<p>Good evidence on the motive to answer why might be this:</p>
<p>[Adam</a> Lanza Reportedly In Altercation At School Day Before Shooting | Mediaite](<a href=“http://www.mediaite.com/tv/adam-lanza-reportedly-in-altercation-at-school-day-before-shooting/]Adam”>adam lanza | Mediaite)</p>
<p>Video games have NOTHING to do with this. Millions of people play Call of Duty without committing mass murder.</p>
<p>Istttt, I agree that it is very strange that the father had no knowledge of what his son had done before he came home from work last evening. You would have thought someone …friend or relative… would have contacted him. </p>
<p>Also, I have been reading that now it is believed that Nancy Lanza was NOT a teacher at the school. Has anyone else heard this? That makes it even more confusing for me. </p>
<p>I also think schools across the nation will be reevaluating their security measures. Before I retired, when we had practice drills, they always started with an announcement over the PA system. None of us ever thought about the fact that in most scenarios, the likelihood of being able to do that is very slim.</p>
<p>And up until yesterday, working in a school with a buzz in system seemed safe. Now that we know that any shooter can shoot his way through that door, schools will need to look at other safety measures.</p>
<p>I read that she was a substitute teacher, so it makes sense that her name does not appear on any listing of school staff.</p>
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<p>I found this interesting (telling?) if true. Another factor to add to the mix: the impact of divorce and absent fathers on young men. Apparently, the parents divorced in 2008 - Adam would have been 16 - and the parents could have been separated before that. It looks like the boy lived alone with his mother; his older brother supposedly claims not to have had contact with Adam since 2010 - that’s 2 years, and he didn’t live that far away (Hoboken). Granted, we don’t know what kind of a father Adam’s dad was.</p>
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<p>You don’t know that.</p>
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<p>This is true. Many of us have kids who play video games, even the most violent ones, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. But such games could be a trigger for some, especially where other factors are present (such as those Bay has mentioned). I too was struck by the absence of the father and the older brother in this young man’s life over the past couple of years.</p>
<p>Many of the schools around here have school police who are armed. If an armed police officer had been present, perhaps most of these killings could have prevented. A shooter would not choose a protected location to do a mass shooting. </p>
<p>This seems like a more efficient solution to prevention than rounding up all firearms, which will never happen or committing all potentially violent mentally people, which will never happen either.</p>
<p>Wow, now single parents are under attack. Didn’t Columbine boys have an intact family?</p>
<p>^But didn’t you say bad people will find a way. How hard is it to eliminate an armed police officer given you have ample time to prepare and carry out a surprise attack? So the answer is more guns in school, movie theatres, all the public places that exist?</p>
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<p>I know. My head knows that. It’s just an image I have that hurts my heart.</p>
<p>Iglooo, I don’t think single parents are to blame. But the divorce could have been especially hard on this kid, and been just one more factor that caused him to snap. We may never know.</p>
<p>It well never happen… so we shouldn’t even try to solve the problem by working on tighter gun controls and improving the mental health system… That just makes me sick. And angrier, and more determined that this time we will start to take action and gain momentum on this. </p>
<p>That isn’t really a solution… will we put an armed guard in every movie theater? Provide one at every public meeting held by our representatives? Station them throughout our malls? Put one in every single school, preschool, college building? Should we have one at every church and temple every Sunday? Like every complex problem, we need to attack it from multiple angles with a sustained effort over many years. Like so many other improvements in our society, there will be people who don’t like it. I say too bad. I would love to have us treat “December 14” as a day of infamy and a turning point in the US just like those other “famous dates” that are stuck in our heads. I would like to see a million person march on Washington on this topic as well. And I would like to see unrelenting grass roots political pressure on our politicians at all levels in all states to work on this problem from every angle over the next 10 years. Then I think we will see a change.</p>
<p>Nothing will ever be a 100% solution. </p>
<p>But none of the proposed gun control laws would have prevented this. The mother legally owned these guns. The mother was negligent to have guns in the house with such a son and paid with her life for that.</p>
<p>We cannot lock up all of the mentally unbalanced young men in this country.</p>
<p>The school police around here protect the school, do drug busts, etc.</p>
<p>sally, you could say life was hard on this kid. Their divorce was 4 years ago, not yesterday. Did someone say he went to MIT at 16? If so, the kid was in college soon after his parents’ divorce if not before. The effect of the divorce would seem less.</p>
<p>I found this piece by a mental health practitioner one of the more intelligent discussions of what could have triggered a young person doing something so unthinkable. It basically says that generally those utterly lacking in empathy were abused in early life – physically and/or psychologically. They feel “already dead” and that by killing little children this boy was demonstrating the “death” he felt in himself at a very young age. I hate to leap to conclusions but a mom so big on collecting guns is fairly outlier, in my view. Neighbors say she was perfectionist with her kids. If the boy had autism she may have not been able to deal with it, may have tried to force him relentlessly to fulfill expectations that were never going to happen. He may have lived his entire life feeling as if he was a failure. And it could be this particular mother just could not figure out how to love what she felt was an ‘imperfect’ child. </p>
<p>[Who</a> would kill children? | Fox News](<a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/14/who-would-kill-children/]Who”>Who would kill children? | Fox News)</p>
<p>This is tangential to this topic, but I happened to read a few articles from New Orleans- Sorry- but I agree that it is way past time to tighten up the gun control laws. Wont stop this stuff, but perhaps could slow it down a bit.</p>
<p>This: [Uzi</a> submachine gun found in car after driver flees DWI crash Uptown Messenger](<a href=“http://uptownmessenger.com/2012/12/uzi-submachine-gun-found-in-car-after-driver-flees-dwi-crash/]Uzi”>http://uptownmessenger.com/2012/12/uzi-submachine-gun-found-in-car-after-driver-flees-dwi-crash/)</p>
<p>and this: <a href=“http://uptownmessenger.com/2012/12/fundraiser-to-support-attorney-wounded-in-uptown-carjacking/[/url]”>http://uptownmessenger.com/2012/12/fundraiser-to-support-attorney-wounded-in-uptown-carjacking/</a></p>
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<p>Nope, I have no agenda. I don’t care if tougher gun control laws are passed, wouldn’t effect me. I don’t like the immediate blaming of guns by those that hate guns when there is much more involved here.</p>
<p>“But none of the proposed gun control laws would have prevented this. The mother legally owned these guns. The mother was negligent to have guns in the house with such a son and paid with her life for that.”</p>
<p>That again for nth times is simply not true and you know it. Current law allows his mother to have these guns but to say none of the proposed gun control laws would have prevented this is nebulous and have no factual basis to support it. You cannot prove or disprove a hypothetical event that may or may not happen.</p>
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<p>I am not excusing his behavior AT ALL. I didn’t see the part about MIT, but it makes no difference.</p>
<p>My kids are white and have divorced parents and my son plays video games. But he would NEVER do this kind of thing. However, we all know people who lack empathy and don’t seem “right.” I know a child who fits this description. He was odd and antisocial even at a young age. I had a feeling he would have problems later, and he has. His parents are both Ivy-educated, financially successful, loving and involved (and still married). But the kid has shown a pattern of behavior that is damaging to others and himself. This is a kid who–even at the tender age of the kids involved in the CT shooting–never smiled or laughed. Hopefully he will never go on to do anything worse than he has to date, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise to hear it was “him” rather than someone else if it did.</p>
<p>This case is an outlier in so many ways. This young man killed his mother whom apparently he was dependent on. What do the professionals say about this?</p>