<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t recall anyone on this thread suggesting there was an obvious institution Adam could have been sent to. All comments I recall have been to the contrary.</p>
<p>Posters creating arguments that don’t exist gets tiresome.</p>
<p>Bay, earlieyou have suggested that Peter shoud have made more of an effort to see Adam. If Adam is an adult, and not living with his father, what right does Peter have to force him?</p>
<p>I agree that it is at least consistent to say that Nancy should have required Adam to see Peter. I don’t particularly agree (because I don’t think her forcing that issue would have helped) but it’s consistent. </p>
<p>Bay, how is throwing people like Adam out on the street an improvement to anything? </p>
<p>1or2,
I never said Peter could have “forced” Adam to see him; you or someone else came up with the “forcing” idea.</p>
<p>CF,
Please stop with the false arguments. I did not suggest that Adam be thrown out on the street. Give me a break. My point, which I think was quite obvious, was that Nancy had the right and responsibility to make reasonable house rules (which may have averted the tragedy), and Adam had the obligation to comply with them. Just as he would have had to comply with a landlord’s rules if he lived on his own. Stop creating unnecessary drama in this thread. It is not helpful.</p>
<p>Why do we think she didn’t have rules? We don’t know what Adam was like on a day to day basis but my guess is he was usually behind closed doors and a computer screen. Rules cannot avert a complete mental meltdown. </p>
<p>Here’s the scenario:</p>
<p>“Adam, you have to stop playing video games or you can’t live here.”</p>
<p>Adam turns on his heel, goes back in his room, and resumes playing video games.</p>
<p>And then what, Bay? And then either she has issued an empty threat, or she throws him out. Bay, do you imagine that announcing a house rule is the same as having it obeyed? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah, well, he had the obligation not to shoot up a classroom full of six-year-olds too.</p>
<p>What difference does it make if she had house rules? She had no way to enforce them other than to throw Adam out, and she wasn’t going to throw him out.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe I’m just tired, but I’m confused. It does seem you did earlier suggest** exactly that<a href=“he%20is%20kicked%20out%20of%20the%20house”>/B</a> if Adam doesn’t comply with Nancy’s rules. I think it’s pretty obvious Adam was not going to do anything he didn’t want to do, rules or no rules, so insisting he follow the rules OR ELSE sure seems like suggesting that Nancy kick him out (because he wasn’t going to follow her rules). In the face of his severe dysfunction, arguing that these “rules” are reasonable seems kind of irrelevant. Requiring Adam to go to therapy when he absolutely was NOT on board with any aspect of it as a condition of him living at home would have accomplished zero. If the condition is enforced, what other outcome would there be other than throwing him out on the street? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>we will never know if any of our "suggested interventions"would have altered the tragic course of history in this family, however that doesn’t mean we can’t note places where interventions might help another family. a colleague lost his son to suicide, with his own gun, it has left him brokenhearted. He knew his son while functional was troubled/depressed. </p>
<p>it concerns me when people repeat the Lanza’s statement that mental health professionals hadn’t helped Adam when they took him to one, therefore no use in trying again, even when his behavior and functioning deteriorating significantly from the original time. This is faulty logic. If a medical condition didn’t improve with one physician’s recommended treatment one doesn’t refuse to ever see another physician. </p>
<p>Well, Adam Lanza was 20 years old and he was refusing Now what? Also, I would not assume that seeing another therapist would have changed anything either since we all know that is not the case. No-one is saying do nothing differently. But, some are saying no-one is to blame for not forseeing the unforseeable., </p>
<p>Bay, didn’t say the word force perhaps, but you said that Peter should “get over there” which would certainly seem to be an attempt to force Adam to see him. Doing this would also be going against Nancy’s stated wishes, if Peter is accurately describing them (and I have in reason to believe he is not). I would think her right to enforce house rules would include being able to control who visits. </p>
<p>
She could have thrown out the guns if he didn’t follow her rules about guns.</p>
<p>
Right. Civil liberties trump all. And, really, what “recommendations” would a mental health professional give a parent about their adult child? Wouldn’t the professional insist on seeing the young adult before diagnosing and issuing recommendations? </p>
<p>You get no answer if you focus on what could be done with an adult child. The question should be about if different parenting could have produced an adult Adam Lanza who is not dangerous. Why focus on year 20 when parents had twenty years prior to that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not if the patient of the mental health professional was Nancy Lanza. Just as a parent or spouse of an alcoholic might see a therapist for their own concerns, so might a parent of an Aspie. A therapist my son saw for a while also offers services to parents of Aspies.</p>
<p>As to how to have produced an adult Adam Lanza who was not dangerous, we don’t know. Certainly giving him access to guns made him more dangerous, but a person disposed to mass murder who doesn’t have guns in the home is still a dangerous person.</p>
<p>Has anyone read the book “We Need to Talk about Kevin”?</p>
<p>
True, but as I’ve pointed out before, it took 8 people to do with knives what Adam Lanza did alone. Of course, he could have obtained guns elsewhere, too. We don’t know what he would actually have done.</p>
<p>Sure, Hunt, but you’re preachin’ to the choir here. Everyone here agrees the guns should have been secured. If the guns had not been so readily available, the carnage would probably have been less. Not certainly, but probably. </p>
<p>However, the question I was responding to was how Nancy Lanza could have made Adam Lanza “not dangerous.” Not less dangerous, but not dangerous. And we do not know the answer to that question. We don’t even know whether there was any possible way to make him not dangerous.</p>
<p>Less carnage sounds good to me. I’m trying to avoid getting into the political side of this, which is mostly what fills me with despair. I think a lot of people (not so much in this discussion, but elsewhere) are using terms like “no one could have predicted this” as a surrogate for what they really mean, which is “don’t try to take away MY guns.”</p>
<p>And yet, we don’t even know that there would be less carnage. A determined mass murderer has many methods to kill if he wants to commit suicide at the same time. Bombs are spectacular, and there is always the old favorite of poisoning. Or he could just use the other lethal weapon at hand, his car, and ram a bunch of kids on their way to school.</p>
<p>I’m with you on restricting guns, Hunt, and I think it would save a lot of American lives. But restricting guns, while IMO a good idea, is not a method of curing a nihilistic murderer/suicide.</p>