I'm not intending here to start a dark thread for the sake of starting a dark thread, and this post may read as intentionally dark at first, but I want to bring it forward to a philisophical realisation.

I watched a mass shooting documentary a few weeks ago and I was intrigued when the narrator said:
Armed with an AK47, and acting with moral impunity, he entered the school cafeteria. . .
I was intrigued by the narrator's use of the phrase "acting with moral impunity", and I have been considering what it means.

All of us here on the forum have done something malicious in our life. Don't tell me that you didn't pinch anyone or pull their hair in your playschool. So we all here know what it feels like to commit an act with the aim of hurting someone.

Sometimes though, when we ourselves are offended, our conscience gets turned off temporarily. Actions which would normally be 'below us', or unthinkable, or morally reprehensible, all of a sudden are coming up on our 'radar of consideration' ...but there's no beep beep beep sound going off in our head. There's no reaction of disgust to what we are mulling over, and there's no sudden impulse to drag our thoughts back to the world of reason.

I can think back on malicious things I've done in my life. One such act was 9 years ago, and it's probably the most cruel and most malicious thing I've ever done. Even now when I think back on it, it really surprises me that I was able to stoop that low . . . I'm surprised that my conscience didn't kick in and stop me. There's no way I'd be able to go through with it today knowing the kind of damage it would cause.
............but then I just have to think back to why I did what I did 9 years ago. A close friend of mine had betrayed me, resulting in a lot of damage to more than one of my close relationships, totally turning my self-worth and life circumstances upside down. I actually gave my friend opportunities to discuss what he did, but on each occassion he just dug himself a deeper hole and made things worse for himself. I waited for weeks and months, and even on the day that I retaliated, I acted all nice up until the malicious act. It all went perfectly and my friend was left with zero self-worth after I did what I did. His life fell apart in a few different ways as he unravelled over the weeks and months that followed. I felt no remorse, guilt or shame about what I did at the time, and now today, even though I'm a little shocked at my past actions, I still feel no remorse. He deserved it.

So what does it mean to act with moral impunity? Well I think it means that you are not giving consideration to the normal rules of morality because someone else has already totally disregarded those rules, and you are offended. You feel that you can now do whatever you want and not be answerable to anyone, not even to your own conscience (or even your higher power). It's a dangerous frame of mind to be in, not just for your potential victims, but also for yourself as you can ruin your reputation and life.

Now I of course am not going to justify the actions of a mass shooter, nor try to rationalise their behaviour. But I'll say a few things. I've watched the documentary 'Bowling for Columbine' probably something like 10 - 20 times, and I've watched every other follow-on documentary about the Columbine shooting that I can find. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were bullied relentlessly at school, and the simple fact of the matter is that that mass shooting wouldn't have occurred if Klebold and Harris hadn't be bullied. (This is something that I personally believe, rather than something that I can prove).

There is a switch in our head that can be flicked on and off, and it has a sticker on it reading 'moral impunity'. Flick that switch and it deactivates your conscience and diminishes your own sense of disgust and shock at your own actions.

So I think any person can enter into a mindset of moral impunity resulting from an experience they have in their life. Unfortunately though for some people, this mindset sometimes persists for months and years, even for the rest of a person's life.

And sometimes when we have done wrong, we look back on our actions with feelings of guilt and shame and perceived condemnation from others. Other times though, we look back on the wrong that we did, and we feel justified in what we did. Right or wrong, we feel justified.

Has anyone here got any thoughts about acting with moral impunity?