Why do people hate school shooters?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I agree with the point you're making, Rhythm, about the difference between school shootings and military operations -- but it needs to be pointed out that attacking civilians as a measure of war has been conducted in the past, formally -- think of Imperial Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare in WWI, or the Allied bombing campaign against Germany in WWII.

Absolutely. The fire bombing of Dresden comes to mind, particularly.

I grant the obvious objection that those policies aren't the norm; but it has happened in the past, and nuclear deterence, which is still our national policy, is predicated on the mass slaughter of civilians.

This doesn't negate your objection, of course; just offering a bit of nuance for it.

I'm of the opinion that all bets are off once we invoke MAD. If the other guys has tried to -completely end us-, from that point on whatever we do can be accurately described as the actions of an injured and dying animal lashing out against it's own annihilation. To my mind, that's a completely amoral subject. I appreciate the nuance, and I raise you my own..hehehehe.

But..Since we're referring to school shootings and "the killings overseas" I feel fairly confident that we are approaching the subject from a modern, american perspective entirely unrelated to nuclear deterence. If someone asked me what the difference between a school shooting and the fire bombing of dresden was from an ideological standpoint, I'd reply "vision and competence".

An apt point, sure. Setting aside for the moment that as policy, the policy of attacking German civilians was a planning failure (due to flawed assumptions about civilian behavior under attack that should have been discarded after the UK's experience in 1940-41) -- school shootings are rarely planned with a distinct objective in mind other than revenge in a broad, general sense -- meaning that trying to put yourself "on the other side of the hill" doesn't work very well, simply because it's difficult for most people to understand homicidal rage.

tl/dr: I see your nuance, and raise you a derail.