What's so odd about these people who are obsessed with the "End Times" is that they seem to physically live in the 21st century but blissfully hold onto a view of the physical cosmos that's right on the cutting edge of the 1st century C.E.
Example: the notion that when Jesus left the earthly plane he rose up and disappeared in the clouds; that when "The Faithful" are raptured they are going to meet Jesus "in the air" and that Jesus will re-appear out of a cloud when he comes back to reward the righteous (eveyone who believes exactly as the speaker does) and zap the wrongteous upside the head (everybody else).
Not hard to believe in Roman Empire days. The popular idea of the cosmos was that it was something like a three-story house, with Heaven/the gods in a luxury penthouse, Hell/the realm of the dead in the basement and earthly life on the main floor. That view is clearly reflected in the book of Genesis, when the stars and moon are referred to as "lights in the sky." People in biblical times knew that Heaven wasn't right above the clouds - enough people had been on high mountaintops to know that - but they did believe it wasn't very far above that. But as Carl Sagan observed not long ago, if Jesus had actually risen up above the clouds he wouldn't reach any kind of heaven; he would go into orbit.
Every time a natural disaster or high-profile crime happens, the nutsos start prattling about the End Times. I'm rather surprised that there wasn't at least one "religious leader" quoted after the Virginia shootings claiming that it all happened because the US doesn't have sectarian prayer in public schools.