Yes. The words are really a litte over the top but I agree with nakahara that for Sherlock "sociopath" is always a disguise to protect himself and to hide behind. And this is the one time he uses the word while being really angry. His anger towards Magnussen is real and he has loathed him from the very beginning. What he did to John just sent him over the edge. 
 

Which would be quite an interesting contrast to his earlier happy words to John about Christmas.
 

nakahara wrote:

The reason why I don´t believe Sherlock thought about killing Magnussen immediatelly is that Sherlock doesn´t struck me as a type for cold-blooded murder.

The thing we're ignoring here is Sherlock's two years away. I seriously doubt he came out of that with clean hands. And then, there's the guys at the end of SIB who meet his sword. I really doubt that Magnussen was the first guy Sherlock killed.

Mary

No, not his daily routine or something he likes to do, but once you've done it once, crossed that line, I suppose it must be easier.

Mary

No, I suppose not. Soldiers, police men and women ... they have to do it ... more and less. I think if you ask the majority of them they will tell you everything else but not that they find it "easier" after the first shot.

maryagrawatson wrote:

nakahara wrote:

The reason why I don´t believe Sherlock thought about killing Magnussen immediatelly is that Sherlock doesn´t struck me as a type for cold-blooded murder.

The thing we're ignoring here is Sherlock's two years away. I seriously doubt he came out of that with clean hands. And then, there's the guys at the end of SIB who meet his sword. I really doubt that Magnussen was the first guy Sherlock killed.

Mary

We have absolutely no evidence that would prove that Sherlock did anything deliberately cruel to Moriarty´s gang. He could - but at the same time he could just put them behind bars as well. Still, when I watched Sherlock in S3, I certainly didn´t see a man hardened and embittered by his fresh two-years experience, I saw a man a bit warmer and more compassionate than he was in S1 and S2. He didn´t seem to me as a man forced to spill blood in his two-years absence.
And Sherlock´s swinging the sword around in SiB was self-defence and not the cold-blooded murder I mentioned above.
There is simply nothing in Sherlock that would indicate to me the hardness of character required to killing people off.
Just compare Sherlock in any season with John in "Study in pink". John has a certain aura of danger and hardness surrounding him, Sherlock doesn´t (even his stomping on the dying cabbie didn´t persuade me that he is able to kill people cold-bloodedly).
 

Last edited by nakahara (August 6, 2014 2:19 pm)

I agree. He did it because it was absolutely necessary to keep John safe. And about the cabbie - we should not forget that this is a younger Sherlock who has already changed over the four years or so the series has covered so far.
He only uses violence to get information that is absolutely necessary or to revenge or save people he cares for, e.g. Mrs Hudson in ASiB. To me he does not return as a hardened killer from his two-years absence, on the contrary, he has become softer in many ways. 
 

If Sherlock decided in the "non-vault" to kill Magnussen - why did he wait until the police had their guns on him to actually do it? For me that shows decidedly suicidal tendencies (I mean, what were those guys doing? Shouldn't they have shot Sherlock before he pulled the trigger?) - and he knows it, which is why he's throwing the pistol away immediately and shouting at John "Stay away from me!"

I'm rather amazed at Magnussen, though - he practically invited all his victims to kill him when he said the blackmail material was only in his head (leaving aside the question of how viable blackmail without proof can be). I rather expected John to pull his gun in the little white room...

As for the original question, I agree with nakahara that Sherlock brought the gun (in my opinion illegal - I don't see how John could have a gun license) to threaten CAM if necessary. What I do not understand is why John and Sherlock were not searched before entering the helicopter or the house...

I agree that normally Magnussen would not reveal that everything was in his head - the vault-rumour must have come from somewhere, probably he started it. But now he has told John and Sherlock - one writes a blog, the other a website - so he would have to assume that word would get out eventually.

I'm pretty sure that the Blackmailer's Manual contains a big chapter on how to avoid being killed by making sure the damning information on the victim goes public if anything happens to the blackmailer. Saying "it's all in my head" seems to me the exactly wrong thing to do...

Yeah, I also figured Sherlock waited until the cops came so that he had witnesses that he shot Magnussen, not John.