Norwegian Shooter Breivik Pleads Insanity

Photo used with permission of Flickr (c) copyright 2011

 The twenty-second of July, 2011, is a date that will live on in infamy forever as the date Anders Behring Breivik bombed the government buildings in Oslo, Norway, and proceeded to go to the island of Utaya and began to indiscriminately shoot members of a camp run by Norway’s Worker’s Youth League, killing 76 people, most of whom were teens.

Originally, Breivik was to face a possible 20 years in jail, the maximum possible sentence in Norway, but the prosecution was forced to change the charges brought against him to insanity. According to the court-appointed psychologist, Breivik is a Paranoid Schizophrenic. This means he chooses his actions based on his perceptions of a fictional universe only he experiences.

According to reports, Breivik had convinced himself he was the future regent of Norway, a master of life and death, and “Europe’s most perfect knight since WWII”.

However, to receive the insanity status under which he is currently classified, it takes more than being unhinged. According to studies about him, he also feels no empathy for his victims and shows no restraint when he is asked to either demonstrate or explain how he committed the acts.

Breivik is a supporter of a varying number of questionable ideologies that include cultural conservatism, ultranationalism, Islamaphobia, antifeminism, and paramilitary organizations such as the Scorpions.

If the charges are proven in a court of law, he will spend an indefinite amount of time in what will most likely be a government-sanctioned sanatorium.