In a report released yesterday the Connecticut State Attorney said Adam Lanza had no clear motive for shooting 20 babies and 6 adults last December at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
That is, in the final analysis, an obtuse way of saying he planned and carried out the deadly assault because--well--he was as nuts as Donald Duck on Nazi crank. I hate to belabor the obvious, but I believe large numbers of the general public, myself included, have already come to that conclusion.
Indeed, very little of what was released yesterday is new. The study decided he picked Sandy Hook to attack for the most basic of all reasons--it was the closest school to his home. He was packing a Bushmaster .223 semi automatic rifle and a Glock .9 mm hand weapon. He fired 154 rounds and had 147 left when he blew his own brains out. He used the rifle on the children and teachers and then the Glock on himself.
The report also notes he was obsessed with the 1999 Columbine High School shooting perpetrated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. In fact, he was fascinated by all manner of mass shootings and even played a delightful computer game titled, "School Shooting" in which the player controls the video actions of someone running around a school murdering people.
Yes, we either knew all this, or should have forseen it with a fair degree of accuracy during the past 11 plus months. Now, we have to decide what does all the information presented bring us to?
It is very fashionable these days for NRA types to claim mass shootings are not the fault of semi automatic weapons, or high capacity ammo clips, or anything else that might cause reasonable people to think maybe these things shouldn't be sold to the general public. In fact, it is almost guaranteed that after some horrific massacre, some puffy, white faced, National Rifle Association shill will whine it happened because the American mental health system failed us. You bet, if Adam Lanza had been diagnosed correctly he wouldn't have been able to get his hands on a semi automatic rifle and a few 30 round banana clips.
That is, as they say, easier said than done. Young Mr. Lanza's lack of sanity is not in question. According to the report his mother told friends he hadn't gone out anywhere in the three months prior to the killings--that she and him communicated only through emails even though they were living in the same house.
However, she never told a soul she thought her son was dangerous. In fact she considered him such a cute puppy she had written a check so he could pick up a pistol as a Christmas present. It was never cashed because he shot her in the face four times before meandering over to Sandy Hook later that God awful morning.
The truth is, the report says, "He had a familiarity with and access to firearms and ammunition and an obsession with mass murders." It also says, "there is no evidence he gave any indication he'd commit the crime."
What a surprise. He was a lunatic who refused to take meds, or participate in therapy, but, guess what, he also decided not to walk around telling everyone how he lusted for blood. That might be because really crazy people don't admit they are crazy. If they do, they get locked up. I mean, you didn't see Seung-Hui Cho telling the clerk at a Virginia gun store, "You know, I think I'll go shoot up the VA Tech campus, or Jimmy Holmes ask a salesperson how effective his newest purchase would be if he opened fire inside a crowded theater.
From the report we've learned the Lanza family dynamic was so twisted the kid told an acquaintance in 2011 he wasn't getting along with his mother because, "her behavior wasn't rational."
Despite all this, no one, not a single person who knew them, saw the nightmare coming.
The Connecticut report says Adam Lanza had significant mental health issues. It also said, "he had been prescribed both therapy and medication, but no health professionals saw any violent tendencies.
In short, it is pretty fucking tough to figure out if someone is dangerously bats.
So, it would appear we have two choices here. We can chuck every man, woman, and child into an asylum for a little while so a state paid shrink can decide if they're buggy or not. Or, we can restrict the sales of weapons that are the envy of every guerrilla movement on the African continent.
Now, which of those two options do you think is less restrictive, or intrusive upon the rights of the average American?
I can't believe we're still arguing about this.
No wonder much of the world considers us nothing more than grotesque barbarians.
I want a drink.
sic vita est
11-26-13
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