<p>ABC now reporting that it looks like the younger brother, Adam, is shooter and had some learning issues…possibly Aspbergers or OCD.</p>
<p>Just because we’re not the worst doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong. We also don’t have the worst health care system… That doesn’t mean it’s not broken.</p>
<p>I do think there’s something wrong with our culture or at the very least our various structures.</p>
<p>I really didn’t want to get drawn into this debate , but I would have to wonder if not guns, this could have been another weapon , perhaps even a makeshift bomb that the killer could have chosen instead ? Seems like the goal here was mass casualties. Also , isn’t Norway a gun free or restricted country , yet look what happened there.
This is overwhelmingly sad to me and I think I need to unplug from media for now…</p>
<p>Not a parent; just a student who lives less than an hour away from the town. There are teachers in my school whose children attended that school. People were crying and walking around in a state of shock. There are no words to describe this. I’m just mourning the loss of so many innocent lives. As the President said, so many limitless futures were lost today, in a terrible way.</p>
<p>[Lisa</a> Belkin: Gun Control Is A Parenting Issue](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Gun Control Is A Parenting Issue | HuffPost Life)</p>
<p>The USA has more gun fatalities than the next 22 most wealthy and populous countries COMBINED. Of the fatalities in those 23 countries, 80% of the victims are American. Of the children killed, 87% are American.</p>
<p>What we are doing isn’t working, except for the people who really like to own lots of guns. (And I, like many in PA, come from a family who has a fair share of those who hunt). It isn’t working. And too few of us are bothering to make it an issue.</p>
<p>Really sad and horrible.
Schools will probably have security guards soon.</p>
<p>Stepping away from the gun issue, I think our nation has another issue which contributes to all these issues, the inablity to take control of or lack of resources for seriously mentally ill people. If you read a story about a woman who feels threatened or stalked, you will see there is not much any one can do to intervene; if you read a story about a tragedy, often there are mentions of the family seeking help, but being unable to commit the person, unable to get the person on their meds, unable to address the issues.</p>
<p>Back in the 70s, you had the scary “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” images of people held against their will and against their best interests, drugged and abused. Probably there was abuse, but then the pendulum swung and now a family who sees a member in crisis cannot do much to prevent worsening. Many times when a disaster happens, people had been worried, but did not realize how far gone the person was, the anger & fury seem to simmer under the surface and, like a volcano, you are aware of the steam, but not that the explosion is immanent.</p>
<p>My DD was stalked, the attorney advising us told us NOT to get a restraining order, as you had to list all the locations from which the person would be restrained and in reality all that does is give him a list of targets and conveniently provide all the addresses of nearby family. Rather he suggested DD leave town and not tell anyone where she was going. SO, there is a ‘system’ to deal with her problem, but the system actually worsens it due to lack of ability to enforce the rules.</p>
<p>I don’t have the answer, but what is someone supposed to do when they sense their family member is damaged of threatened by someone? It would be nice if there were a safe way to address these concerns without then going back to the abusive side by locking up people who did not need it.</p>
<p>I think it is BOTH a failure to take care of the mentally ill AND an access to gun issue. I am happy for the discussion, but my first thoughts are for the families.</p>
<p>Heartbreaking. I have a client from the town. Her assistant assures me her immediate family was not at the school, but the community as a whole must feel shattered.</p>
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<p>And that is exactly ONE incident in Norway. Here, I am not sure if my family and I are safe to go kindergarten, high school, college classes, the movies, or the mall. They COULD have maybe made a bomb… or sarin gas in their basement… but they didn’t. It is sooo much easier to pick up several guns and use those instead.</p>
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<p>I had this same reaction on 9/11. After sitting in front of the tv for hours, I drove to his school and looked in at him through the classroom door. Then I was able to go home.</p>
<p>I grew up in a CT town not far from Newtown, and this week because of an event I have been reminiscing with classmates about our elementary school. Coincidentally, I used to live in Hoboken. These connections make things hit home, I think.</p>
<p>DocT, I hope your coworker is safe at home with his child.</p>
<p>Just a side note, but I don’t charge the news people with irresponsible reporting in this instance. They apparently correctly reported the information they got from police sources, and the police were going by ID they found on the killer. I don’t find that particularly irresponsible. It was wrong, but given a killer’s similar age and physical appearance to the ID, a rational and responsible person would have assumed the ID was correct.</p>
<p>The thought of all those dead babies makes me so angry! I find that I cannot be angry at an inanimate object, I am angry with people…the people around the shooter who may have worried he could do something and did nothing to warn anyone.</p>
<p>I heard several reports of a related dead male in residential Hoboken NJ. Where did that come from? A totally different person with the name, Ryan Lanza, lives in Hoboken, but why was he reported killed at that location?</p>
<p>My prayers are with the families in the Newtown community. This is a horrible situation that has no rational explanation. I agree that President Obama’s speech was excellent…too many young lives lost.</p>
<p>Not a good week. First the shooting at the mall and now this senseless slaughter of innocent children. My first instinct this morning was to take my 13 yo son out of class. (DD is on a retreat.) Naturally I didn’t but I can’t wait until school gets out.</p>
<p>I worked in the media most of my professional life, the last decade in television. Producers are bouncing from live shot to live shot, reporters are scrambling to get interviews and make sense of what happened. Everyone is trying to get that “scoop.” I will tell you that mistakes happen. The majority of my co-workers were good people. But every once in a while a soulless producer or news director comes along who pushes employees to be irresponsible and now that poor man’s image is up forever.</p>
<p>I will say in defense of the CNN reporters questioning students that the parents were there, allowing the interview. Reporters are not allowed to question minors without parental permission.</p>
<p>I don’t blame the news media for identifying the shooter incorrectly, but have to question the release of the information by the police. There was some obvious confusion, because I heard reports that the 24 year old brother was the shooter, and the younger brother was in custody - but if the younger brother was the shooter, who do they have in custody? Did they assume that the family had no next of kin to notify? If they had ID the younger brother properly, would they have released his name, along with his mother’s without informing the brother (presumably her next of kin)?</p>
<p>It is misleading to compare US gun statistics against some of these countries where lawlessness and political culture are still in very questionable state. Instead maybe if you look at countries in the G8 of most industrialised nations, we have gun homicide rate (per 100,000):</p>
<p>1 US 2.97
2 Italy 0.71
3 Canada 0.51
4 Spain 0.2
5 Germany 0.19
6 England 0.07
7 France 0.06
8 Japan 0.01</p>
<p>And by quite a gigantic margin, the US has the largest gun ownership per capita amongst those nations.</p>
<p>NJres, the older brother Ryan apparently lives in Hoboken. He was taken in for questioning, although it seems most likely that he had nothing to do with it and is now in the situation of having lost his mother and his brother in this horrible way, not to mention being publicly misidentified as a mass murderer. </p>
<p>The dead person was found at Adam Lanza’s home in CT. </p>
<p>The misinformation you heard was reported on our local CBS station within the last hour, even after the correct info was out there. They apparently ran a tape made by a CBS reporter in Newtown earlier. I really think that this was a big mistake on their part.</p>
<p>^I saw a report that the gunman may have been carrying ID of his brother and that may have been the source of the misinformation.</p>
<p>I was more referring to publishing pictures and facebook pages. It’s one thing to publish info by the police, it’s another to start spreading around pics and facebook pages. </p>
<p>Do we know how the shooter died? I just got home and turned on the tv news. I don’t see anything online. </p>
<p>My small staff sat around and watched the President’s speech. Most of my co-workers are not of the same political persuasion as the President and every single one of us cried. </p>
<p>I’m not handling this well. I’m very, very angry. I’ve gone way beyond being filled with grief and I am just so, so angry. </p>
<p>These parents had already wrapped Christmas presents. These kids just wanted Christmas. My heart is beyond broken for these families. I really don’t have the right words.</p>