It´s a terrible tragedy and I have been deeply moved by its scale. It´s hard to imagine one man was enough to cause so many deaths. The shooting is said to have lasted for 1.5 hour. During that time the kids were being slaughtered by this psycho and there was nobody to stop him.

I remember the bombing place, I visited it a few years ago. I´m very sad for the people of Norway, especially those who lost their friends and family in these outrageous circumstances.

Those computer games where killing a live creature is part of the game or TV movies where killing people serially is business usual may create a mentally ill person (as in this case)

Well, I wouldn´t overestimate WoW´s (was it wow or halo?) influence on him. Millions of people play it worldwide and not even 1% becomes murderers. I´d bet on his being a psychopath as no normal person would be able to carry out such a horrid act.

Conspiracy theories are beginning to show up, one has it that he was an illuminati and the attack was incited by it.

Be it or not, I said it may ... One in a million would be enough let alone 1% if it did, on the other hand.

Come on, videogames have NOTHING to do with this mental person´s actions. I play WoW and Halo, and I never felt the need to shoot somebody. Just like Sim-city has not turned me into a real city planner. People were killed by crazy gunmen before videogames existed!

We need to focus on what is important here, and that is the crazy racist ideas that he has. Blame racist ideologies and abuse of religion. Don´t take away any of the attention we need to give that problem, by bringing in video games. It has been researched for so many years. First is was rock music that would make people more sexual active. Than it was metal music that had hidden killing-messages. Now video games and violence. The number of psycho killers amongst game players is just as high as under non-gamers.

The Illuminati thing doesn´t convince me. I think he WANTED to be a sort of secret society member, to feel important. The whole "templar" group he was a part of is a bunch of crazy religious fanatics who have lost any contact with the real idea behind their religion. I think it´s good that they have held the court-hearing closed for media today, so this crazy person cannot give messages to his "friends" through the media. Lock him up and throw away the key.

I believe, many people have what may be called racist elements in their mind-sets. These racist elements remain dormant and they are rarely revealed outside the circle formed by intimate friends and family.

Since racism is a part of one´s social identity, it often co-exists with other social and territorial behaviours. There may be explicit or implicit racist elements in video games. We would expect at least the more obvious racist elements are already filtered out but some of the more indirect ones might still be there.  Since racism calls for reaction to reverse harm done by other races, it often necessitates violence which is amply present in video games. As a result video games may serve the first step for some. Games could help normalize certain unorthodox aspects of human behaviour. For many people t hough, this effect may not be seen at all.

Nevertheless, persons with exceptionally distorted mentalities do exist. Although extremely rare, these sick people are capable of giving substantial harm to society. It is obvious that many  of the offensive aspects of their personalities can be linked to violence they are exposed to in their environments but there are also cases where the source of violence can be linked to a mental disorder.

Unless, some paranoid people take a detailed look at seemingly innocent platforms like video games, there will always be another wacko who sees nothing wrong with doing the hunt in the real world. We need to be paranoid about racism if we want to stop it. Because racism is intertwined with our cultures.

I wonder what measures would be sufficient to eliminate racism. Is there a society entirely free of it? I´ve always considered Scandinavia (the modern one, not the Viking aera one) very open-minded* and friendly towards other cultures, aparently a black sheep can appear just about anywhere.

Most people are against rainforced security measures, complaining that they are invasive to one´s privacy. But, maybe, we need them? Especially nowadays when the Internet can teach you anything, from knitting to making bombs and it gives you immediate "fame" worldwide.

* although they sometimes push it, like what I read about Sweden introducing a no-gender policy in pre-schools to avoid imposing gender on the kids. Somehow I don´t see why it´s wrong to call girls "she" and boys "he", but maybe I´m just not open-minded enough.

Also, the Norwegian social services are somewhat too eager to take immigrants´ children away from their families

I don´t understand why some people can´t feel good about who they are without feeling threatened by other ideas and ways of life. 

I definitely don´t understand why Sweden would want to de-genderize society.  I can appreciate neutrality but I don´t see the need to remove my identity to feel equal to someone else (or to make everyone equal).  

In any case, I think there needs to be a seed of insanity in someone regardless of what they play, what they read, in order to committ these crimes.  I could read, play and do the same things with a totally different result.  Humans are variable creatures and are exposed to many variables in life...even science would tell you that the outcome is impossible to predict. 

I agree 100% si++. The games and movies desensitize us, so actual violence becomes less repugnant. We see horrible things on TV, our kids play hideous games....of course this has an effect. It is a type of "grooming" that normalizes antisocial behaviour. 

In fact the US Army used video games as a valuable tool for training.

"  That has not stopped the military from embracing video games to recruit and train a young generation of gamers who typically play commercial games such as "Modern Warfare 2," which passed $1 billion in sales in January."