I'm sure the Aurora guy had his "reasons", just like Breivik. It all just relates to how we rationalise a position we don't understand.

I'd call neither of them a madman or terrorist.

To Add: I seem to recall there were media sources calling Breivik a madman (I helped keep the Wikipedia article under control at the time it happened and saw a lot of material go past). But they were less widespread because we could hang him off a political boom; right wing extremism.

But at the end of the day that was just Breivik rationalising what he did, to himself.

Same thing about computer games that came up at the trial; he played FPS's for a year to make him insensitive to killing. And he made a big deal about hating what he did.

Which one part of the media turns into "COMPUTER GAMES INSPIRE KILLER".

The reality of course is that it was pure narcissism; he played the games to desensitise him because, in the movie plot where he is the star, the games desensitise him.

Breivik builds a persona where he is the centre figure. Everything relates to him in some way - and killing those people "hurts" because that is part of the story. He still did it.

Good reading for this is alone's "The Last Psychiatrist" blog. This one is about honor killings but it touches on a lot of the same points: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/07/nobody_will_understan...

Ultimately the Aurora killer will probably boil down to narcissism too. But the media needs a neat word to rationalise his actions; in this case madman. Because he is white and well educated - so they cannot comprehend any other explanation.

If he were exactly the same person, but of muslim descent he would have been a terrorist.