“Did paranoid, gun-crazed mother trigger son's school killing spree?

[Tom]

“Did paranoid, gun-crazed mother trigger son's school killing spree?

What a loaded, irresponsible statement!!

The whole title reads:
“Did paranoid, gun-crazed mother trigger son's school killing spree? Friends say she believed world was on edge of collapse.”

Quotes from the rest of the article are as follows.......

“She said her former sister-in-law was meticulous about never leaving guns out,….”

”‘I would ring the bell on the front door and she would come out the side and meet me,’ he said. ‘It was a little weird. It’s stranger now thinking back on what happened.’”

”But others noted that beneath the mellow exterior, she was highly-strung and appeared to be ‘holding herself together’.”

”Adam, a reclusive youth who had few if any friends and spent most of his time in two adjoining bedrooms in the family home.”

“There he would spend hours on his computer, much of the time devoted to playing violent games.”

Ryan Kraft, who babysat for Mrs Lanza when Adam was ten, said the boy was prone to serious temper tantrums. The fiercely protective Mrs Lanza insisted the babysitter never left Adam on his own for a moment, even to go to the lavatory.

But he remembered her as an ‘engaged’ mother who did her best to arrange playdates for her sons.

“Catherine Urso said her son, who was at school with him, described him as ‘very thin, very remote and one of the goths’.”

”The Lanzas moved to Sandy Hook in around 1998 but Mrs Lanza and her husband divorced ten years later amid rumours that their difficult younger son had put a heavy strain on their marriage.”

”Police say a member of Adam’s family – probably his brother – has told them he suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism.”

“Experts have insisted the condition, while prompting the sufferer to withdraw into his own world, would not be responsible on its own for making him go on a homicidal spree.”

“That said, the experts note that if he had mental problems, these, combined with years of social isolation, inadequacy and the easy availability of an arsenal of firearms, could have been a recipe for disaster.”
________________________________________________________________________________​__

After reading the above quotes from an online Daily Mail article - which when read in whole seems to lean too heavily on the guns in the home CAUSING this terrible act – you can see there was more going on than just guns in the home being the problem!

This woman had her hands full trying to take care of a very difficult and troubled young man. He had issues way before he took guns and went on a killing spree. She did all she could do to try and help him, but short of institutionalizing him, what more could she do?

Yes, it was probably unwise to have guns in the same home as this young man, but he would have found some other form of weapon if not a gun. He seemed bent on doing harm – to others and himself.

Why not ‘blame’ the violent video games he loved to play? Studies have shown that when a person (especially a vulnerable personality) plays hours and hours of these types of violent games, they lose their resistance to doing violence themselves in real life.

Guns don’t ‘cause’ violence! Look at Australia, a country with some of the most strict gun laws in the world, and they have more violence there than we do here! How do you explain that?

[Raven]

No, guns don't cause violence, but they make it possible on a much larger scale. Everyone I know plays "violent" video games and is a non-violent person. Millions of people play these games, tens of millions. 99.999999% of them are just computer nerds.

I do think something was going on with his mother. Parents of autistic children usually treat them like sh*t, bully them, sometimes kill them themselves. Autistic people aren't "difficult", parents who don't get their dream child just drug their children to the gills and whine about having to pay any attention to them because they bought into some myth that parenthood would always be shiny and happy. Probably half the people diagnosed with autism aren't even autistic anyway. Autistic people tend to be introverted, not violent.

[Mark P]

People like blaming inanimate objects or other people for tragedies.

Pitbull attacks child? Ban the pitbull.
Alcohol is bad for you? Ban the alcohol (this is the '20s, lol)
People get shot? Ban the guns.

Instead of looking at our culture and understanding the complex causes of violence, we'd rather blame it on something, pass some laws, and call it a day.

What about the failing state of mental healthcare in this country? Why didn't this kid receive counseling after having known mental issues?

There are two issues with mental healthcare... 1. People see it as taboo or a stigma to have a mental health issue, thus, do not seek out care for themselves or their loved ones. 2. Most doctors prescribe anti-depressants instead of referring to mental health counselors. Who cares if it re--wires the brain's chemistry? It's profitable!!!

This country has had a prevailing gun culture for years, yet there were very few massacres until recent decades. Politicians love when massacres happen and practically bathe in the blood of victims, cause most want to disarm the people.

Look at Mexico, North Korea, Russia, and Syria? Gun bans doesn't work for them. It'd never work in America because the millions of guns would suddenly enter the black market. Banning a product will never work when a healthy black market exists for the same product.

But no, let's not blame pharmaceuticals or the lack of concern for the mentally ill or the prevalence of violence in entertainment. Let's blame guns - the very tools that defend law-abiding citizens - the tools that formed this free nation.

[kacey59]

I agree.. amd what about the father? Where's his share of the blame? All we're hearing about is what the mother did wrong but if true that the father and mother spllit up because of the difficulties with the kid, i can't imagine the father was running over there all the time and helping her deal with the kid, especially since he is remarried.. so, probably safe to assume he totally left her holdig the bag..

They reported that he was trying to purchase guns on tuesday so you are absolutely right that had his mother not had guns, it still wouldn't have stopped him... He was intent on doing it and eventually he would have obtained the guns somehow...I don't know that video games cause this but probably more like kids with these tendencies are drawn to them.. they also did a study on this with kids with add and they found they are drawn to them because all the action in the games gives them the brain stimulation they normally lack....but since these type of kids are more addicted to tjhem there migjht be somethimg to it that with them already having these temdencies that the more they play the more out of touch with reality they become....

And rigjht again... australia amd the UK have had a rise in violence and crime since bannimg guns... in fact, the UK now holds the number one spot in the world for crimes committed with knibes... banming guns is not the amswer as it causes a rise in crime once citizens are turned into sitting ducks....

[Lara Riley]

Sure, guns don't cause violence... they do 'help' a great deal, though. I presonally don't understand the need to keep that many guns at your home just for 'self defense', but alright.

And saying that playing video games can turn a person into a violent, cold-blooded murderer is ignorant. I myself play video games and so do most of my friends, and I can assure you, we're perfectly capable of separating fantasy and reality. Actually, if anything, I think playing video games has made me MORE of a pacifist. No idea what 'studies' youre referring to.

[Noe]

it was all planed