Well, we all have our idols. Many choose singers and bands. Not just a few people pick sports stars. Others are inspired by political and cultural leaders. I have several myself, most of them are authors. According to CBS reporter, Bob Orr, the geeky little guy who shot his mom then 26 other human beings in Newtown, CT, Adam Lanza had an idol named. Anders Breivik.
Breivik is currently sitting in a Norwegian prison because he murdered 77 people a couple of years ago. According to Orr, anonymous police sources are saying that Lanza felt he was in some sort of deadly, bizzaro, competition with Breivik and desperately wanted to top his number of kills. He chose the Sandy Hook Elementary school because he felt it was a soft target and offered the maximum number of potential victims.
Connecticut state police Lt. Paul Vance was quick to deny that any sort of reason has been established for Lanza's rampage, other than the obvious one, that he was as berserk as a wolverine whipped into a frenzy by an overload of meth. Vance maintains that authorities are, "a long way" from determining any sort of motive and claims the Breivik connection is pure speculation. He did say that young Adam had collected information on previous mass shootings, although police have found nothing that specifically outlined his plan, or said he was trying to "out do" anyone.
The FBI continues to try to recover information from the hard drive of Lanza's computer, but haven't come up with anything of use so far. It would seem his efficiency at destroying things was all encompassing.
In a NBC interview Hartford Courant reporters, Alaine Griffin and Josh Kovner said that notes found in Adam Lanza's bedroom lead them to believe that he could have been inspired by the madness in Norway. Their publication has teamed with PBS' Frontline to air a report on the life of the shooter and his family.
According to Griffin, Nancy Lanza did everything she could to help her son get an education, including trying various school and in home options. She did say that Mrs. Lanza was prodding her son to be more independent. Griffin touched on rumors that she was also convinced of a dystopian future and was hoarding supplies, weapons, and ammunition to prepare for the collapse of civilization in New England. While not flatly denying that Nancy Lanza was a suburbanite survivalist, she seemed to tacitly dismiss the notion.
What is known is that Adam Lanza was a sick puppy from very early on. In fact his mother told his older brother's scout master not to touch him even casually because physical contact was absolutely repulsive to him. This was before he reached the age of ten. Neither Griffin, or Kovner speculated about what steps she might have taken to get her son professional help, or what medications he might have been on, or off.
What is also known is that Adam Lanza shot each of his victims multiple times just because he could and that he used his mother's weapons to do it. In the end, it doesn't matter why she amassed a home arsenal. What does matter is she did while at the same time she was raising an increasingly unstable son who had taken a very real liking to violent video games and was fascinated by spree killers. Her collection of guns was ultimately her undoing just as it was the undoing of 26 other souls, 20 of them, for all practical purposes, babies.
The fact is, short of chucking her son into a mental institute, which she was obviously unwilling to do, the only way to have prevented the Newtown nightmare was to have denied him access to the guns he used. In other words, to not have them in the house at all. It was something she was also unwilling to do. Yes, her intentions were benign, she was a loving mother and she tried hard to help her child, but what finally came to pass is that Nancy Lanza provided the tools that her bat shit crazy kid used during his murderous walkabout. Anders Breivik may have been the inspiration, but dear old Mom was the enabler.
Meanwhile earlier today in Orange County, California a series of carjackings by a single gunman left three people dead and two wounded, one of them critically. When the perpetrator was finally cornered by police he reportedly shot himself, elevating the total body count to four.
According to Slate and @GunDeaths, the Orange County shootings have raised the number of people shot to death in the United States since the Newtown murders to 1,951.
And some of us still have the audacity to say we're free.
Right.
2-19-13
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