Right Wing extremist murders at least 80 people in Norway.

Anders Behring Breivik, the face of terror

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Norway suffered a pair of devastating attacks on Friday when powerful explosions shook the government center here, killing seven people, and shortly after a gunman stalked youths at an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party, killing at least 80.

The explosions in Oslo, from one or more bombs, turned the tidy Scandinavian capital into a scene reminiscent of terrorist attacks in Baghdad or Oklahoma City, panicking people and blowing out windows of several government buildings, including one housing the office of the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, who was unharmed.

The state television broadcaster, citing the police, said seven people had been killed and at least 15 wounded in the explosions, which they said appeared to be an act of domestic terrorism.

Even as the police locked down a large area of the city after the blasts, a man dressed as a police officer entered the youth camp on the island of Utoya, about 19 miles northwest of Oslo, a Norwegian security official said, and opened fire. “He said it was a routine check in connection with the terror attack in Oslo,” one witness told VG Nett, the Web site of a national newspaper.

Of the at least 80 people killed on the island, some were as young as 16, the police said on national television early Saturday.

Terrified youths jumped into the water to escape. “Kids have started to swim in a panic, and Utoya is far from the mainland,” said Bjorn Jarle Roberg-Larsen, a Labor Party member who spoke by phone with teenagers on the island, which has no bridge to the mainland. “Others are hiding. Those I spoke with don’t want to talk more. They’re scared to death.”

Many could not flee in time.

After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget. He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist, citing previous writings including on his Facebook page.

I was watching this unfold yesterday on Twitter and via news updates, starting with the bombings in Oslo and culminating with the shootings at the youth camp, and I just kept thinking "Jesus, is it over yet?"

All of those poor children doing nothing but enjoying their day at camp and suddenly they are screaming in terror running for their lives.

Is this guy Norway's Jared Loughner?  Another politically motivated madman, taking out his anger and frustration through terrorist acts directed at innocent bystanders and children? And will Norway respond the same way Arizona did, by refusing to implement more gun control laws to protect their citizens?

So much senseless violence for such petty reasons.

Jared Loughner deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

From the LA Times:

A federal judge ruled Jared Lee Loughner mentally incompetent to stand trial in the Jan. 8 shooting spree that gravely wounded an Arizona congresswoman after two medical experts agreed he suffered from schizophrenia and for several years has been troubled by delusions and hallucinations.

Judge Larry A. Burns sent Loughner back to the federal medical center for prisoners in Springfield, Mo., for treatment and further evaluation, stopping for now any attempt to take him to trial for the shooting that killed six people and injured 12 others at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' neighborhood meeting.

Without any change in his condition, Loughner could spend the rest of his life in federal mental health facilities. But if he shows some signs of improvement, his case could go forward.

The ruling came after U.S. marshals removed Loughner from the courtroom Wednesday when he suddenly started screaming. His father, Randy Loughner, sat in the second row next to Loughner's mother and cried almost the entire time.

Court staff variously reported him saying "thank you for the free kill" or "free shot," and then, "she died in front of me," and "you're treasonous." A government source said Loughner is convinced he killed Giffords, and that "she died in front of me" apparently refers to that belief.

When asked later whether he could behave in court, Loughner told Burns that he would prefer to watch the proceedings on a closed-circuit television screen in a courtroom anteroom, where he remained for the rest of the hearing.

Too mentally unstable to sit in a court room, but NOT too mentally unstable to buy a Glock with an extended clip in Arizona. 

How can ANYBODY read that and NOT believe that we need much, much, much stricter gun control laws in this country?