What the hell is wrong with some people?

From the About.com page on animal cruelty:

On March 7, 1997, three youths broke into Noah's Ark, a cat shelter in Fairfield, Iowa. Using baseball bats, they brutally bludgeoned 27 cats, leaving 17 dead and many others maimed for life.

Horrifying? Not so, according to some of the residents of this town, which lies philosophically somewhere between bucolic nostalgia and new-age transcendence.

"I agree what the things did you and I do growing up that we wished we wouldn't have done?", "I think it's a thing that boys have. You used to see them out hunting, targeting cats with .22s," and "If I'd been with him that night, I would have helped," were comments heard from the "old-timers" (the latter comment from a teenage boy.)

As animal advocates raged country-wide, the town split asunder, with pleas from the "old-timers" to "just go away and leave us alone." Many residents considered the event just a "boyish prank", but not so the founders of Noah's Ark and their supporters.

I get really angry when I see people demonstrating their absence of empathy. Really angry. Or maybe it's some other emotion, but like any good American man, I convert all strong negative emotions into anger.