It has been almost 40 years since we encountered one of the worst mass shootings in history. On July 18, 1984, James Huberty walked into a McDonald’s restaurant in San Diego and opened fire, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others. He was eventually brought down by a sniper on a nearby rooftop.

Like many mass shootings, there is a documented approximate time as to when the shootings began. This provides an opportunity to analyze the event astrologically to see what the chart can tell us. We can also compare this event to the chart of Huberty as well in order to gain some insight into his motives and assess the timing of manifestation.

Unfortunately, Huberty’s chart does not have a reported time of birth. As a result, Huberty’s planetary positions were placed on the outer ring of the bi-wheel below with the event chart in the inner wheel. This was done in order to maintain some insight into house placements. As a result, this view may appear a bit counter intuitive because the inner wheel here represents “transits” to Huberty’s chart.

Biography and General Demeanor [i]

Huberty was a pretty angry guy. He did not get along with people, harbored much resentment towards the rest of the world, and was physically abusive to his wife. All of this sounds wildly inaccurate for someone with a Libra Stellium, but his debilitated Moon in Scorpio in square aspect to Pluto was an incredibly heavy weight to bare. This specific aspect can have a seething intensity to it, almost like a boiler ready to blow. With a debilitated Mars in Libra dispositing the Moon, Huberty may have felt impotent in expressing his anger or felt like something was preventing him from expressing how deeply disturbed he felt about things. With Mars also dispositing Chiron in Aries, this inability to express his assertiveness properly and normally was creating psychological wounds. As a result, everything was bottling up inside.

Eventually, he became increasingly withdrawn and these symptoms of repressed anger became pathological. One underlying factor for this was Huberty’s failures in his career undermining his ability to provide financial stability for his family. The lack of bodies in an earth element is a strong correlation with this struggle to create a solid foundation. Also, Jupiter placement in the sign of Cancer highlights how providing for his family was a necessity. When he was unable to do that, it was felt through the Moon which was dispositing Jupiter and then triggered all the Moon’s connected dynamics from there.

The transits at the time of the shooting had brought everything to a climax. There are multiple triggers that had a deadly impact on Huberty’s psyche.

1. Transit Mars & Saturn aligned with natal Chiron (orange line). Mars – Mercury aspects are an astrological signature for shootings so their aspect by square and conjunction to Huberty’s Chiron reflected how these historical wounds of anger were ready to explode.
2. Transit Saturn & Venus aligned with natal Moon & Pluto (red line). This combination reflects how Huberty’s ruthless nature (Moon – Pluto) was being activated by a desire to make others “pay” (Saturn – Venus) for what he perceived had been done to him and his family. Before the shooting, Huberty remarked to his wife, “Society had their chance.” That statement echoes this alignment.
3. Transit Pluto and Sun aligned with natal Jupiter (purple line). Hard aspects between Pluto and the Sun have a correlation with deadly ego power plays (especially from men). With this square occurring across the 11th and 8th houses, we have a clear idea of how this played out: death to a group of people. Jupiter in Cancer is exalted, but is not helping here. The motivation for this attack is because of Huberty’s failure to be able to care for his family.
4. Transit Nodal axis – Chiron and Uranus aligned with natal Uranus (brown line). Essentially, this is Huberty’s Uranus opposition. This is a milestone event that occurs for every individual around the time of their midlife crisis and usually corresponds with radical and unpredictable actions or decisions. Chiron in Gemini reflected Huberty’s inability to think through what he was about to do and the wounding created was due to Chiron’s dispositor, Mercury (shooting). The Nodal axis’ involvement corresponded to Huberty’s belief that “the time has come.” Given everything already covered, this aspect shows instability and insanity had taken hold. Also, because this aspect was aligned with the Ascendant – Descendant axis within the event chart, something big was going to manifest and it would be visible. This reflected Huberty’s intention to specifically unleash this on others and acted as a fast moving “trigger” for the manifestation of the event.
5. T-square configuration involving transit Jupiter, Neptune, Moon, and natal Neptune (yellow lines). This configuration represents the highest significance because it provides all the underlying motivation. Where the Uranus opposition in #4 contributed to the manifestation of the midlife crisis, the Neptune square contained within the configuration IS ground zero for the event. This square typically corresponds with an acute feeling of disillusionment. For Huberty, this disillusionment was from his career and Neptune’s placement at the apex of this configuration in the 2nd house of money along with Jupiter in Capricorn and both of their retrograde statuses reflect a deep level of disappointment in what Huberty was unable to accomplish in his life. The aspect from transit Moon acted as another “trigger” (along with the ASC-DSC axis in #4) for this event. It’s placement in Aries reflected Huberty’s anger and desire to lash out.

With these types of events, the transits often reflect a “perfect storm” of archetypal dynamics that are overwhelming. Could this have been avoided? Of course, but it would have required a considerable amount of awareness from Huberty of his own energies as well as the energies that were all converging on him. That is another reason why these events are a tragedy. Sometimes, I think they occur simply due of a lack of awareness and ignorance.

End Notes

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[i] A full biography of Huberty can be accessed here: https://murderpedia.org/male.H/h/huberty-james.htm.