Anders Behring Breivik, the gunman in the Norway mass shooting, admitted to the shooting, but — get this — claims self-defense. SELF-DEFENSE.

Dressed in a dark suit and sporting a thin beard, Breivik smiled as a guard removed his handcuffs in the crowded court room. The 33-year-old then flashed his salute before shaking hands with prosecutors and court officials.

“I don’t recognize Norwegian courts because you get your mandate from the Norwegian political parties who support multiculturalism,” Breivik said in his first comments to the court.

Eight people were killed in Breivik’s bombing of Oslo’s government district and 69 were slain in his shooting massacre at the left-leaning Labor Party’s youth camp on Utoya island outside the capital. Breivik has said the attacks were necessary to protect Norway from being taken over by Muslims.

“I admit to the acts, but not criminal guilt,” he told the court, insisting he had acted in self-defense.

It’s important to note that Breivik went on an island full of camp-goers and started shooting. The odds that any of them had weapons and posed a danger to Breivik is nil.  

EDIT: We initially had a different phrase in place of “camp-goers,” but it was clouding the point a tad, so we changed it. Also, he’s speaking in favor of a concept of “preventative self-defense,” which legally exists as a concept in Norway, but nonetheless seems like a hard sell considering the nature of the crime. What would he have prevented by killing all these people? What risk did they create for him?