<p>Well <em>I</em> would not have bought them in the first place. </p>
<p>I view anyone who owns 15+ guns with suspicion, with rare exceptions for some collectors. And I will blame you for ANYTHING negative that happens as a result of those guns, even if you had them locked up in a gun safe and a thief stole the entire thing. If the guns weren’t in your house to be stolen, they would not have been available to the criminal.</p>
<p>BTW, thanks to our insane gun laws, Adam was able to purchase a gun and ammunition on his own. If you are suggesting that Nancy and Peter should have taken it away from him, by force if necessary, I agree. But Nancy created this situation when she took him shooting and stockpiked weapons out of her own paranoid fantasies of the need for protection against the masses.</p>
<p>You are right to hold those opinions, Consolation, and I agree with you. Our gun safe weighs over 1000 lbs, solely for the reason you cite: So it cannot easily be stolen.</p>
<p>School shootings are terrible, awful things. But they are also (happily) extremely rare. Any cost-benefit analysis is going to say that there are better uses for a school’s money and time than defending against the extremely rare case of a school shooting. They’d make much more of a difference to their students by hiring an extra reading coach, writing coach, or diet and exercise coach.</p>
<p>Half a day, or a day, out of a school’s meager school year, to practice lockdown drills? That’s a preposterous overreaction.</p>
<p>glad to hear that you advocate all guns being locked in a gun safe with a combination lock. Saw the 20/20 special on children and guns where they repeated the experiment done 15 yrs ago demonstrating most kids know exactly where the family guns are stored and can locate and handle them despite parental warnings. </p>
<p>In this tragic case, it’s obvious that the guns were not locked up, and that gun use was encouraged. I’m not sure it was about “connecting” with her son. I read that Nancy Lanza was reported to be a “prepper” survivalist, if true, the guns were also part of this belief. </p>
<p>“She prepared for the worst,” her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza told reporters. “Last time we visited her in person, we talked about prepping – are you ready for what could happen down the line, when the economy collapses?”</p>
<p>Do we want to say that all “preppers” are clinically paranoid, that merely being a prepper is a symptom of mental illness? I’m no fan of preppers, and in casual conversation I might use the word “paranoid,” but I don’t accuse all preppers of mental illness.</p>
<p>I don’t think all preppers are mentally ill, but the fact that Nancy was one seems to come up a lot, as though that means something negative, so I’m asking.</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about preppers to really say, but my gut feeling is it borders on paranoia. But then I have that same opinion on folks who feel they need 15+ guns to keep them safe. We all have our own reality, and that is not part of mine.</p>
<p>My husband used to tell me he wanted to keep a bunch of food in the basement in case of a monumental collapse of our system. I told him if things are THAT bad, extra food won’t begin to be enough to cope with the situation. He finally stopped bringing it up.</p>
<p>I know my son’s situation is different, but I feel that it gives me at least a little insight into what Nancy was going through. You get used to odd behavior that in the past you would have raised red flags about. It’s also not unusual for the person to go downhill VERY rapidly. One week, the doctor told me he thought my son could go at least a couple of weeks without another appointment. The next week, DS was in the ER, so sick that I don’t want to describe his behavior on a public forum. The woman who screened him had the nerve to tell me, “You know, the next time, you could bring him in before he gets this ill…” I could have slugged her. I mentioned this conversation to the doctor, who told me not to feel bad - there was no way to know the break was coming.</p>
<p>So that people can stop with the insulting innuendoes, we don’t own 15+ guns to “keep us safe.” Several of our guns are collectors pieces, some are inherited, and they are used for hunting and sport.</p>
<p>didn’t imply that Bay. I was simply sharing my view about people who have lots of guns for protection, just like you did about preppers. same viewpoint really. wasn’t talking about you.</p>
<p>I assume that with your son’s condition, you would never let him near guns?</p>
<p>That is my point about what these parents did wrong that is so blatant to me. I cannot rationalize why they would allow their unstable son to have access to guns. It is unforgivable. And Peter didn’t address it at all. Horrible.</p>
<p>I don’t think we can tell whether Nancy Lanza was mentally ill, or just overwhelmed in Ema’s folie a deux scenario. Certainly she seems not to have been able to see the forest for the trees, but who knows whether that was because she had mental illness or just mental exhaustion.</p>
<p>yes, certainly overwhelmed, but she may have also been depressed. In fact I wondered if Adam’s crying jags were signs of depression in him, and if he wasn’t feeling suicidal and then came up with this tragic homicide/suicide rampage.</p>