The horrific killing spree allegedly perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik was likely to have been a result of an internal conflict involving two sets of his core beliefs, according to one of the leading experts on the psychology of killers.
“The key thing is always motive,” said David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, and author of A History of British Serial Killing. “I am sure that, as things become clearer, we will discover there was a mixture of the political and the personal.”
The political seems relatively obvious. The bomb target was a government building and the mass shooting occurred at a youth rally for the incumbent political party.
Photo: Reuters/TV2 Norway
“The personal is more difficult to work out at this stage,” Wilson said. “It’s usually a grudge.”
Wilson drew comparisons with the case of Derrick Bird, who killed 12 people on a shooting spree in Cumbria, northern England. “Bird was a clear case of the political and the personal. He felt people were trying to steal his taxi customers — that’s personal — and he felt he was being unfairly chased for taxes — political.”
Breivik’s Facebook page suggests he held strong Christian beliefs, enjoyed playing World of Warcraft fantasy games and was a fan of the psychologist William James and philosopher John Stuart Mill whose treatise On Liberty warns against the “tyranny of the majority.”
“If I were speculating, I would guess he was annoyed because of the Christian fundamentalism far-right idea that Norway’s accessible open culture was being undermined by immigration,” Wilson said.
Early reports suggested the killings were carried out by a “deranged gunman.”
However, Wilson said this was not the case.
“This man was making a point that was very clearly thought through. [He] had a uniform — he was dressed as a policeman — he had planned well enough to have weapons [and ammunition] that he was going to shoot for two hours. He spoke to the kids saying, ‘Gather round, I want to ask you some questions,’ and then shot them and, crucially, he did not take his own life. This is somebody who is not ashamed of what he did. This man was making a point,” Wilson added.
Both spree and serial killings in Scandinavia are rare. Finland witnessed two school spree shootings in 2007 and 2008 carried out by disaffected young men who felt they had been let down as pupils.
Wilson, who has visited Norway many times to study its liberal sentencing policies, asked: “How will Norway react to the appalling events? Will they only sentence this guy to 21 years [the maximum sentence a criminal can receive in the country]?”
Questions, too, will be asked about the country’s liberal gun laws. Shooting and hunting are major pastimes in Norway and guns are easy to obtain.
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