<p>I know many young people, including relatives who play a ton of video games, with varying degrees of social “oddness.” Most are fine, but for those who aren’t, there are really few resources </p>
<p>As was posted above, the person has to be about to harm self and/or others NOW and even then can only get locked up for a very limited time period. </p>
<p>If I were the brother, I’d be seriously looking into changing my name and moving away to start a new life. Would be afraid to have a family, especially afraid to have a severely mentally ill child. </p>
<p>It is so heartbreaking for the dad, brother, and any grandparents or even in laws (tho none have ever been mentioned). </p>
<p>I’m sorry but it is not accurate to say that Nancy Lanza had zero inclination that her son had violent thoughts. How many of our kids were writing stories like this in fifth grade?</p>
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<p>Now, I will grant that not every author who writes about violent subjects is prone to violence himself. But there were enough red flags in this kid’s behavior to warrant concern about having dangerous weapons in the house. </p>
<p>^^^^^^
Yes, I saw that as well and it was startling. A review of his computer also produced some pretty violent material. So I don’t know, should someone have been looking at his search history or monitoring him more closely? Seems like Nancy Lanza was happy just to make it through the day with her son. Very tough set of circumstances.</p>
<p>^That story was written when he was about 10 yeras old. Nothing really happened for 10 years until he was 20 years old. Not blaming anyone but somehow I can’t help feeling he could have grown out of it.</p>
<p>In the United States, we are all about freedom, and we don’t believe in restricting anyone – even the severely mentally ill – unless and until they are a danger to themselves or to others. Sadly, it’s not always apparent when they are a danger. I strongly doubt that we will ever revert to the olden days, when we would send people away to the insane asylum if they were depressed. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the happy medium is, but I wish we could find it. </p>
<p>Even if we were at a happy medium where some people who are clearly unhinged and dangerous could be institutionalized, I don’t see how Adam Lanza would have been one of them. The mental health professionals he saw didn’t detect violence. As JHS points out, the dragnet TatinG envisions to lock up Lanza would lock up too many people. I’m not willing to lock up my son, my brother and my nephew just because one Aspie somewhere was a mass murderer.</p>
<p>“The Lanterman–Petris–Short (LPS) Act (Cal. Welf & Inst. Code, sec. 5000 et seq.) concerns the involuntary civil commitment to a mental health institution in the State of California. The act set the precedent for modern mental health commitment procedures in the United States. It was co-authored by California State Assemblyman Frank D. Lanterman (R) and California State Senators Nicholas C. Petris (D) and Alan Short (D), and signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The Act went into full effect on July 1, 1972. It cited seven articles of intent:
To end the inappropriate, indefinite, and involuntary commitment of mentally disordered persons, people with developmental disabilities, and persons impaired by chronic alcoholism, and to eliminate legal disabilities;
To provide prompt evaluation and treatment of persons with serious mental disorders or impaired by chronic alcoholism;
To guarantee and protect public safety;
To safeguard individual rights through judicial review;
To provide individualized treatment, supervision, and placement services by a conservatorship program for gravely disabled persons;
To encourage the full use of all existing agencies, professional personnel and public funds to accomplish these objectives and to prevent duplication of services and unnecessary expenditures;
To protect mentally disordered persons and developmentally disabled persons from criminal acts.”</p>
<p>Involuntary Treatment (an involuntary “hold” does not necessarily include involuntary “treatment”. </p>
<p>I know several young people who have done dark, violent artwork with blood depicted. So far as we know, they are all fine. One is a very respected artist who attended an exclusive masters program in art at Yale and is enjoying success as an artist in NYC. </p>
<p>Agree that parents did try to get help for their kid and NO one they consulted suggested Adam would become violent 10 years after writing his frightening book. </p>
<p>Parents and family can only deal with what they have, the resources they can marshall, and their best judgment. Nancy and the dad did their best and sadly, none of them knew what was brewing in Adam. Even if they did, there are a lot of restrictions in what can be done with someone who is mentally ill absent their consent. </p>
<p>The US treatment of mentally ill is dangerously flawed. </p>
<p>I never said anything about a dragnet for the mentally ill even those prone to violence. But I am no where close to convinced that the Lanza family did all they could. Of course, the dad would say that now.</p>
<p>The problem is that there is nothing they could do. Unless he was in the midst of some violent act the cops do nothing. If they take him away he will be back in a week. If the mom tells a hospital she is concerned and a therapist who sees him for 15 minutes sends him home she’s stuck, again. Whatever she knew or suspected, there are no options. A house full of guns is a bad idea, but getting a gun if he wanted to get a gun is not a big challenge, either. </p>
<p>Why is it so hard to agree that Nancy Lanza should not have allowed her mentally ill child with a history of violent thoughts to have access to guns?</p>
<p>I suspect there is probably a LOT we don’t know about this whole situation. But I will say that I agree with the posters who have said that allowing guns in that home was a mistake.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not sure anyone does disagree with that, exactly. But since he could and did get his own gun it is not the primary problem. And, obviously people are going to be reluctant to blame the mom of a violent crazy person for her own killing.</p>
<p>I found this article incredibly heartbreaking. The tragedy was so overwhelming and horrifying, but from the day that it happened I thought about the father and the brother and their lives, knowing that they had not been in communication with Adam for about two years. Nancy Lanza had also been estranged from her family in NH for about two years as well. Clearly she was withdrawing into trying to get through the day with Adam through all this time as he descended into psychosis or whatever mental illness he was experiencing in addition to the Aspergers diagnosis.
Maybe she was trying to bond with her son by taking him shooting… but to me, no home needs the kind of arsenal described in the press or any weapons at all for that matter but certainly any guns should have been under lock and key with only Nancy having access. </p>
<p>Well since he hadn’t seen a mental health professional in 6 years, and since the two people closest to the story are dead and since the father wasn’t in his sons life for 2 years, well never know. Almost everyone who iknows a murderer will say after the fact that they never saw it coming. Because who would admit the alternative?</p>
<p>He weighed 112 pounds. His mother bought him a gun as a gift. 50 shell casings were found in “Class room 10”, 49 of which corresponded to Lanza’s Bushmaster assault rifle. I’m going to blame Nancy Lanza for making tools of mass murder available to a very disturbed person.</p>
<p>Yes, I can blame Nancy Lanza for that. And the manufacturer. And the Second Amendment Taliban, the ARA, George W. Bush, the leadership in both houses of Congress, and a majority of the Supreme Court. They have convinced themselves that carrying around weapons of mass destruction is a central attribute of American personhood. That costs us lives, lots of them.</p>
<p>In Lanza’s age group, people from 10-34, three of the top four most common causes of death are accident, suicide and homicide, in that order. Guns make all of those easier. </p>
<p>Lanza was not (apparently) at obvious risk to be a murderer, but someone like him is at obvious risk to be a suicide. That in itself would have been enough reason to secure the guns. </p>
<p>A friend was just telling me about friends of the friend–married couple, apparently lovely folks, who adopted two boys as infants. One of the boys is now a grown man and in prison for life for murder. The other boy is a sweet guy doing well in life. My friend says that even when the boys were little you could tell that there was something “off” with the one. The parents tried everything they could–counselors, therapy, doctors, working with teachers, you name it. Friend and apparently others say that yes, they could see it coming…and not a d**m thing anyone could do about it. </p>
<p>And another friend is facing a similar situation, with young (11 and 13) step-grandchildren who are in juvenile hall under assault charges. The children are in another state, one with minimal mental health/counseling/what have you services. My friend is out of options. The children require full-on intervention at a level which is beyond my friend’s ability to provide, either in training or financially. Would this friend be surprised if eventually these young teens commit murder? Not at all. </p>