<p>Are you sure the mother bought all the guns? What does an elementary school teacher in a very safe suburban Newtown do with 3-4 different assault rifles?</p>
<p>I heard that the weapons used were semi-automatic handguns.</p>
<p>There was a .223 hunting rifle left in a car.</p>
<p>There are some reports that the mother was not a teacher, but a teacher’s aide.</p>
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<p>I guess because little kids are the most vulnerable and least able to run away or fight back.</p>
<p>This reminds of the Brenda (“I don’t like Mondays”) Spencer shooting at an elementary school here in San Diego back in the 80s.</p>
<p>[Elementary</a> school massacre: 27 killed, including 20 kids, at Connecticut school - U.S. News](<a href=“U.S. News: Latest Breaking Stories, Video, and Photos on American Politics, Economy, and Society | NBC News”>U.S. News: Latest Breaking Stories, Video, and Photos on American Politics, Economy, and Society | NBC News)</p>
<p>Yes, the guns used were legally purchased and registered to the mom. The shooter has a history of mental illness. I’m sure more of this will come out in due time. </p>
<p>It’s a multi-pronged problem regarding these mass shootings.
- country’s culture of violence
- care and laws regarding mental illness
- automatic weapons </p>
<p>People will latch on to one of these issues and use it to blame for such tragedies. However, it’s a combination of many things that leads to such horrendous outcomes rather than one isolated cause.</p>
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<p>^Maybe, just maybe, he wanted to eliminate everything held dear to his mother (including the children).</p>
<p>If some sick individual wanted to commit a crime like this, a ban on guns would certainly not stop him. Those who want a gun will have one, whether they are legal or illegal. Can’t we just mourn the deaths of these innocents and pray for their families, but keep the political agendas out of the conversation…at least for 1 day?</p>
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<p>Exactly. No other first world nation even comes close to us when it comes to an obsession with gun violence. Not. Even. Close.</p>
<p>…and why the leap to mental illness?..I say it’s pure evil…</p>
<p>I read somewhere on the net that authorities report that Ryan said his brother Adam (the shooter) was autistic, and neighbors describe Adam has having exhibited OCD-like behaviors. If true, we’re probably going to hear more about this as the story sorts itself out. </p>
<p>I think this country has a problem with dealing with the mentally ill. I’ve heard one too many accounts, after the fact, of family members of a mentally ill person who desperately wanted some help from somewhere, anywhere, begging, pleading, and are told by the psychiatrists, social workers and the police that sorry, can’t do anything unless the person harms himself or others, or voluntarily submits to treatment. This comes out after said person has already harmed someone and it’s made the news. Local, national, it all blurs together after a while with a depressing sameness. There are lots of advocates for the rights of the adult mentally ill. I wish there were some advocacy organization that championed the general public’s right to get some potentially dangerous people off the street for their own safety and the safety of others.</p>
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<p>I can’t. No one should. The only better time to talk about nothing but the political agenda has already passed. Failure to do so got us to this day.</p>
<p>This is the price we are paying. A terrible, horrible price. How much more will we endure paying? If a classroom of kindergarteners isn’t price enough, nothing ever will be.</p>
<p>:(</p>
<p>The problem is EVERYTIME a massacre happens, we hear the same thing. Can’t we just talk about this later? Well, it’s too late for the victims in Connecticut. I agree with nysmile in that this isn’t JUST about gun control. That said, why is it so bad to make guns harder to purchase? How is this a bad thing?</p>
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<p>they should</p>
<p>Why does a teacher buy a gun? Or two or three? Oh, to protect herself. To pacify her son. To give the illusion of safety. Does it even matter? (I know you are just wondering, I’m not yelling at you) Too many guns leads to too many deaths. What we are doing is not working. Criminals will always find a gun. Mentally ill people should not have access. Angry ex-husbands or deluded stalkers should not have access. Hunters do not need a semi-automatic or 200 rounds of ammo to bring down a deer or moose or whatever. </p>
<p>I don’t have the answers. But lots of countries are doing better, and we’re not even TRYING to have the conversation because gun people can’t cede even the tiniest bit of sense or safety because their rights are more important. We aren’t even 24 hours in and the narrative is already turning to “pry my gun from my poor dead hands”</p>
<p>We legislate food, seat belts, aspirin containers, saran wrap packages, speed limits, drinking ages, dog ownership, contraceptive access, tattoos, electrical service and fifty million other things in the name of “if it saves just one person it’s worth it” but NOT guns? And we wonder about it? C’mon people. Enough is enough already.</p>
<p>In response to Geeps, post 208</p>
<p>It’s not a leap to mental illness. The shooter has a history of mental illness.</p>
<p>It’s extremely difficult to “make” a person with mental illness get treatment. So yes, mental illness plays a large factor in these horrendous actions. Whether it be guns, knives, fire, home made explosives (easy to find directions how to make them on the internet), it’s the underlying mental illness that drives a person to carry out such actions.</p>
<p>It seems the reports around this story are all confused - one area gets certain information, others get different information. I can say that because it is a local story, our news stations have had continuous coverage. I don’t know about other parts of the country, or the national networks.</p>
<p>I just read a recap from one of our local stations, and they are quoting the state police spokesman as saying they have not released the identity of the gunman, and are not planning to do so at this time - followed by a statement that the AP has identified his as Adam Lanza. So my question is where did the AP get the information? And when his brother was initially identified, where did that information come from? Our station was occasionally cutting to national coverage, and these tidbits of information (some of which are ending up inaccurate) have been coming from the national news desks.</p>
<p>As the signs in vigil in front of the White House say:</p>
<p>“TODAY IS THE DAY”</p>
<p>There is no better time to discuss the fascination with and proliferation of guns in the U.S. Today is the day. If it had been done, seriously, after Columbine or after Virginia Tech, or after any of the many other horrific days like today, maybe those 26 people murdered today would still be alive. Today. And tomorrow. And the day after that, until this nonsense stops.</p>
<p>Makes me wonder if in his sick/twisted mind he thought his mom loved these students more than him…so he acted out against all of them. </p>
<p>Heck, if he was a difficult child, and the mom naturally spoke highly of the little cuties in K, then he’d might lash out against them.</p>
<p>“then it would be the excuse of “it is the PERSON, not the GUN.””</p>
<p>There’s always another excuse, always another goalpost shifted, to support the proposition that it’s impossible, can’t be done, nothing can be prohibited, ever, no matter how many people it’s possible to slaughter within 60 seconds, because slippery slope and next thing you know the government will be taking away our right to self-defense, and if he didn’t have access to guns he’d have done it with a a knife. </p>
<p>Kind of like that man in China who just attacked 21 schoolchildren with a knife, I guess. How many are dead? Zero.</p>
<p>Other countries have mentally ill people too, but somehow manage to get by without a new mass murder every few weeks (or what seems lately more like every day). But I guess that’s just a coincidence, right? Access to guns has nothing to do with it. (Wholly apart from the fact that mentally ill people are more likely to be the victims of violence than its perpetrator; that there’s no proof I know of that people with mental illness are more likely to commit violence than those without it; and, perhaps most importantly, that there is, so far as I know, no way of predicting with any great confidence, except perhaps in extreme cases, which people are actually going to end up doing something like this.) </p>
<p>I think there are far too many people who seem to believe that it would be more rational and feasible to lock up every socially awkward, sullen American male between the ages of 16 and 30, than it would be to pass or enforce a single new gun regulation, no matter how minimal. That’s what the power of the gun lobby has done – made people believe that change is impossible, and that there’s no point even trying, and that anyone who suggests it should be sneered at and dismissed, and piously chastised even for bringing it up. </p>
<p>If it was OK to bring up right after Katrina the need to do what was necessary to prevent similar things in the future, it’s OK to bring this up.</p>
<p>NYsmile and VOT123’ I agree with you both. I heard that visitors had to be buzzed into this school. Why did they let him in especially if his mother was not there?</p>