Cho was able to pass both background checks and successfully complete both handgun purchases after he presented to the gun dealers his U.S. permanent residency card, his Virginia driver’s license to prove legal age and length of Virginia residence, and a checkbook showing his Virginia address, in addition to waiting the required thirty-day period between each gun purchase. He did not disclose on the background questionnaire that a Virginia court had ordered him to undergo outpatient treatment at a mental-health facility, as there was no requirement to do so.
The package Cho sent the day of the killings included a photograph of the hollow-point bullets with the caption “All the [shit] you’ve given me, right back at you with hollow points.” During the investigation, the police found a note in Cho’s room in which he criticized “rich kids,” “debauchery,” and “deceitful charlatans.” In the note, Cho continued by saying that “you caused me to do this.” In one video, he mentioned “martyrs like Eric and Dylan,” referring to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre. Cho committed suicide after law-enforcement officers breached the doors of the building where the majority of the shooting had taken place.
The Virginia Tech Massacre is one case of mass murder where gun legislation might have made a difference. Indeed, after the killings, Virginia modified the current legislation so that one’s background information, including mental health history, must be revealed before purchasing a gun. Granted, had Cho not been able to get guns legally, he might have built a bomb or bought the guns on the black market. But stricter gun legislation would have made this sick person’s task harder, and might also have raised a red flag for law enforcement to follow up on. However, Cho was not a lone wolf like Breivik and McVeigh. He left a paper trail, and following that trail might have stopped him.
All these cases point out a simple fact: gun legislation is not going to stop the next Breivik or McVeigh, because it can never prevent killers who don’t leave a paper trail, not even in countries where gun legislation is extremely strict and citizens believe they are safe. Until we find other solutions, the lone wolf will continue to evade detection.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NEW METHODS, NEW HOPE
Still, such apathy is the root cause of both U.S. and especially, Western Europe’s problems.
—ANDERS BREIVIK MANIFESTO
There will be more Anders Breiviks. Unless law enforcement focuses on psychology more than criminal history, men like Breivik will escape detection until it is too late. Identifying these killers before they strike requires investigating their personalities and watching for subtle warning signs, like when Breivik was flagged for stockpiling fertilizer, instead of their police records, because their police records won’t exist until after they have struck.
Somebody like Dr. Puckett might have been able to evaluate Kaczynski’s mental state based on his narcissistic behavior, his high intelligence, and his inability to connect on any level with others. She might have noticed McVeigh’s constant attempts to participate in militant extremist groups, or his sacrificing a promising career as the perfect soldier because of foot blisters, or his paranoia regarding the U.S. government. Breivik’s constant attempts to join right-wing political groups and his subsequent rebuffs would also have come under scrutiny. These men had no criminal records to lead the authorities to them in a traditional manner. They did, however, share the characteristics that define the lone wolf. A trained professional with sources in fringe groups might have better luck than law-enforcement personnel with no trail to follow.
No one bothered to investigate Breivik’s stockpiling of bomb-making materials. Nobody reported his retreat to the isolated, violent world of the kind of computer games he chose. No one paid attention to his ranting and failed attempts to participate in extreme political groups. The only way Breivik could get anyone to acknowledge his existence was to murder his government symbolically that day in Oslo and on the island of Utøya.
The way Kaczynski murdered his government. The way McVeigh murdered his. All of them were so detached that they saw only one way to get the recognition on which they believed their very survival depended. Yet nobody felt they mattered enough to be dangerous.
NORWAY: A COUNTRY IN DENIAL
Who do you think you are? What makes you think you matter? Breivik received the message time after time, by way of the Law of Jante. The individual in Norway is suppressed and repressed. In a way, Norwegian society has become the ultimate bully, and the individual the victim. You should not raise questions about the group’s rules or disagree with the majority in any serious way.
Most people, regardless of their country of origin, don’t ask questions about their society. They take it at face value and accept it as is. They may not be particularly happy, but at least they’re not a threat to others. Luckily, most do not have the psychological makeup of a lone wolf, and they learn early on how to adjust to a group and to fit in, more or less, and find their own ways of expressing themselves and making meaningful connections. As children, we are told that we must go out and be like the other children on the playground. We learn and adapt to the social rules in order to belong and be accepted. In Norway, this means not standing out or asking critical questions.
That is why, in Norway, no one has even questioned if there is anything in society that may have helped form Breivik. Instead, the discussions have focused on mental issues and right-wing opponents of the government.
Neither of these is the real issue. First, because, if Dr. Puckett is correct, Breivik isn’t psychotic; and second, because Breivik would have taken upon himself almost any cause or ideology. Multiculturalism was simply the most obvious one.
In the meantime, Breivik is manipulating the public from within his prison cell and will probably attain his goals and continue working for his cause while being behind bars. As of September 2015, he was admitted to the University of Oslo to study political science from his prison cell.
Only Breivik is responsible for his actions, but he was not a born killer. Neither were Kaczynski, McVeigh, nor Rudolph. All of them had been bullied and isolated. Because they were highly sensitive children, and because they couldn’t achieve the seemingly simple act of human connection, the damages caused by their surroundings were beyond repair.
No matter how gruesome Breivik’s acts were, he raised some important points about Norwegian society. Dr. Puckett believes the court’s final sanity ruling is correct. Narcissistic and egotistical? Yes. Attachment issues from childhood? Definitely. And like other lone wolf killers, such as Kaczynski and McVeigh, Breivik is highly intelligent and calculating.
One may not agree with his politics. Disagreeing with one’s government does not make one a bad person. Instead of debating the political and sociological issues raised by Breivik, Norwegians blame the extreme right-wing blogs and groups for giving Breivik the idea to kill. They quote Fjordman’s essays as examples. Simen Sætre, a Norwegian journalist, even wrote Fjordman: Portrait of an Anti-Islamist, a book that attempts to discredit and ostracize Fjordman.
Many are concerned that the Internet is being used for communities with extreme right-wing views, and that bloggers such as Fjordman, who are hiding their identities, are allowed to flourish. Had they not been cast away in their home environments, they might not have needed their pseudo identities. Norway and its Law of Jante have taught its citizens to hide their true feelings, opinions, and identities in order to blend in. If we really wish to deal with the new growing extremism, we must start by daring to be ourselves and tolerating different opinions. It is not by simply accepting what we are told about other cultures. As discussed in chapters three and seven, the anger stems from having to accept newcomers when, as a native, one isn’t truly accepted or allowed to be oneself.
Breivik would have taken on any cause or ideology and used it for his acts of violence. He needed to make a difference, to become visible, be recognized as a savior. Just as important, he needed to break free from the
homogeneity of Jante culture and feel like he mattered. All he had to do was find a cause to fuel his rage against society, much as McVeigh’s rage at his government for how he thought they were bullying him and other American citizens fueled his rampage.
The life of a lone wolf is not a life anyone would choose. It is one of the loneliest and most desperate of existences. The lone wolf suffers from not being able to make meaningful connections. Very few radicals, even in terrorist groups, actually turn to violence, and even fewer to murder. That is because extremist groups are also social groups. No matter how strongly one may believe in the group’s ideology, most people join purely for social reasons.
“Their social needs are met, and they feel they have a place in the world that defines them as part of something important, something that matters,” Dr. Puckett wrote. “For most of them, just being part of the group is enough. Although they may posture and spout extremist rhetoric, and they may cheer loudly when others commit violent acts in service of the cause, most are happy to let someone else do the dangerous and bloody work of terrorism.”
They are, however, frequently paranoid, which leads them to suspect that unconnected events may well be plots. They then seek out extremist groups that share their paranoia. But the lone wolf is unable to connect to a group, at least not for long. All that is left for him is a direct connection with the ideology.
“The isolation he has felt all his life is replaced by a sense of strong belonging to the cause, the ideology itself, and he can focus all his energy and attention on action in its service,” Dr. Puckett said. A warning flag for identifying a prospective lone wolf would be watching for a particular person who keeps trying to join various extremist groups but seems to keep bouncing around.
The rest of the world has the misconception of Norway as a nearly perfect society, but Norway has its own societal flaws. Bruce Bawer has referred to Breivik as the Inner Viking. “Not only because he managed to do so much harm, but because his very existence seemed to [illustrate] the lie [within] the myth of distinctive Norwegian goodness.” Though Norway definitely projects an image of a perfect country, a culture of goodness, fairness, and solidarity for all, there is resentment lingering beneath the surface. Norwegian exceptionalism, as it has been called, suggests that there is something better, nobler, and wiser about the Norwegian people than those from other parts of the world. They award the Nobel Peace Prize, after all.
This has become the only acceptable way of standing out in Norway: not as an individual, but as a country, as a superior ethnic group. The individual has no value in Norwegian society. Yet the Norwegian people ironically celebrate their country as the ultimate humane society.
Because of Breivik’s deluded “war on Islam,” innocent people died. Yet it was neither Islam nor the Muslims that drove him to murder; it was his inability to openly protest and try to change, in a democratic way, what he saw as an inequitable system. His extreme need to matter and be recognized went unmet again and again. This resulted in a rage so strong that it finally culminated in violence on a societal level that the world witnessed on July 22, 2011. He had a ready-made enemy: his own government.
By its extensive global humanitarian work, and by claiming that it takes care of those who cannot take care of themselves, Norway has been viewed by many as Utopia. By trying to point out its humanitarian legal system through Breivik’s travesty of a trial and much-too-lax punishment, the country took its exceptionalism too far. In contrast, the twelve jurors in the Boston Marathon bombing case condemned Dzhokhar “Jahar” Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection on May 15, 2015. Tsarnaev is expected to be executed at the U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, known by some as “Guantanamo North.” In the meanwhile, he may be transferred to the ADX “Supermax” prison in Colorado, where McVeigh stayed before he was executed and where Kaczynski and Rudolph are serving their life sentences.
One cause behind facilitating a lone wolf like Breivik lies in the structure of modern Norwegian society and its culture. Bullying is indirectly tolerated and basic individual expression is suppressed, and concepts such as sacrificing “for the common good” have installed a hatred of the good, for the sake of being good. Altruism has branded the pursuit of self-interest as evil. Multiculturalism can lead to positive discrimination, which in turn can deny equal opportunity to those who are more qualified and/or more driven to succeed. The line between black and white, of good versus evil, has been blended into something less recognizable. Repressing and de-powering the individual make it easy for someone like Breivik to turn to extreme violence.
By branding Breivik’s crime as a one-time event, and by living in denial, Norway is making itself even more vulnerable to other people with similar psychologies. If we are to believe Dr. Puckett, this type of killer is an increasing phenomenon and threat to all of us, just as Breivik himself may continue to be a threat to Norway and beyond.
Breivik’s defense attorney, Geir Lippestad, published What We Stand For in April 2013, in an attempt to justify his choice of defending the indefensible Breivik. By taking on Breivik’s defense, he became the devil’s advocate in the view of many. His goal in writing a book was obvious: create a distance between himself and his client and make it clear that he does not share his client’s political views.
In that book, Lippestad writes about the values of the Norwegian legal system and about “value-based communication,” as he calls it. He says that “Instead of discussing cultural differences that separate us into different categories, as people such as Breivik, Fjordman, and other like-minded people know how to exploit,” we should instead discuss our common basic values and what unites us. “We must not tolerate intolerance,” he declares. By this logic, should we then not tolerate Fjordman and all those who do not agree with the majority’s opinion?
The essential question in Lippestad’s book is (literally translated): “How can we deal with the growth of extreme political weather, whether it comes from East or West, from religious extremists or egotistical individuals and fanatics?” Further, he wonders, how do we deal with the anger that surfaces because our societies are changing more radically and many cannot keep up and often turn to destructive outlets?
Telling survivors like Adrian Pracon not to write a book about his experiences on that Friday afternoon is not the answer. Neither is suppressing opposing political opinions by ignoring them, excluding people from society, or threatening their lives.
That is what happened to Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a Member of Parliament. In the aftermath of July 22, 2011, Tybring-Gjedde’s skepticism and concerns about immigration were ridiculed. He suffered a breakdown, which caused him to miss work for several weeks. He received many death threats, was harassed, followed, condemned by other politicians, media, and even blamed for Breivik’s massacre. He and his family had to move and get a secret address and phone number. For a period of time, he even escaped with his family to Denmark in search of a sense of peace that no doubt still escapes him.
Fjordman, and those of like minds, have every right to, and should, be taken seriously. Lippestad and his family, who were obliged to have police protection during the trial, should be the first to understand this. Someone even cut off the brakes from Lippestad’s bicycle in an attempt to seriously injure him or worse. His children were also threatened. But Lippestad, in his attempt to appease and repair burned bridges in Norwegian society, doesn’t want to discuss that tragic footnote to the case that has brought him more recognition than any other in his career.
MORE HYPOCRISY
Ironically, Breivik had to commit mass murder before he was finally taken seriously and treated as an individual. In his mind, he was not punished. He was rewarded by the trial, the media attention, and his sentence. It finally gave him the attention he craved.
His trial was a circus of confusion, suppressed anger and grief, and injustice for the victims. As previously discussed, his mental state had not been determined before the trial began, even though that is the custom in No
rway. No one in attendance seemed to understand, or care, what kind of person Breivik was, not to mention the peculiar psychological makeup that led to his violent actions.
He had never before experienced having a voice, never felt the power of having influence. Maybe just as important, he had never experienced respect. In his inability to connect with others and have meaningful relationships, Breivik has never been closer to having such relationships than he is now. A lot of societies are flawed, and they act as facilitators for killers, but not all of them reward their killers as Norway rewarded Breivik. It is remarkable that Norwegian society gives more individual deference to this mass murderer than to the victims of his crime, as well as to its citizens in general.
Not only did Breivik come out as a winner from the trial, but Lippestad has also managed to turn his life around, in terms of his career and by the way the Norwegian population views him. Because of his book and the speeches he gives at conferences about his “value-based communication,” he has gone from being the second most hated man in Norway to a national hero. Lippestad was awarded the “Name of the Year” prize by several newspapers, among them Verdens Gang, in 2012. The Press Photographers Association awarded him the “Good Boy” prize in early 2013, and he has received other honors as well.
Maybe what the press and the citizens really appreciated about Lippestad is that he pulled off something astonishing in Norway: namely, to use the Breivik case to his own advantage, while at the same time staying within the Law of Jante and insisting that he was only doing his job, that defending Breivik was strictly his part of a communal benevolent service.
Although many claim that the system can keep Breivik locked up for life, he will probably be released at a relatively young age. Most people tend to view perpetrators differently over time, and the political will to keep him in jail might be different twenty years from now. Furthermore, this forgiveness factor is the way the legal system in Norway is supposed to work. If Breivik is rehabilitated and no longer considered a danger to society, he must be set free after having served his sentence. With Breivik’s intelligence and proven capability to manipulate the trial proceedings and expert psychiatrists, he will probably manage to convince the court one day that he regrets his crimes and has learned his lesson. In the meantime, he has the freedom—although somewhat limited—to communicate with kindred spirits all over the world. In 2014, he went on a hunger strike because prison authorities refused to provide him with the video games he requested. Life has never been this satisfying for Anders Breivik.
The Mystery of the Lone Wolf Killer Page 28
