It is actually easy to figure out why he did it.
You don’t even have to know the yet-to-be-revealed facts of the case or those tidbits of information still being sought by the police.
Robert Dear gunned down three people at the Planned Parenthood office in Colorado Springs, Colorado. That alone tells you something.
Fundamentalist Christian. But not Christian enough to stop himself from committing murder if he felt justified.
The other major key to the puzzle- Colorado Springs itself. The mini-Bible Belt of the Rockies. The home of many fundamentalist Christian groups and by default a bedding down place of much right wing sentiment and right wing politics as in anti-abortionalism.
Planned Parenthood existing in their midst must have be like an embarrassing and painful hemorrhoid to them. A blot on their pristine, sanctified landscape. A manifestation of Lucifer in the midst of their Holy Christian Mecca.
Robert Dear probably was one of their sheep, his mind deeply indoctrinated as to the do’s and do nots of the Jesus life. Or he might have been a wolf in sheep’s clothing who simply bent Bible verses to fit his own sin ridden mentality. He probably belonged to one of the more fire and damnation congregations that have bloomed in the Front Range town just south enough of the Denver metro octopus to still maintain a separate identity. And he was surely a fire-breathing advocate of gun rights as befitted so many of this particular brand of self appointed champion that one finds in the West with or without the fundamentalism attached.
I am sure he saw his image reflected to himself as a hero of the unborns and of his own singular vision of God as he stormed into the doors of the clinic determined to show by violence that the death of still developing babies should be avenged by death as well.
Should this play out to be a correct synopsis in the next few days, we will see that his ideal much resembles that of the ISIS radicals that we, and probably he himself, find to be murderous thugs under the pretense of being religious devotees. He just doesn’t make the connection between his actions and theirs. After all, he is a righteous Christian and they Mohammad loving fanatics.
The unfortunate blindness in all of this is that, yes, abortion is an ugly reality of our modern world, but so is the plight of children growing up in unwanted families or that become a crucifying burden to unwed mothers and sucklers not only upon their troubled mother’s breast but upon the State as well. Also, almost totally forgotten, is the work that Planned Parenthood does to help prevent unwanted pregnancies and to help those who do have children to raise them in a healthy, fulfilling way. This aspect of Planned Parenthood could be called Christ-like.