They don't want fifteen minutes of fame, they just want to express their unhappiness.. their frustration and hatred towards happy people. If they wanted to go out in a blaze of glory they could go to a police station, a National Guard armory, etc.. I really recommend that anybody trying to cope with all the people around them and not understanding some shocking things to read up on psychopaths. I've developed a document for my personal use that outlines their playbook. I can spot them sometimes before they say a word, they have a distinctive walk if you catch them in moments of daydreaming and walking.. I have a few that i'm in contact with every day and I've not only intellectually learned what they do, I've observed them, interacted with them, pushed their buttons, etc... One of their things is getting between you and what you want and making you beg for it. Attacking a lot of shoppers is something like that, the psychopath can see that people are happily shopping and he'll shoot the place up. He gets a lot of happiness when normal people are anguished. Further, after the fact, were he alive, in his mind he would have done nothing wrong!! All these shooters go after the most vulnerable targets. The batman movie shooter guy seems to have chosen a theater that forbade guns, some in his area allowed them if legal and one or two didn't. We have the means nowadays to diagnose these bastards and track their every move. If this culture wants to do itself one huge favor they will opt for that, put their faces up on the web, not allow them driving licenses or guns, etc... one percent of the population is doing fifty percent of the psychological damage and we have the means nowadays to suppress it.