Anders Behring Breivik’s on trial for the murder of 77 people last July: killing eight people with a bomb planted in Oslo’s government district and shooting 69 people (mostly children) at the Labor Party’s youth camp on Utoya island outside the capital. The Norwegian spree killer’s claiming he launched his shooting and bombing attacks in self-defense—a plea designed to afford Breivik an opportunity to air his anti-Islamic views. As the AP reports, Breivik wasted no time taking advantage of the live worldwide coverage of his prosecution . . .

Dressed in a dark suit and sporting a thin beard along his jawline, Breivik smiled as a guard removed his handcuffs in the crowded court room. The 33-year-old then flashed a closed-fist salute, before shaking hands with prosecutors and court officials.

“I don’t recognize Norwegian courts because you get your mandate from the Norwegian political parties who support multiculturalism,” Breivik said in his first comments to the court.

Breivik’s claim that his anti-immigrant slaughter was an act of “preventative” self-defense has less of a chance of leading to an acquittal that a legal strategy based on alien abduction.

In fact, like all spree killers, Breivik has a pretty good argument that he’s nuttier than a Julekake. An idea that the defendant is determined to quash as publicly as possible, even as the court does it level best to lay the groundwork for the inevitable insanity ruling (which will justify the court’s decision not to give Breivik—or anyone else—the needle).

Interestingly, the mainstream media has focused on Breivik’s maybe-not-so-silly contention that he’s a part of a group the killer calls “Knights Templar 2083.” While conspiracy theorists rejoice, the truth may be more prosaic.

The live-bloggers at the Telegraph reveal that the independently wealthy Norwegian spent an awful lot of time playing World of Warcraft online. (As do some of the game’s 12m players.) After earning a nest egg from selling telephones and (allegedly) fake diplomas, Breivik devoted an entire year of his life to the game as “Justicar Andersnordic.”

Breivik’s bedroom is a tiny garret, just big enough for a bed, a computer, some garish artwork and an absurdly oversized safe on the floor.

If you were asked how an unemployed, psychotic fantasist would fill his many empty hours, you would predict that he would submerge himself in some wantonly violent, virtual reality computer game.

Breivik mastered all 85 levels of “World of Warcraft”.

“Wantonly violent”? Warcraft gamers should be thankful (in a horrible sort of way) that the media is focusing on Breivik’s racist views rather than his obsessive gaming. It’s too bad the Norwegians couldn’t get Breivik to plead out and avoid a trial, saving everyone the agony of listening to his arrogant racist rantings.

Or not. The trial will eventually highlight the pathetic police response to Breivik’s shooting spree and, perhaps, bring to light the dangers of a gun-free zones. Well, if not in the mainstream media then here on TTAG. Again. Still.

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35 COMMENTS

  6. Hilarious. A game where you can spend your days doing anything from picking flowers to playing capture the flag………wantonly violent. Sometimes it’s good to see that teh media really isn’t any smarter about other subjects than they are about guns. Justicar though……..yeah, that title takes about a year.

  8. Give me a break. If video games affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in the dark munching little magic pills and listening to repetetive electronic music. Oh, wait…

  9. “act of “preventative” self-defense ”

    So, if this is directed at Muslims on an individual basis, it’s murder…. but when conducted on a national front, it’s a “preemptive military action” and completely “justified.” Never a clearer case of orwellian doublespeak.

  10. “Breivik mastered all 85 levels of “World of Warcraft”.”

    This line made me laugh right out loud. I’m gonna go tell my guild how awesome (or scary psychotic) we all are because we’ve all “mastered all 85 levels of “World of Warcraft”.

    • I have 3 characters at 85, oh my! That makes me extra dangerous!

      I have guildies who have all their slots filled with 85s. They’re probably worse than Hitler in the Telegraph’s “opinion”.

  11. I am having a hard time deciding if he is as crazy as a sprayed roach or a shit house rat. It could go either way.

    • Yes, and everyone who has played it must schedule mandatory check-ins with therapists, practice yoga, and go vegan.

        • Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. Modern society with its upside down values (my opinion) seems to be heading in that direction at times. I used to be more concerned that the ideological value trends of political-correctness, radical feminism, and demographic changes of the past 50 years might lead to re-education centers for those who don’t join the Borg ie the collective hive. Now, I’m more inclined to believe that we will have a social/economic/political collapse or major downturn first doing away with big government progressive programs and plans.

            • Of course modern society has values. Values are what is important to a person: materialism, self-interest, entitlement, beer, sex, big houses, money, etc can all be considered someone’s values. Ethics are often confused with values. They are not the same.

      • You’d be surprised. After some idiot shot up a school in Germany, some German “politicians” wanted to ban so called “killer games” (aka first person shooters.) One politician stated that playing games like Counter Strike teaches you how to shoot a gun.

        Given that Norway is in Europe and that European politicians are the dumbest, most power hungry, most treacherous and most lying bastards? Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d try to ban WoW. They are Euro-peons after all.

  14. What is sanity and what is insanity? He seems to be staying true (and sane) to his values, codes, behavior, and beliefs. A person can be sane yet highly unethical by the standards, beliefs, and understanding of the majority of people (at a given time). If his behavior was observed to be jumping all over the place and conflicting with earlier behavior then maybe I’d consider this guy to have some insanity potential. If he identifies a physical ball as a dog and a dog as a car and ice as a fire then yeah he’d be nuts.

    • In the US at least I believe it is stated that for insanity the person charge must not have been able to understand the difference of right and wrong. In this case he knew darn well of what he was doing. The fact he was stating that he was making a defensive preemptive strike says he understood that killing people was bad.
      Now of course we all know that in court things can be strung together in so many different ways, but if you asked him is killing your mom a bad thing, he answers yes, the nuff said.

      • There are a couple of definitions of legal insanity in the US. One considers a person to be legally batsh!t crazy (that’s a term of art 🙂 ) if he was unable to understand the nature and consequences of his actions or to know that they were wrong. Another definition holds the person legally insane if the criminal actions were the product of a mental disease or defect.

        This Norwegian fruitcake seems to have known what he was doing and doesn’t appear to have a mental disease or defect.

    • Not in Norway. He’ll spend just 21 years in a “prison” that looks to put many hotels to shame, if I remember right from when this whole thing first happened. Correct me if I’m mistaken.

      Yep, that’s justice.

  16. The games he chose to play have absolutely fuck-all to do with what his warped mind ended up doing. I get so sick of of the second guessing towards every aspect of what he, or any other psycho, does in their life. A cursory google search shows 11.4 million folks playing that warcraft game so one unhinged asswipe out of 11.4 million doesn’t even come close to warranting a mention of the game. Why not mention what socks he preferred? What about his favorite soda? What hair gel did he prefer?

    A psycho killer (qu’est que c’est?) is an anomaly and as such it’s much easier for pundits to draw simplistic parallels to ordinary things than to actually delve into something complicated like a twisted mind.

  17. He’s one of the all time great nuts of our day. Good thing we don’t have any guys like that in the States, what with you trying so hard to make it easy for them to get guns and all.

    • Totally right Mike, if only we had a government agency with the stellar track record who we could trust to pre-profile people to make sure that those evil Warcraft players don’t get their hands on dangerous weapons. If only there were some way that our benevolent governmental overlords could see the future and make sure that oh-shits-it’s-Minority-Report-all-over-again. Oh, and that’s Tarrou Jenkins to you.

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