BREAKING: Shooting at Conn. Elementary School

[Maggot]

I was reading an article the other day about mental health institutions. They said that in 1978 there was 1 bed for every 700 people in the US. Today there is 1 bed for every 8,000. Most mental health floors in hospitals are geared towards addiction be it drug or alcohol or eating disorders. Not much for the real nutcases.
Prisons are the place they go today with 50% that are in prison should be in a nut house under proper supervision, not in a cell alone.

[Duchess]

I think a lot of people felt these parents didn't try to get help for their son and nothing could be further from the truth. Adam saw all kinds of Dr.'s, therapists, etc. and not a single one saw violence in that kid. He had issues but they weren't the kind where anyone thought he would one day flip out.

[SIXFOOTERsez]

They did try and get him help, no doubt, but at the same time She at least was supplying the nutfuck with access to the weapons he used on her and those kids.
Stupid

[Duchess]

I hope I didn't sound like I was defending them. I'm not. I think they (especially her) were horribly irresponsible.

[HairOfTheDog]

You didn't sound like you were defending them, to me. It's a fact that the parents knew their son Adam Lanza wasn't right and that they did take him to psychiatrists, counselors and such.

But, even if Nancy Lanza wanted to care for son at home (understandable), and even if Adam was misdiagnosed, and even if violence was not something they could have foreseen, their response to his anti-social troubling behavior was to walk away from it or ignore and enable it.

So, I agree that they were horribly irresponsible parents, with or without having sought outpatient psychiatric and counseling assistance. I'd be surprised if any of those professionals told Mr. Lanza that cutting off all communication with his young troubled anti-social son for years was good for the kid, or if those professionals advised Nancy Lanza to indulge her young troubled anti-social son by supplying him with an arsenal of firearms and allowing him to isolate himself in the house and not check his environment (plenty of red flags in his room).

Now Mr. Lanza says he wishes his son had never been born. That doesn't surprise me; I wonder how many times Adam Lanza figured his father felt that way? Mr. Lanza seems to have completely distanced himself from his son when the kid was alive.

Anyway, there are probably several family members and loved ones of Adam Lanza's victims who share Mr. Lanza's sentiment and wish that Adam Lanza had never been born too, or at least wish that his parents had been engaged or responsible enough not to have handed him the murder weapons.

[Midwest Spy]

I think I stated early on that I thought the biggest factor in Lanza going down his chosen path was because his dad bailed on him.

I haven't read his interview and don't really care to. He knows he ran away from the problem, and that problem turned into an atomic bomb.

The mother was simply trying to satiate him at the end, and while she can be faulted for providing him weapons, I truly believe the reason this kid went the evil route was because his father (and brother for that matter) essentially abandoned him.

[Duchess]

I don't think you can make such a blanket statement without reading the interview. How can you when you aren't even aware of the facts of what the situation was like.

[Midwest Spy]

I feel like I've read/heard enough about this in the past year and a half.

Anything he has to say at this point will be self-serving.

I did guess, however, that you'd be the first person to come racing in to tell me I was wrong in stating what I said.

[Duchess]

Hey. When you're wrong, you're wrong.

[Midwest Spy]

I just read his interview, and it was pretty much as I expected.

The one thing I find hard to believe is his statement that, "I thought about hiring a private investigator to find Adam because he didn't want to see me."

From what I've understood, Adam was holed up in his house those last couple of years.

His dad said, "I didn't want to just show up and see him, that would've caused even more problems."

Laughable.

He hid and hoped the problem would take care of itself in time. We know mom was distraught and had few people to reach out to.

Adam required a full family/professional intervention (which I admit is easy to say in hindsight) and it just didn't materialize.

So, I'll stick to my original POV.

[Maggot]

The longer a person is away from a family member the easier it is to forget them sometimes. This Father was just lazy and shirked his responsibilities.

[Duchess]

How do you make a young adult spend time with you when they don't want to? I'm not being argumentative, I'm genuinely curious.

[ZEROSPHERES]

Short of becoming an enabler, I don't see any way.

[SIXFOOTERsez]

You can't. This kid was head fucked from the jump, no matter what his father did thats not going to change. It very well may be that the father let him drop off the edge, but I don't think thats what made the kid pick up a gun and kill all those kids. That was all him and the tard that Both parents but especially the mother allowed him to become.

[Midwest Spy]

Hindsight is of course 20/20, but the more I think about this story the more I feel for the mom.

She was a very naive individual, and I'm hoping that she never saw/heard outward signs from her son that he was capable of becoming a monster.

The guns she had in the home were her way of genuinely trying to bond with L. She was trying to connect in some way, because those last couple of years were hell I'm sure. Zero communication, most likely not allowed in his room, probably no family dinners, etc. Am I guessing? Yes. But I feel pretty confident that this is where this relationship had gone.

A father (or father figure) in the picture could have made a great deal of difference in this case.

I find it very telling that when the initial ID of the shooter was reported, Adams brother's ID was found on Adams body. Why? A way to possibly get back at his older brother (for abandoning him). He knew it would cause him some humiliation and shame (for awhile at least).

Do I blame his dad for this? No, because no one can be sure this wouldn't have happened if he had been a more involved dad. But my belief is that the chance of this happening would have been far, far less if he had.

[Duchess]

The home Adam and his mother lived in has been sold to the town for one dollar. Hella bargain. I would have paid way more.


The Colonial-style home where Newtown school shooter Adam Lanza lived with his mother now belongs to the town.

Mary Ann Jacob, head of the Newtown Legislative Council, says the council voted Wednesday to accept ownership of the house. It was deeded to the town by a bank that owned it.

Jacob says any decision on how to use the property would come later and would involve the Board of Selectmen.

Twenty-year-old Lanza shot his mother Nancy Lanza to death at the house before killing 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. Adam Lanza killed himself at the school as police arrived.

Some Newtown residents have said they'd like to see the property torn down and replaced with a park or nature preserve.

Story

[HairOfTheDog]

The home Adam and his mother lived in has been sold to the town for one dollar. Hella bargain. I would have paid way more.

I would have paid over 10x that, maybe even more!

I'm picturing you redecorating that place mentally with a glean in your eye.

I'd seriously not have a problem moving into a house where a vicious crime was committed and woulda paid a lot more for it too.

But, I guess in this case, if anyone actually set up home there, the townsfolk would give the resident the Boo Radley treatment or something. Come to think of it, I might even pay a little extra for that though, if it kept the church people and survey people from knocking on the door. (I'm getting old and crotchety, I think.)

[Duchess]

I'm picturing you redecorating that place mentally with a glean in your eye.

You would have been able to hear me clucking all the way out on the West Coast.

[ramseycat]

Burn it down and start over.

[cannongal]

Burn it down and start over.

Just think if they did that with every house that a murder has been committed in. I wonder what percentage of the country would be burning on a daily basis. Might be a boon for the economy, though.