"The autobiography the young man posted online that day is notable for its shallowness and its entitlement. Those are harsh words, but there’s no other way to describe his utter lack of empathy, imagination and engagement with the life of others. He’s often described as mentally ill, but he seems instead to be someone who was exceptionally susceptible to the madness of the society around him. His misogyny was our culture’s misogyny. His sad dream of becoming wealthy, admired and sexually successful was a banal, widely marketed dream. His preoccupation with brand-name products and status symbols was exactly what the advertising industry tries to inject into our minds. His fantasy of attaining power and status at the point of a gun is the fantasy sold to us by the gun lobby and the action movies in which some invulnerable superman unerringly shoots down the bad guys, a god made a god by his gun."