How could Adam Lanza's mother not have recognized his abnormalities?

Adam Lanza pic should be enough

Adam Lanza did not just snap in the killing of 20 young children in the 2012 Sandy Hook School gun massacre. He planned it for a year while fascinated with past shootings, having "many similar characteristics and behaviors with other active shooters." He was attracted to young children implying pedophilia, he "was obsessed with firearms, death and mass shootings," and his mother, Nancy Lanza, whom he killed, was concerned about a month before the shootings when he became a shut-in, covering his room windows with black plastic. Good God, what does it take?



We should have known about Newtown shooter...

Online friend experienced Lanza's odd habits...

FBI released documents paint picture of disturbing individual...

Americans Do Not Handle Guns In the Best Interest of a Civil Society

Following the Waco, TX, bike gang shootings where nine people were killed, it was only natural to bring up the issue of too many guns on the street again. It also is tragic that Americans continue to look on this kind of regularly occurring event as just normal in today's gun culture. It's not and it doesn't have to be. I have been saying this in recent years and John Traphagan of the Dallas Morning News has written a story in agreement with that point and several others I have talked about for some time. For example, he also believes that owning a gun should be tied to the universal background check and extensive training. Now is that asking too much? He continues...

"The solution to gun-related crime is not further arming the public. It involves enacting comprehensive gun control laws that prohibit many forms of gun ownership, significantly curtailing or eliminating access to and the ability to purchase guns..."

As a matter of fact, unlimited arming of the public is what has caused the crisis in the first place like Adam Lanza in Newtown, CT, who massacred 20 kids and six teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School using his mother's gun which was completely unsecured. It was a semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 caliber model XM15 rifle and he also took along two handguns and a shotgun, all hers. After shooting his mother he just picked up the weapons and went out on a rampage. And this woman knew her son was acting strange for some time, like covering his windows with black trash bags.

Thanks to the National Rifle Assn., this totally irresponsible person was able to maintain a fully equipped arsenal in her home and even with a gun closet, didn't see fit to keep it locked. Yet the gun rights bunch would have us put more guns on the street in the hands of other people just like this. Their cries that it is the criminals with guns that cause the problems has become meaningless since Sandy Hook, and Aurora, Colo. and Tucson, AZ, as well as all the dumb parents who leave handguns on the coffee table so their kids can spread theirs or their siblings' brains all over the couch.

It's disgusting and no one is listening, especially the gutless U.S. Congress. Gun control advocates should take their cue from Bernie Sanders and start their own revolution.

SMART MONEY GOING TO GUN CONTROL SINCE NEWTOWN

Michael Bloomberg

As of the end of April, the dollars with sense have passed the dollars with blood on their hands prompted by the Newtown gun massacre where 26 lives were taken by shooter Adam Lanza, 20 of them children around six years old. And they have apparently done it through grassroots organizations, you might say just the opposite of the gun nuts of the National Rifle Assn. Michael Bloomberg kicked in $50 million, Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly's gun control group around $15 million. Gun control is about $5 million ahead of gun rights so far in the 2014 election cycle. They have trailed by over $31 million in the past. Now there are dour predictions out there for the GOP retaking control of the Senate and no chance of the Left taking back the House. Does this kind of momentum change that equation?

Did God order the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre?

If not, at least “former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a religious conservative, suggested that because we are keeping God out of schools, the Deity chose not to stop the slaughter of these young innocents.”  Does that mean God wanted it to happen, since He did nothing to stop it?  Does it really mean that God took it upon Himself as the deity of the Christian faith to pave the way for Adam Lanza to slaughter 20 little children ages 6 and 7?  Does it mean that there is no hope in prayer and common sense to stop this in the future? 

Fundamentally, are we to believe that there is some connection between the violence in the world and a God that takes retribution for the misgivings of the human race?

Lawrence M. Krauss is director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, and he has a book, "A Universe from Nothing," that was published in January.  Krauss once debated Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the self-proclaimed spiritual guide to Michael Jackson.  Boteach doesn’t believe in evolution and on television was found, “…offering admonition to those who, with very good reason, may question a God who could willingly allow the slaughter of children.”  But in fact is this a good time to question your faith and deities? Krauss asks on CNN.

He wonders why it is that everyone expects, and the media promulgates, such a narrow version on grieving for the 20 children who God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to call home in a gun slaughter by a maniac.  I ask, is this just another step in the process of evolution in a country that worships guns more than human life and is escalating in this mode of violence much faster than any other developed nation?  It does not make any sense to Krauss that an intelligent God could just “rationally” act in such a way and still be worth praying to.  I agree.

And the author addresses one of my favorite issues.  Why do we need more than common humanity to bring ourselves together, whether it is helping another in a time of need or grieving, as in Sandy Hook and all the other needless gun murders that go on daily in America?  Contrary to some religious beliefs that the ability to love and forgive cannot be expressed fully without Christian faith, Krauss says, aside from being nonsense, “We can feel real connections, whether we are parents, or neighbors of families, or simply caring men and women.    

Wikipedia defines humanity as “a set of strengths focused on ‘tending and befriending others.’ The three strengths associated with humanity are love, kindness, and social intelligence. Humanity differs from justice in that there is a level of altruism towards individuals included in humanity more so than the fairness found in justice.”  Confucius defined humanity, or jen, as a “love of people” stating “if you want to make a stand, help others make a stand.”  And in no way am I trying to oversimplify the grief of the parents of Sandy Hook and other gun murders.

But it is clearly unfair to limit the grieving process to even Christians, Jews and Muslims.  There are those who do not believe in God, and many these days who are questioning their faith when another of their children, other relatives, friends, or just the man and woman on the street are gunned down by a maniac.  Is it not reasonable to expect this kind of reaction and not make it impossible for these folks to mourn in their own way?  Just as there is no absolutist answer to the 2^nd Amendment, there is also no absolutist approach to believing in a God.

Would banning high capacity magazines and requiring universal background checks be a good start to stricter gun control?

Let’s consider this scenario.  If you limit the magazine size of a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle to 10 rounds (perhaps even 7 like the latest New York law requires) have you basically reduced the firearm to what many typical rifles are capable of shooting?  In checking an Outdoor Life recommendation of the best 2012 hunting rifles, I found the Ruger American Rifle with a 5-round capacity including a magazine.  I don’t know how typical or popular this rifle is with hunters but it seems to have received the recommendation of a major hunting magazine.

The American Hunter

I don’t think any gun control advocate out there favors taking away a hunter’s right to enjoy his sport, and anyway, assault rifles aren’t the biggest problem in gun violence, handguns are.  According to the FBI, in 2011, 6,220 people were killed by handguns, 323 by rifles.  But it was the sheer horror of the brutal killing of 20 children ages 6 and 7 by a shooter using his mother’s assault rifle with a 30-round magazine that has brought the gun control issue to the forefront.  The question is, would that Bushmaster AR-15 revert to the same capability as the Ruger reduced to a 10-round or less capacity?

Unfortunately, the universal background check would not have prevented Adam Lanza from killing these little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but it could have prevented Jared Loughner from getting the weapon he used to kill 6 and injuring 13 in Tucson in Jan. of 2011, including former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.  What must be done in parallel with requiring these background checks is to make the reporting of felons and the mentally ill to the appropriate databases mandatory by law enforcement and all states.  Common sense?  Yes, but one of the biggest shortfalls in maintaining gun control.

The New York Times reported, “All federally licensed firearms dealers are required to run background checks through the computerized databases that comprise the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NCIS).  But the requirement does not cover guns that are sold by unlicensed sellers at gun shows and in other private sales, which account for about 40 percent of gun purchases in the country.”  The  National Instant Criminal Background Check System reports 16,808,538 requests for firearm background checks in 2012 with 976,255 denials.

The latter means that 15,832,283 permits were issued in 2012, which also means that 6,332,913 gun purchases could have been made—based on the 40%--without background checks.  Even if a fraction of this figure resulted in guns ending up in the wrong hands, is it any wonder why guns deaths in the U.S. are so high?  According to a CNN article, the FBI says more than a million people failed background checks to buy guns in the last 14 years because of drug use or mental health issues.  Congressional approval is required for universal background checks but other moves need only executive actions.

Some of the President’s proposals are not given much chance of making it through a Republican House because of gun lobbyists, namely the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).  This organization claims to have added around 250,000 new members to its already 4.2 million.  An NRA spokesman says the numbers are those who are passionate about 2^nd Amendment rights, a claim that is really getting old.  What the NRA spokesperson didn’t say about that 250,000 is the fact that 74% of them support background checks.  The Frank Luntz poll of NRA members also found that 75% want more restrictions on concealed carry.

If the President gets better background checks plus a ban on high capacity magazines, we can wait until 2014 and a more progressive House and Senate to add more to the list.  Here’s my want list on gun control from an earlier January post:

1. Ban all assault or assault-type weapons

2. Ban all high-capacity magazines over 5 rounds

3. Close gun show loophole

4. Background checks for all gun purchases

5. Mandatory training for anyone owning a gun

6. Mandatory state reporting of the mentally ill

It’s like a Christmas list.  You just keep asking for what you want until you get it.  The NRA should be on notice that the gun control advocates won’t give up this time.

Tell you congressional representatives what you want done about gun control;  Senate here; House of Representatives here.