can he go to kill many and not take the chance that there will be a fight that will keep him from killing many? There are lots of places and most of them advertise. Then is becomes a simple matter of scheduling.

He knows that he will run into no opposition. He knows he will be famous and his face will be known by all. The media can be counted on to do that for him. And that same media makes it easy for him to research.

So to me, the key to preventing these things is to make a situation that would dissuade the rational planner part. Remove the certainty that there will be no opposition and make these actions anonymous.