The Fascinating Article in The New Yorker based on the Peter Lanza Interviews

The New Yorker

Depending on whom you ask, there were twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight victims in Newtown. It’s twenty-six if you count only those who were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School; twenty-seven if you include Nancy Lanza; twenty-eight if you judge Adam’s suicide a loss. There are twenty-six stars on the local firehouse roof. On the anniversary of the shootings, President Obama referred to “six dedicated school workers and twenty beautiful children” who had been killed, and the governor of Connecticut asked churches to ring their bells twenty-six times. Some churches in Newtown had previously commemorated the victims by ringing twenty-eight times, but a popular narrative had taken hold in which Nancy—a gun enthusiast who had taught Adam to shoot—was an accessory to the crime, rather than its victim. Emily Miller, an editor at the Washington Times, wrote, “We can’t blame lax gun-control laws, access to mental health treatment, prescription drugs or video games for Lanza’s terrible killing spree. We can point to a mother who should have been more aware of how sick her son had become and forced treatment.”

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Adam’s sense of humor endured. When he was sixteen, he found a picture of Karl Marx (huge beard), Lenin (small beard), Stalin (mustache), and Mao (clean-shaven), and sent it around with a caption, “Comrades, we must rectify the faltering facial hair standards.” Peter thought it was hilarious and got T-shirts made with the image and Adam’s words. Everyone tried to encourage Adam and looked for ways to engage with him. Nancy would take him on trips to the shooting range. Nancy and Peter thought that their son was nonviolent; the best way to build a connection to someone with Asperger’s is often to participate in his fascinations.

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During that year [2009], Adam developed his private obsession with killing. He started editing Wikipedia entries on various well-known mass murderers and seems to have been eerily well informed. But although there were still no outward signs of violent tendencies, he was becoming ever harder to deal with. Nancy wrote to Peter that Adam would sometimes close his door when she tried to talk to him.

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Peter’s final communication from Nancy, the month before the shootings, was about buying Adam a new computer. Peter wanted to give it to Adam personally. Nancy said she’d discuss it with Adam after Thanksgiving. “I was doing everything I could,” Peter said. “She was doing way more. I just feel sad for her.” Peter is convinced that Nancy had no idea how dangerous their son had become. “She never confided to her sister or best friend about being afraid of him. She slept with her bedroom door unlocked, and she kept guns in the house, which she would not have done if she were frightened.” About a week before the shootings, Nancy reportedly told an acquaintance, “I’m worried I’m losing him.” But losing him seemed to be a matter of his withdrawal, not of violence. The cautiousness with which Nancy responded to her son’s demands indicates anxiety rather than fear, and it must have made her as lonely as it did him.

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I wondered how Peter would feel if he could see his son again. “Quite honestly, I think that I wouldn’t recognize the person I saw,” he said. “All I could picture is there’d be nothing there, there’d be nothing. Almost, like, ‘Who are you, stranger?’ ” Peter declared that he wished Adam had never been born, that there could be no remembering who he was outside of who he became. “That didn’t come right away. That’s not a natural thing, when you’re thinking about your kid. But, God, there’s no question. There can only be one conclusion, when you finally get there. That’s fairly recent, too, but that’s totally where I am.” 

Adam Lanza Speaks from the Grave

From the Trenches

In audiotape of a call Lanza made to an Oregon collegeradio station obtained by the Daily News that was verified as authentic by an old friend, the madman waves a giant red flag that he is about to explode almost exactly a year before the Sandy Hook massacre.

Adam Lanza has spoken from the grave.  

In an audiotape of a call Lanza made to an Oregon college radio station obtained by The Daily News – and vouched for by two old friends – the madman waved a giant red flag that he was about to explode almost exactly a year before the Sandy Hook massacre.

Using the name Greg and apparently taking pains to disguise his voice, Lanza weighed-in on mass murder by comparing “a teenage mall shooter” to Travis, a chimpanzee who became infamous after ripping the face off a Connecticut woman in 2009.

In doing so, Lanza provided a frightening look not seen thus far into the twisted logic and troubled mind of the 20-year-old killer.

Call in interview with Adam Lanza

A year before he opened fire on an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Adam Lanza reportedly called into an Oregon radio show to discuss mass shootings.  When you read about him, you get this feeling that he was incapable of expressing himself.


The New York Daily News obtained audio from the call into "Anarchy Radio" that took place in December 2011. In the call, Lanza discussed "Travis," the domesticated chimpanzee who mauled a Connecticut woman in 2009, leaving her severely disfigured.

The phone call has been authenticated and can be heard here.

Sandy Hook Massacre Report: What We Learned (Not Much)

Tucson Citizen

Drugs: An autopsy report found no drugs in Adam Lanza’s system. 

E-mail only: Nancy Lanza said Adam would communicate with her only by e-mail, although they lived in the same house. She never expressed fear of Adam or concern about her safety, the report said. 

Adam Lanza did a drive-by of Sandy Hook: While Nancy Lanza was away, a GPS device in the Lanza home showed that a trip was made between 2:09 p.m. and 2:32 p.m. on Dec. 13, the day before the shootings. The trip was made to and from the “Sandy Hook area” from the Lanza house and was presumable made by the shooter in his black Honda Civic, the report says. 

Profile of contradictions: The report says that, “in some contexts,” Adam was viewed as having “above-average intelligence,” and, in other contexts, below-average intelligence. Some people said he had been bullied, but others, including many teachers, said he wasn’t bullied.

New Report on the Adam Lanza Shooting

Jesse Lewis, Newtown Victim, Shouted For Classmates To Run

Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old boy killed in the massacre in Sandy Hook Elementary School, shouted for his classmates to run while the gunman paused to reload | AP

Huffington Post

A 6-year-old boy killed in the massacre in Sandy Hook Elementary School shouted for his classmates to run while the gunman paused to reload and was shot moments later, the boy's mother said Friday.

The boy, Jesse Lewis, had just seen his teacher shot and urged the others to flee while the gunman, Adam Lanza, put a new clip into his semi-automatic rifle.

"He yelled, 'Run!' Adam reloaded and shot him in the head," said Scarlett Lewis, who learned details of the events inside the classroom from investigators who gathered accounts from children who survived.

"When I heard he used his last few seconds on earth to try to save his friends, I was not surprised," she said. "I am so incredibly proud of him."

The boy's actions were first reported by The Hartford Courant.

Lanza shot his way into the school on Dec. 14 and killed 20 first-grade children and six women in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. He also killed his mother earlier in the day and committed suicide as police arrived at the school building.

A report on the Newtown shooting by investigators is due to be released soon. Investigators have not disclosed a possible motive for the massacre.

In Jesse's classroom, which was led by teacher Victoria Soto, 11 students survived, including some who ran past Lanza when he stopped to reload.

This story reminds me of the lengthy and tedious arguments we had last year with the cold-hearted and selfish gun-rights fanatics about magazine size making a difference. According to them if Adam had to change magazines fifteen times instead of five, no additional children would have escaped.

That's what I call willful blindness and obstinate, self-serving close-mindedness.

What's your opinion?

More Background on Adam Lanza

 
Undated student ID photo of Adam Lanza from Western Connecticut State University. 

NBC

A new photo of Sandy Hook massacre gunman Adam Lanza has emerged: a college ID snapshot that shows him staring wide-eyed into the camera as though scared out of his wits.

The picture, one of just a few that have been made public since the Dec. 14 shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, was part of Lanza's records from Western Connecticut State University, where he took classes in 2008 and 2009.

There is nothing in the documents that would foreshadow the monstrous attack, just a few odd notes.
When he took a placement exam in May 2008, Lanza refused to answer some background questions — including his gender.

I don't think he's trying to look "scared out of his wits" in that  photo.  To me it looks more like he's trying to imitate the Talosians of Star Trek, The Original Series.

What do you think?  Please leave a comment.

The Adam Lanza Documentary

The gun rights fanatics will go to any length to distance themselves from their own who go bad. The funniest attempt is on TTAG today. The theory goes that in order to punish his gun-nut mother, young Adam did what he did in order to bring about strict gun control.

In other words, Adam Lanza is one of us.

Is that a riot, or what?

About the Lanza Family - Mother and Son

NYT

Nancy Lanza loved guns, and often took her sons to one of the shooting ranges here in the suburbs northeast of New York City, where there is an active community of gun enthusiasts, her friends said. At a local bar, she sometimes talked about her gun collection.

It was one of her guns that was apparently used to take her life on Friday. Her killer was her son Adam Lanza, 20, who then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 26 more people, 20 of them small children, before shooting himself, the authorities said. 

Ms. Lanza’s fascination with guns became an important focus of attention on Saturday as investigators tried to determine what caused Mr. Lanza to carry out one of the worst massacres in the nation’s history. 

Investigators have linked Ms. Lanza to five weapons: two powerful handguns, two traditional hunting rifles and a semiautomatic rifle that is similar to weapons used by troops in Afghanistan. Her son took the two handguns and the semiautomatic rifle to the school. Law enforcement officials said they believed the guns were acquired legally and were registered.

There's no more excuse for allowing troubled Adam access to the guns than there would be to allow a 2-year-old. Too often, gun enthusiasts don't take safe storage of the weapons seriously enough. Sometimes it has disastrous results.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

More about the Connecticut School Shooting

The Chicago Tribune reports with video of the medical examiner's statement.

The mystery deepened as Newtown education officials said they had found no link between Lanza's mother and the school, contrary to news reports that said she was a teacher there. Investigators said they believe Adam Lanza attended Sandy Hook Elementary many years ago, but they had no explanation for why he went there on Friday.

Lanza shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at the home they shared, then drove to the school in her car with at least three of her guns, forced his way inside and opened fire in two classrooms, authorities said. Within minutes, he killed 20 children, six adults and himself.

On Saturday, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. H. Wayne Carver said all the victims at the school were killed up close with a rifle and were shot more than once. All six adults killed at the school were women. Of the 20 children, eight were boys and 12 were girls. All the children were 6 or 7 years old.

So, his mother did not work at the school, but he himself had been a student there.  Also, contrary to earlier reports, a long gun was used.

Adam Lanza - Connecticut Shooter

Yahoo News reports

Adam Lanza of Newtown, Connecticut was a child of the suburbs and a child of divorce who at age 20 still lived with his mother. 

This morning he appears to have started his day by shooting his mother Nancy in the face, and then driving to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School armed with at least two handguns and at least one semi-automatic rifle. 

There, before turning his gun on himself, he shot and killed 20 children, who President Obama later described as between five and 10 years of age. Six adults were also killed at the school. Nancy Lanza was found dead in her home.