Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian mass killer, vehemently declared himself to be sane at his trial. Those who declare him demented, he said, are only trying to dismiss his crusade against Muslims as the rantings of a madman.
Breivik gunned down 77 defenseless people, most of them children, at a resort last summer to call attention to his fears.
In his trial, he testified he had been planning the attack for several years. It was, in other words, deliberate. He was, according to his testimony, in control of himself. Clinicians now must determine the difference between insanity and irrationality. Perhaps one may be sane yet utterly irrational.
Idi Amin, the murderous dictator of Uganda, comes to mind. Amin presided over the slaughter of uncounted thousands of his own countrymen, destroying his own regime and deeply damaging his nation. He, like Breivik, was irrational, vicious, without compassion. He was also technically sane.
Breivik is right — how the jury decides this question does make a difference. If he is found to be sane, he will go to prison and stay there until he dies, from whatever cause; if insane, he will be sent to a hospital where they will try to restore and release him.
Justice will not be done if Breivik ever walks free again.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
