Connecticut Elementary School Massacre

[thatsmystory]

There is a unique book about mass killings that I recently read:

Delivered from Evil: True Stories of Ordinary People Who Faced Monstrous Mass Killers and Survived by Ron Franscell:

In intimate, gripping prose, Franscell takes the reader on a pulse-pounding dash through the murky intersection of pure evil and the potency of the human spirit. This journey into the darkest corners of the American crime-scape is a penetrating work of literary journalism by a writer hailed as one of the most powerful new voices in true crime.

http://www.ronfranscell.com/books/deliveredfromevil.html

The book covers each crime (mostly mass shootings) from the perspective of someone who lived through the horror. If you want to know what happens to survivors after a horrible crime then this book will give you some very disturbing insight.

[lupercal]

The second most powerful gun lobby in the country is located in Newtown, Conneticut

hmm.. as I recall from looking into Aurora gun sales typically spike after mass shootings so this would be a good for business. Apparently the suspected shooter had a mental development disorder, possibly Asperger's, is thought to have been on medication, did not have a picture in his high school yearbook (now that's weird), and is described as "rambunctious," but in reports of the shooting, he didn't say a word:

Adam P. Lanza, 20, obscure in life, infamous in death. . . . A really rambunctious kid, as one former neighbor in Newtown, Conn., recalled him, adding that he was on medications. He was a son of an accountant and a schoolteacher. A family member told investigators that he had a form of autism, a law enforcement official said. . . .

In his brief adulthood, Mr. Lanza had left few footprints, electronic or otherwise. He apparently had no Facebook page, unlike his older brother, Ryan, a Hoboken, N.J., resident who for several hours on Friday was misidentified in news reports as the perpetrator of the massacre.

Adam Lanza did not even appear in his high school yearbook, that of the class of 2010. His spot on the page said, “Camera shy.” Others who graduated that year said they did not believe he had finished school.

Matt Baier, now a junior at the University of Connecticut, and other high school classmates recalled how deeply uncomfortable Mr. Lanza was in social situations.

Several said in separate interviews that it was their understanding that he had a developmental disorder. They said they had been told that the disorder was Asperger’s syndrome, which is considered a high functioning form of autism. . . .

One former classmate who said he was familiar with the disorder described Mr. Lanza as having a “very flat affect,” adding, “If you looked at him, you couldn’t see any emotions going through his head.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyreg ... .html?_r=0

[82_28]

I had quite a few friends who never got their (at least senior year) yearbook photos taken. A couple of them are dead now too btw. We were all the anti school assembly peeps. You'd bust out of school and get the fuck out and go do something else.

If I may, may I proffer a preliminary theory as to why this is? Kids, especially those prone to mental illness, no longer have outside places to gather where they can forge their own communities. Everywhere is monitored and outsiders simply no longer have a place to go to just be a kid and forge their own relationships. That's what saved me. Going out to dinner now, but I want to address this further.

[lupercal]

Here's the really weird part, from an NPR story tonight, no transcript:

Conn. Shooting Brings Attention To School Security
NPR People: Robert Siegel and Claudio Sanchez
December 14, 2012 7:27 PM - Listen to the Story

Claudio Sanchez talks to Robert Siegel about what schools do to assure that students understand safety procedures.

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/14/167294684 ... l-security

The gist of it is that:

1) The school had just installed a new security system, even though the neighborhood was rural-suburban with an increasingly affluent population, meaning there was no particular need for it;

2) The principal who installed it at the beginning of this year was surprise, killed;

3) The shooter apparently entered at 9:30, went straight to the principal's office, shot her ( and possibly others in the office -- the six adults killed at the school aren't being identified that I've seen), then turned on the intercom, then shot up two classrooms, and then shot himself -- all without saying a word;

4) He's supposed to have started off by killing his mother at home ( the K teacher), then driven to the school with three guns in the car, including a Bushmaster of the kind used by the DC sniper, which he seems to have left in the car.

Sounds awfully cold blooded and professional for a suicidal, possibly autistic 20 year old who'd just murdered his mother.

[justdrew]

he must have gone to this school himself I guess?

[lupercal]

he must have gone to this school himself I guess?

Good question. He seems to have been awfully familiar with the layout and the new security system because apparently he got there just before the doors locked at 9:30, after which he'd have to ring a doorbell and be buzzed in by somebody in the principal's office, according to the NPR story. Seems there's a camera pointed at the entrance so they can check out visitors in the office. Very sharp cookie, this autistic sharpshooter.


p.s. the answer I don't know; I suppose it's possible, as it seems the mom was living in a house she bought from the dad for $1 after they divorced, so maybe they'd all lived there for a while, but how long the NYT article doesn't say. From a similar WAPO article:

His parents, Nancy and Peter Lanza, separated about a decade ago, and his mother, a kindergarten teacher at Sandy Hook, remained in the family’s home with her sons, Adam and Ryan Lanza, according Ryan Kraft, now 25, who was a neighbor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/cri ... story.html

[lupercal]

I had quite a few friends who never got their (at least senior year) yearbook photos taken. A couple of them are dead now too btw. We were all the anti school assembly peeps. You'd bust out of school and get the fuck out and go do something else.

If I may, may I proffer a preliminary theory as to why this is? Kids, especially those prone to mental illness, no longer have outside places to gather where they can forge their own communities. Everywhere is monitored and outsiders simply no longer have a place to go to just be a kid and forge their own relationships. That's what saved me. Going out to dinner now, but I want to address this further.

That could explain it sure, but what struck me was that he makes a better patsy if he's totally unknown. For example, kids won't say inconvenient things like, the shooter didn't look like the guy in the newspapers and on TV.

[seemslikeadream]

Adam Lanza, 20 years old, took three guns, all legally purchased and registered by his mother, Nancy Lanza, to the school and killed 26 people and himself.


a Glock and Sig Sauer; another gun, a Bushmaster

[Project Willow]

Snippets from the MSM tonight (paraphrased), shooter killed his mother then killed another part of her in the form of the kids and others who were attached to her as a teacher.

Bushmaster, same as used by DC sniper.

......................
Angry, strident calls for gun control all over FB tonight.

[mulebone]

Wow! You folk are amazingly predictable & astoundingly ill.

Deep down ill.

& that "gosh my heart goes out to the dead" make up y'all wear isn't working.

At all.

It's like mortician's rouge on a corpse's cheeks.

"Did you see Cabin In The Woods?"
"How many Yemeni children did Obama cry for..."

I'll say it again...Wow!

Nice bit of Sherlockian sleuthing with the long chunk taken up demonizing the wrong guy.
Further proof that y'all are just Google happy LARP-ers.

You wanna know how many massacre news stories I read today?

None.

Saw the headlines, turned away.
Just like I'd do at a car wreck.

But I'm not a rubber necker like you folk.

Ever read Bradbury's The Crowd?

You folk would find a welcome home there.

You can ban me now.

Just make it fucking permanent this time.

"Kay?

[justdrew]

Nice bit of Sherlockian sleuthing with the long chunk taken up demonizing the wrong guy.

FFS stop attributing the contents of the entire internet to "us"

[hava007]

the general opinion in Israel is that the USA should introduce gun control. Namely, larger forces globally are pushing for that change. IMHO, although I am no gun fan, the constitutional right to bear arms is crucial for the balance of power against central government.

Snippets from the MSM tonight (paraphrased), shooter killed his mother then killed another part of her in the form of the kids and others who were attached to her as a teacher.

Bushmaster, same as used by DC sniper.

......................
Angry, strident calls for gun control all over FB tonight.

[justdrew]

the general opinion in Israel is that the USA should introduce gun control. Namely, larger forces globally are pushing for that change. IMHO, although I am no gun fan, the constitutional right to bear arms is crucial for the balance of power against central government.

Snippets from the MSM tonight (paraphrased), shooter killed his mother then killed another part of her in the form of the kids and others who were attached to her as a teacher.

Bushmaster, same as used by DC sniper.

......................
Angry, strident calls for gun control all over FB tonight.

yeah, that's worked out great in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Them having guns has totally prevented their exploitation by central government.

that said, I don't see how any "gun control" conceivably on the table would have prevented this. I don't think they're talking at all about every gun required to have thumbprint/voiceprint/bio-whatever locks.

[82_28]

You know what you can predict from me, mulebone? Is FUCK YOU.

[hava007]

I dont think the comparison you draw between Iraq and the USA is useful, but that's a long complex issue which I am sure others (especially americans) are better informed to deal with. Each culture has its own traditions and balances of power. I meant to say that you should place this discussion in western context. There's a price for freedom in terms of stability, that's known but it depends which kind of society you want to construct. Just mentioned the global interests in the situation in the USA, regarding access to weapons. I dare say, though, as someone who lived closer to Iraq than most people here, that the problems there have nothing to do with access to guns, that's already one of the results, and not the worse of them. Same Afganistan.

In Israel, for example, weapons are accessible to criminals and soldiers, but for self defense , a law abiding citizen CANNOT get one. WHich then leaves women more vulnerable to violence and has a slant on power structures. So, there's huge difference between chaos of third world militarized societies and the USA where weapons are legally purchased at low cost by anyone. I prefer the latter, but I am coming from another reality.

the general opinion in Israel is that the USA should introduce gun control. Namely, larger forces globally are pushing for that change. IMHO, although I am no gun fan, the constitutional right to bear arms is crucial for the balance of power against central government.

Snippets from the MSM tonight (paraphrased), shooter killed his mother then killed another part of her in the form of the kids and others who were attached to her as a teacher.

Bushmaster, same as used by DC sniper.

......................
Angry, strident calls for gun control all over FB tonight.

yeah, that's worked out great in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Them having guns has totally prevented their exploitation by central government.

that said, I don't see how any "gun control" conceivably on the table would have prevented this. I don't think they're talking at all about every gun required to have thumbprint/voiceprint/bio-whatever locks.