Here's what I'm gathering: The 1%, unfairly blamed and banished, rises to save the 99% from itself and the rabble-rouser who has brainwashed them -- working both with the law and a little bit outside of it to do so. While also banging some sense into one of the hotter 99% girls along the way.

Limbaugh should be tickled pink this is the pre-election summer blockbuster.

K

He would be, if he could fit into a movie theater seat.

Another random shoot-em-up at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin today. Shooter was a white male in his 30's and the event is thus far being categorized as a hate crime.

Shoot-em-ups are the thing, now. Nobody has the kind of time and patience required for serial killing anymore, and advances in forensics make the risk too high. Besides, it's too personal. Easier to just waltz into public and start spraying bullets. I don't mean to make light of it or whatnot. It's just an interesting shift in the trends of homicide.

K

Capitalism has taken even our killers to a lowest common denominator. Good point.

I didn't feel like reading this whole thread, but here's a discussion thread about capitalism and crime on a physics forum, seemed sort of interesting. I found it googling about crime trends in capitalist vs. communist societies. Of course it's not really a question of crime -- think of what passes for "crime" in a society like North Korea, or even in our own society with the litigation of the internet and digital data -- but of deliberative violence.

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-242183.html

K

Serial killers and spree shooters are very different creatures, mentally speaking. They're both killers, yes, but a serial killer wants that personal touch and has specific targets. A spree killer is just angry at whatever they're angry at -and they are patient. At first glance it may seem as if your day-to-day spree killer just picked up a firearm and went to town, but that's rarely the case. Most of the time they've been planning their 'day' for years.

According to the FBI, in the United States alone there are anywhere between 40-60 serial killers active at any one time (depending on which source you read, the numbers vary from 40 to 60). Serial killers don't get the publicity they used to because it's not so shocking anymore and they usual get caught pretty early on, but they're not dropping the knife and deciding to shoot up a building full of people instead -that's a whole other animal.

I didn't mean to imply they were the same animal, more that one animal seemed to be growing scarcer as a new animal became more widespread. You're probably right: it may just be a matter of what makes the news nowadays, vs. actual numbers. But I would be surprised if public shooting sprees hadn't dramatically risen over the last decade or two.

K

30-minute shootout yesterday in College Station, Texas, ends with three dead, including the shooter, who apparently started the mess by shooting a person serving him an eviction notice.