Given the events of this week in Paris and London, Mr Moore's actions provide a rather strange backdrop:

* an extreme Right-wing pro-Christian, anti-gay bloke blows his own brains out on the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral;

* a couple of Islamist fundamentalists hack an unarmed bloke to death and wait for the police to come for them.

As a Marxist, I'm loath to point out that a far-Right-winger French reactionary seems to have more compassion for others - he could have blazed away at the 1500-strong congregation, after all, but didn't - than a couple of Islamist reactionaries who have no worries about butchering a stranger, as long, presumably, as he was unarmed.

Real heroes. And I suspect that there will be a lot more where that came from: this week, people killed in bombings in Pakistan, Iraq, Niger. Pretty much all Muslims. Killed by Islamists.

But, wait a minute, isn't Islam a religion of peace ? Check out

http://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/index/

and see for yourself :)

It's a very complicated world, certainly not a simple either-or world. The enemy of my enemy could well be my worse enemy. It's a pity the Left has never learnt that simple baby-lesson.

Sorry for that vicious personal attack, Poirot :)

Cheers,

Joe

It is in my view with that degree of understanding, the man was and is no hero.
A rather gutless planed death.
No thought for those required to kill him.
Or those including Children who had to watch and fear him.
He may well have been heroic if he did what he should have, presented himself to medical or police and reported his feelings.
Hero,at a meeting put together to assist those who had to be responders to fatal road events, in this case a mountain near town.
A serving Sergent of police, ex Navy with extensive war history, told us what he thought heroism was.
Please excuse my frankness o sung wo, no one he told us, while dressed in that special police wear, a self satisfied bloated self love is a hero..
Was not a knowing act but a split second act, an unthinking one.
I do not agree, he also, at every event I attended stopped first aiders helping while waiting for paramedics.
Unlike the folk in that tiny town I did not wait till he left to openly say he was both wrong and not at all nice, cleaned what I told him a bit.

How many times have we heard that mental illness was the cause of atrocities. Here's a human being who realised in time that he was in trouble & he made the admirable & heroic decision to prevent any possible tragedy. Do-gooders who would have condemned him had he done something dreadful are now condemning him for taking preventative action. What cowardly hypocrites !
Have you no sense of sense at all ? Where were the moronic counsellors when he needed them ? His integrity obviously considered that some idiot counsellor would have talked him out of committing suicide & then if he did commit an atrocity they would have swarmed around him lamenting the tragedy. Idiots !

csteele,

I find it sickening that anyone could not only appease the actions of such a sad and disturbed person but actually try to label them a hero. Where in Gods name and from where in the darkest recesses of a distorted human psyche, does such dysfunctional thinking originate?

A hero is not a person who enters a public place with weapons, discharges them, putts innocent members of the public at risk, provokes potential high risk return fire from security agents and then tops themselves with a gun is not a hero, they are deranged for whatever reason and a life threatening hazard to the public.

This sick person wanted to go out with a bang because in their disturbed state, they wished to “excuse” their actions and could not bring themselves to do this in a way that didn’t threaten the wider community. It was an attention seeking sick statement you cretin.

Has it crossed your mind that the ceiling could have been another level and that he could have killed someone upstairs? Could there have been a ricochet that could have slaughtered an innocent child? Could any return fire have caused innocent loss of life and what of the emotional consequences to vulnerable bystanders who witnessed this tragedy?

Hero? You are sick puppy

Loudmouth,

Yes, the events in London this week were sickening in the extreme.

This event at the beginning of May was sickening also.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/02/birmingham-murder-racially-motivated-police

..........

I can't think of csteele's example as heroic.

Why go to crowded public place to shoot randomly and then to shoot yourself?

Perhaps to make a statement, but certainly not to be a hero.

Heroes risk themselves for the benefit of others.

While I can have sympathy for this man's obvious torment, terrorising the public is not an heroic act.

Loudmouth. As all religions are based on superstition they provide fertile grounds for the mentally disturbed extremist. There is no such thing as a "religion of peace" to the extremest, by their very nature they must embrace violence towards any who would dare to disagree, the infidel, the non-believer, god commands no less from his servants than the total destruction of those who would oppose him. By definition such persons are seen by extreme believers as evil incarnate, the devil himself. To these religious radicals there can be no dialog, no compromise, and no truck what so ever, with evil, even the ambivalent are perceived as evil. To these fanatics violence in this world is part of an ongoing struggle, and in their minds ultimately there can be but one outcome, the total subjugation of all others.