What is in this fantasy about taking a lot of people with you when you go?

I’ll admit that I’ve thought about it in the past: knowing that if I have to die, I might feel like seeing how many people I could take with me. I haven’t had that particular fantasy in decades. I was in my twenties, I think, when I had it. But it was never something I had any intentions of actually doing.

Clearly some people do carry it out. What is surprising about the movie theater case is that the guy was captured alive. Maybe we’ll get a little information about what was going on in his head.

What do you think goes on in the heads of people who decide to kill as many people as they can at one go? What specific story might lead someone to have this psychology? Are they angry? At what? Do they feel unloved? How do they give themselves permission to kill others—random others?