Colorado and Camden

Among other civic horror shows, Camden, NJ was once the site of an unprecedented mass murder akin to the shootings in Aurora, CO last weekend.

In 1949, a gun freak and loser shut-in open fired on a series of innocent people whom he believed were persecuting him.  Read about the details here.

Like the Colorado sicko, the Camden shooter did not off himself at the end of his spree and was taken into custody.  He lived into his eighties and died in an insane asylum, though continually insisted he was not an irrational actor.

This weekend's headline killings involve the pop situationalism of the movies.  According to the 2009 obituary of the Camden killer, "he later told police that he had spent the previous evening sitting through three showings of a double feature and had thought that actress Barbara Stanwyck was one of his hated neighbors."

None of this proves any influence of the movies on madness, but might demonstrate a singular disgusting aberration in the impressionability of the mass mind.

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