<p>I read she was a survivalist, which might explain it.</p>
<p>We don’t know about the storage of the guns. From what I’ve read, target shooting was a way she found to connect with him. Perhaps she was happy to have finally found something/somehow to bond with him. We don’t know how he got to the guns. There are many imaginable scenarios. What if he threatened her with a knife or something until she gave him the keys or combo to the locked up guns? What if he got a hold of the keys and had duplicates made? We don’t know what happened in that house. Until the facts are out, it’s not worth speculating on how he got a hold of the guns.</p>
<p>The son was a mess. There’s nothing more scary than an extremely smart severely mentally ill person age 18 or over. They’re too old to be controlled by parents and often times, unwilling to submit to treatment. Guns, knives, explosives, vehicles, or bare hands—when a person is hell bent on causing destruction and death and has the intelligence and knowledge to plan a calculated attack, it’s very difficult to uncover and stop it before it happens.</p>
<p>“From what I’ve read, target shooting was a way she found to connect with him.”</p>
<p>You don’t need to own the guns to enjoy target shooting. If you do own them, you don’t need to store them in your home. A fatal error in many, many families we never read about, especially the suicides.</p>
<p>We can speculate, but it’s always best to wait for the facts of the investigation to be released.</p>
<p>FWIW, it is true that folks CAN go target shooting without owning any guns. D & her friends went target shooting to celebrate a friend’s BDay in LA. None of them owned guns & I believe it was the first time any of them had ever handled a gun. They all found it an interesting experience.</p>
<p>Definitely a dangerous idea to store guns in your home–if it becomes known, you can be targetted for burglary for folks who want to obtain weapons. I’m not sure we will ever KNOW all the facts, but yes speculation is not helpful to know what happened. Nonetheless, there are obvious problems that need to be addressed for the whole host of multiple shootings that have occurred in recent months and years. The specific facts of any particular case are not as crucial as addressing things that have been long ignored and underfunded with respect to mental health gaps in resources, etc. as well as having a rational discussion about responsible gun ownership and what that means and will cost.</p>
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<p>And often, parents resist the use of medications that could be helpful to their children.</p>
<p>But we don’t know whether either of these scenarios played a role here. </p>
<p>In any case, Adam Lanza was an adult. His mother would not have been making decisions about medications for him at age 20.</p>
<p>I wonder what the statistics are for guns in homes in terms of the percent that are ever used in self defense as opposed to the percent that are ultimately (whether accidentally or intentionally) used to injure or kill a friend,family member, or innocent bystander. There is always a lot of discussion about the right to bear arms for self defense (I support that in theory) but how often does that actually play out? If a gun is kept under lock and key, as it should be, how practical is it in a crises? How often does an angry family member turn to a gun in the heat of the moment? A person who, had the gun not been available, would have eventually calmed down.</p>
<p>It sounds as though his mother was involved in his condition even though he was an adult as he was living in her home. There are many layers to this and it is clear that the whole situation was way beyond what the mother could do to help him. Yet, it is sad that if she believed that he needed to be sent to a psychiatric facility that she did not keep the guns away from him, especially if she had any idea that he was a perceived threat to himself, her or the larger community. But honestly, she had a very, very difficult situation to deal with and did not have the resources to support her son and that must be why she wanted him to be committed.</p>
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<p>This study addresses that issue, but it’s more than 10 years old; I’m not sure whether things have changed.</p>
<p>[Injuries</a> and deaths due to firearms in the home. [J Trauma. 1998] - PubMed - NCBI](<a href=“Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home - PubMed”>Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home - PubMed)</p>
<p>Also, this study on locked vs. unlocked firearms and suicide might be of interest.</p>
<p>[Safer</a> storage of firearms at ho… [J Epidemiol Community Health. 2004] - PubMed - NCBI](<a href=“Safer storage of firearms at home and risk of suicide: a study of protective factors in a nationally representative sample - PubMed”>Safer storage of firearms at home and risk of suicide: a study of protective factors in a nationally representative sample - PubMed)</p>
<p>And you might be interested in this one on firearms in the home and the risk for violence among juveniles.</p>
<p>[Easy</a> access to firearms: juveniles’ ris… [J Interpers Violence. 2011] - PubMed - NCBI](<a href=“Easy access to firearms: juveniles' risks for violent offending and violent victimization - PubMed”>Easy access to firearms: juveniles' risks for violent offending and violent victimization - PubMed)</p>
<p>I heard on the news tonight that the reason Nancy Lanza had decided to commit Adam was his increasing withdrawal from all forms of socialization. He was spending more and more time playing violent video-type games. She apparently told him to stop playing these games and get a job or go back to school or she would have to take measure to get him committed to a Psychiatric facility. It seems that was the tipping point.</p>
<p>So much of what has been reported on “the news” about the Lanzas has turned out to be false or exaggerated in this case that I have stopped paying attention. With hundreds of reporters hanging on every word uttered by the bartender who used to pour Nancy Lanza’s drinks or the barber who cut Adam’s hair, the likelihood that people will embroider their memories to please the questioners, whether consciously or unconsciously, is very high. </p>
<p>To those who are knowledgeable, are assault weapons of the type owned by Nancy Lanza used for target shooting? And would that type of weapon normally be recommended as protection for the home?</p>
<p>The handguns that were reported (Glock and Sig) are very popular target pistols. I have shot both at a range and found them both very managable. </p>
<p>I’ve heard the AR-15 is popular with people, however, I don’t understand why. I was in the military and the rifle qualification was with an M-16 (the military cousin to the AR-15). They had the fully automatic feature locked out on us. Even in semi-automatic mode it sprayed bullets and you were just along for the ride, forget trying to aim at a target. </p>
<p>This NY Times article notes the people do like it:</p>
<p><a href=“Owners of Assault Weapons Dismiss Idea of Federal Ban - The New York Times”>Owners of Assault Weapons Dismiss Idea of Federal Ban - The New York Times;
<p>This CNN article provides a bit more details on the guns he carried:</p>
<p>[Newtown</a> shooter’s guns: What we know - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/18/us/connecticut-lanza-guns/index.html]Newtown”>http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/18/us/connecticut-lanza-guns/index.html)</p>
<p>The whole thing is unspeakably sad. I guess we are all wondering what we can do to prevent things like this from happening in the future. How can we protect our kids? How can we help those who are slipping into psychosis? How can we help a mother who doesn’t know where to turn? I find comfort from knowing that people are so concerned and want to change things for the better, even if there is no clear answer as to how to do that.</p>