The fact that 38,000 people joined the Raoul Moat Facebook tribute page this week tells me one thing: There are at least 37,900 imbeciles using Facebook.
I exclude 100 people on the basis that some of those who joined the page may have actually known Moat before he turned into a crazed gunman, and could have legitimate reason to pay tribute.
The 'R.I.P. Raoul Moat You Legend!' Facebook page was set up by Chief Imbecile Siobhan O'Dowd who 'thought it would be a laugh'. I'm sure the family of murdered 29-year-old Chris Brown think it's hilarious.
O'Dowd has since removed the page but told a radio station it would be going back up. Why she bothered removing it if she plans to put it straight back up I do not know. From reading the transcript of the interview O'Dowd strikes me as the kind of person it is impossible to win an argument against because her logic is so backwards that nothing she says makes sense, akin to Paul Gascoigne in that respect.
Prime Minister David Cameron led condemnation of the tribute page, saying in the House of Commons on Wednesday: "It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story. I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man."
Some of the comments on the site include "RIP Moat. Misunderstood man who was killed by the brutal police who ruined his life", and "U are a true legend".
Since the original page has been removed, two more sites have now been launched in tribute to Moat. The first - called "RIP Raoul Moat!" - has already attracted more than 12,000 supporters.
One visitor, Riccardo Carrai, wrote: "Very well done. Anybody shooting down an...PC is worth my praise. Can't say the same about other countries' police but British Police deserve this and much worse."
Yes, that's exactly what the police deserve. They've got a nerve haven't they? Protecting us from people running around with shotguns, how dare they. We should round them all up and shoot them, then we could all roam around like apes and throw our own faeces at each other. I presume Riccardo would enjoy that.
These people, bereft of any common sense, have confused the romantic notion of the misunderstood criminal on the run we see in the movies with what Raoul Moat actually was, a psychopathic killer. It's human instinct to root for the underdog - it's the emotion that every Hollywood film plays on - and if Moat was on the run for something trivial, yes, it might be funny that he evaded the police for so long, but the fact is he was a murderer. He wasn't the good guy in all this. He wasn't on some sort of fantastically noble crusade.
We don't need to demonise Moat any further, but the last thing we should be doing is turning him into a martyr.