Or anthrax, or a dirty bomb.

He should have taken a headshot to be safe

Yeah, it was dumb. But I if I had to guess (not a court of law obviously) the guy freaked out.
I could only imagine what this guy went through in Iraq, and when something happens that is seemingly normal and -- for the most part -- unthreatening in US society, like a crowd of bar patrons becoming a little "over excited", that could trigger an extreme stress reaction in someone with a recent history of dealing with violence. Someone then throwing something through the window of the house is way more than enough to get someone to get scared enough to trigger a fight or flight response. (In this case I would even assume most soldiers are trained to lean much farther towards fight in that particular reaction.)

And as for the knee jerk circular logic of "If he was so crazy he shouldn't have had guns", the dude probably handled a weapon every day of his tour on duty, how is someone supposed to just suddenly know they personally are not mentally stable enough to own a gun?
How are they supposed to keep from fooling themselves?

I am not saying the people deserved to get shot at, I am saying people shouldn't be surprised when this happens after you send people to blow shit up for more than a year.

Purple squirrels!

I think it's perfectly rational to be surprised that this happened - it was a bunch of people leaving a club...a perfectly normal activity on a Friday night/early Saturday morning. No mind set should expect that there might be a disturbed soldier living nearby who might snap and shoot at you.

To think you can go anywhere in a big city and not get shot at is naive.

To walk around thinking that you are constantly in danger of being shot at is paranoid.

what does mean? Your excessive use of certainly does not lead to clear communication (at least for me).

Are you suggesting war doesn't lead to an increase in violent behavior is some percent of the population?
Or is it whatever as in its a lost cause to even discuss it?

oh

Well that is not quite my meaning.
You should be surprised when someone points a gun out a window and starts firing.
You shouldn't be surprised at the news of things like this happening more frequently with tens of thousands of combat troops returning from an open conflict.

Anyone here who is even attempting to defend his actions are seriously...

He grabbed a shotgun and shot at a crowd of people, inocent people. He's bad or sick, either way he needs help.

this story makes me


a lot of the responses in this thread make me or at the very least


the guy should definitly be charged with a crime, but attempted murder is just dumb. a shotgun fired at that range isn't aimed at anyone. which is to say his intent doesn't appear to be murder.

definitly assault with a deadly weapon and other pertinent charges though.
and he definitly needs some psychological help.

Ooh was the crowd all minorities?? Hmm..

I dont know but damn get the psychologist pronto.

I've been wondering about the current state of the insanity defense. Historically it wasn't easy to found innocent due to insanity, and if you managed it they'd still lock you up in a secure mental hospital. A lot of serial killers managed to kill people in some very bizarre ways and were still found to be completely responsible for what they did.

These days the idea of diminished responsibility seems to be creeping in more and more. Seems a wishy washy way to go about things. Basically defendants need a judge/jury who happen to think "yeah, I'd blow the scum sucker away too if it'd been me there".

For some reason I dislike an emotional legal system.

Where did you get the range of the the shot? All I saw was it was from the 2nd story to the street. Is that really out of lethal range? Was it buckshot?