I call BS: Connecticut shooter's father in "disbelief".

[DanM]

You may be in shock over what your kid did, but not "disbelief". You know your kid and what he might have been capable of, dude!

There should be a law mandating parents report their kids for entry into the "no gun possession" database if they suspect the kid might go off!

Father of suspected Connecticut shooter "in state of disbelief"

[cynatnite]

1. No parent wants to think their kid is capable of this kind of horror...

Many are in denial despite their kids' mental problems.

[DanM]

9. Good point about denial. People in denial about their kids' mental issues are . . .

. . . another source of the gun-violence problem. "My sweet Johnny is just . . . different." No, ma'am, if he has no friends AT ALL, then he's potentially a ticking time-bomb! Get him some help, and alert the authorities to keep a close eye on him!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. actually, given the limited contact he had with his kid,

he may not have known.

[DanM]

13. Oh, another Dad-of-the-Year candidate, huh? n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

28. Not sure what you mean, but

since the divorce, he was pretty much absent. As in not exercising visitation, no calls, no school visits, nothing.

[Brickbat]

3. How wonderful you know the father's thoughts. If only you could have seen the shooter's as well.

[DanM]

11. I have kids. Any parent, deep down . . .

. . . knows whether or not they have suspicions about whether their kid might be a threat to society.

[quiche]

24. But ...

#1 this seems to have been a very divided family. The brother Ryan said he had not even seen his brother in two years. We don't even know the last time the father saw the son. Adam was 20 years old. It's not like he was a little kid and the father had visitation rights or something.

#2 if the father had known ... what could he have done? It would have been his word against the mother's?

[DanM]

34. Great! Another "Family-of-the-Year"! I see your point about . . .

if the guy was a deadbeat dad . . . but then that means he wouldn't be qualified to express either belief or disbelief about a situation he know nothing about.

[quiche]

54. What was the parent to be responsible for?

I see only one point of responsibility here - for those guns being in the house and within Adam's reach.

The mother is clearly responsible for that. We would have to know more about whether the father was okay with those guns being in the house.

[Nevernose]

4. Literal vs. figurative

Denotation vs. connotation. Coincidentally, had I not called in sick this morning, these are some of the subjects I would have been working on with my eleventh graders.

[Sheldon Cooper]

5. For chrissake.

You have no idea what's in someone else's head. And furthermore, how about the millions of parents whose troubled kids don't shoot up a grade school? Are they supposed to somehow magically predict the future? Must be a nice view from that high horse you're sitting on.

[DanM]

20. I have kids. Any parent . . .

. . . intuitively knows whether or not they have suspicions about whether their kid might be a threat to society. You have to alert the authorities to it. It may hurt your feelings to have to do that to your kid, but when it's other children's lives at stake, you do what you have to do.

[jberryhill]

30. "Any parent"

You seem to believe that all parents are somehow alike. They are not. When you talk about "all parents", you also have to include parents who are physically and sexually abusive to their children. How much control over those children, when they become adults, do you want abusive parents to retain over the life of that adult who is fortunate to get away from them?

I'm sure many of our LGBT members will be happy to tell you how much control over their lives their parents should be allowed to exert.

So, to be clear, what you want to be able to do is that when a child comes out to their parents as gay, and the parents are upset, then they should be able to have that kid locked up by saying he or she is dangerous.

Is that correct?

[Sheldon Cooper]

47. Ridiculous.

[Major Nikon]

6. How can you possibly know that?

What do you think you know that leads you to believe he should have known?

[DanM]

23. I'm a parent, and parents, if they truly are parents, know if their kid could be a potential threat.

[Major Nikon]

36. I don't think it's so simple

For one thing, you can't just rathole all of these kids into one common set of traits. Even if it is true that however you're qualifying true parents should be able to recognize psychopathy, that doesn't mean they could just as accurately diagnose the other pathologies that drive these things. Aspergers is not one of the things that drive violence any more than the general population from what I've read of expert opinions on the subject. We have no idea what, if any analysis he was given and what those professional diagnoses were. There's lots of unknowns here. Conjecture over parents of whom one was herself a victim just doesn't seem prudent to me at this point.

[LanternWaste]

58. You are arguing little more than a simple tautological argument.

You are arguing little more than a simple tautological argument.

Some parents know their children very, very well; some children hide their intentions very, very well, and sometimes, it's simply a combination of the two in various degrees.

[randome]

7. There may have been circumstances regarding the divorce we don't know about.

You should not presume anything. I read on a thread here the suggestion that the mother isolated their son from the father. It's very possible she is more responsible for this tragedy than the father.

[quiche]

14. Precisely

Anyone who stockpiles weapons like she did is some kind of head-case, in my book.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

45. That was not much of a stockpile

While it is not clear how much of it was stuff she used and what was left over from the divorce. Father was also a shooter. No clue about what kind of shooting she did. The type and kind of guns does not indicate a seriours prepper

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/117293860

[quiche]

55. So far, we've heard about 7 guns

That's a lot to me. How many can you shoot with at one time?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

69. It is really not that many

Different guns for different kinds of shooting. You don't hunt ducks with a pistol. You don't shoot clays with rifle kind of thing.

I tried to layout the different kinds of gun owners here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/117293860

Looks like two pistols, the Bushmaster, two historical rifles and two shotguns. That is not what a prepper would have, especially not one with that kind of income.

[quiche]

8. Partly agree

I partly agree, because if not the parents then who is responsible. I hear too often that you can't blame the parents. I don't agree with that.

However, in this case, the son did not live with the father. It's a great shame that he didn't. Because he didn't live with him, there were probably very complicated family dynamics at work. Divorce and inner family politics can distance people and also disempower one parent.

[hrmjustin]

10. Welcome to DU and I hope you enjoy the site.

[quiche]

19. Thanks ...

Thanks for the welcome.

[arthritisR_US]

12. One of the first stages of grief is disbelief so this doesn't surprise me as he

wrestles with his cognitive dissonance.

[DanM]

26. Ok, that makes sense sort of about what he said. Good point. n/t

[Arugula Latte]

15. I would be, too. No parent could imagine their child capable of such horrific carnage of children.

[DanM]

29. I think that fits "denial" as someone pointed out above. . . .

If you have a kid with the signs, you have to force yourself to imagine the possibilities and get in touch with authorities. Your own safety and those of others and their children are at stake.

[leftyohiolib]

16. why are "they" refering to him as a SUSPECTED shooter, seems clear that he was

[reformist2]

17. I hate to say it, but Daddy Lanza has probably hired a few "spin control" experts.

[BeyondGeography]

18. The father's life is ruined

At the very least, he will bear this heavy burden until he dies. Absent him saying something cruel and unthinking, I would leave him be.

[GObamaGO]

50. +1

[Bake]

60. Yes, but that wouldn't be the DU Way.

It's easier to blame the man. Or just trash him for the hell of it.

Bake

[Stinky The Clown]

21. Take your anger out where it ought to be aimed - gun nuts who allow all these WAR weapons

in the hands of anyone who wants them.

[unblock]

22. good grief, denial after a trauma is an extremely common part of human nature.

everyone has defense mechanisms, and they kick in BIG TIME in the immediate aftermath of great trauma.

expressing a bit of denial is completely innocuous and NORMAL under the circumstances.

[DanM]

32. Good point that someone else made above also. n/t

[Tikki]

25. Do you have to have a personal reference when you apply for a gun registration?

I really don't know.
I know when my husband and I got married and he was under 21 years old, at the time, he
had to have a personal reference sign that they knew both of us for at least two years.
His aunt signed the affidavit and his parents had to give permission, also.

I don't know how this would work with gun registration, but if a person declares they are of
sound mind and then it is shown they are not, then
they should be arrested and jailed or fined for lying under oath.
And just like with driver's licenses the permit should have to renewed every year, two years, etc.
and questions asked at each renewal.


Tikki

[quiche]

33. But ...

These guns were not purchased by Adam. It was the mother who bought the guns.

[Tikki]

43. Couldn't the same rules apply to mom...and a provision to list all..

residents in the home so they can be identified. A felon can not be in any home
with a gun...maybe same should be true for a mental illness in a home with a gun.

But most importantly, the laws surrounding gun ownership need to be beefed up and
infractions need to be prosecuted.



Tikki

I know of three people, now, who have received tickets for breaking the CA law of talking
on hand-held phones while driving...took a while
but, now, the police are starting to enforce this law.

[quiche]

44. The mother would ...

The mother would have gotten around any restrictions. So far we haven't heard of her having a mental illness.

[coalition_unwilling]

27. Sigh! Yet another in an endless stream of blame the parent threads. - n/t

[still_one]

37. agreed. Most important, the kid was an adult. Are the parents responsible for their adult kids?

[sharp_stick]

40. Didn't you hear?

DU is information central for everyone that actually knows everything about this case that hasn't yet been distributed by law enforcement.

because there's always one that won't be able to figure it out.

There are more armchair shrinks and experts opining thorough their asses here than I've every seen.

[quiche]

31. Bottom line ...

For me, the bottom line on this issue and who I blame is the mother. She sounds like she was a rich, paranoid person who spent more time with guns than in getting her son help.

A point that seems to be overlooked is that Adam knew how to load those guns with ammunition and he knew how to shoot them. Someone taught him. That mother taught him how to use those guns.

We don't know what the relationship between Adam and his father was or even if there was a relationship.

[still_one]

35. They were divorced. The kid was an adult. So are parents responsible for their adult children?

[quiche]

52. The mother was surely responsible

Adam may have been an adult but he was a dependent adult and he lived with her.

Regarding the father, I would have to know more. Was he concerned at all that this woman kept these weapons in the house with the son there? Could he have done something about it?

So for me, it boils down to the question of where the money came from. Did Nancy Lanza have her own money? Or did her husband pay alimony?

If I were a man paying alimony and that much money was being spent on weapons, I would do something about it.

[still_one]

38. Do you have any adult kids?

[The_Casual_Observer]

39. That monster was his flesh & blood he'd better

Believe that.

[No Compromise]

41. Father had little contact? Did not know his son started taking drugs that make you want hurt people?

He was talking a very strong drug, FDA-approved only for treating schizophrenia, called Fanapt that's on record for causing psychosis in many patients. One of it's listed possible side effects is "Mood or behavioral changes, or thoughts of hurting yourself or others."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022008818#post18

[ProgressiveProfessor]

46. Its not clear how much contact they had

The child could also have chosen not to see his father. The brother had apparently been out of the house for and out of contact for some time.

I have seen all sorts of drug, behavior, and mental health stories. They cannot all be true. Willing to let it settle down before jumping on any particular bandwagon.

[IcyPeas]

48. is this more mis-information?

I have not seen a report of him being on medication. Link please.

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. Have you a source for that?

That link goes to a DUer speculating, saying "If he was on Fanapt...". A Google News search finds one article in Mew York Magazine, which claims the NY Daily News said he was on Fanapt - but that article doesn't mention Fanapt or any drug at all.

[No Compromise]

57. would you trust our corporate media to expose the truth

have you seen how many Big Pharma commercials that are on 24/7?

[muriel_volestrangler]

64. More than a newbie who latches onto "Big Pharma" stories

to be frank. You are desperate to make this about drugs, when the news reports have been scrubbed, and the man calling himself Adam Lanza's uncle, or cousin, looks like a known hoaxer.

[regnaD kciN]

42. It's one thing to think your troubled kid might be self-destructive...

...and another to think they might be destructive of others.

From what we know so far, it looks like there was plenty of evidence to suggest the former, but little if any to point to the latter.

[Tikki]

51. The mother told a babysitter of Adam Lanza...'do not turn your back on him, not even for a minute'..

of course this is hearsay, but I've worked with SED kids and that warning can be true in cases.
I wonder if the family's money kept any kinds of intervention at bay.



Tikki

[HockeyMom]

56. I agree

Never let your guard down. Some can be very devious and "sweet talking" just to gain your confidence.

[zappaman]

53. Without a doubt, this is one of the dumbest things I've ever read on DU.

Congrats!

[tallahasseedem]

59. +1

[adirondacker]

63. +1

[HiPointDem]

61. you know this because....?

[FarCenter]

62. The mother was very hostile towards the father

Their breakup began in 2008 and they were divorced in 2009. THat is about the time that the mother took Adam out of school and Adam attended college in 2008-9.

A major cause of the breakup was likely how to deal with Adam, now that Ryan had left for college.

It looks like the father was not welcome in Newtown, and that he resigned himself to continuing his career and starting a new life while providing $250,000 / year alimony.

Nancy Lanza got custody of Adam Lanza in divorce
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/17/nancy-lanza-conn-adam-lanza/1774611/

[quiche]

65. Too much alimony

The ex-husband was paying too much alimony. Alimony should only be enough to live and not to live lavishly.

[FarCenter]

66. Alimony is designed to preserve the standard of living of both parties as when the were married

He seems to be making just shy of $1M/year now. He could have been making $500 K now. AFAIK, alimony is deductible for the payer and taxable income to the receipient.

[Doctor_J]

67. I am surprised the Family Court gave custody to the gun nut mom

[etherealtruth]

68. Did the father want it?

[SkyDaddy7]

70. WHATEVER!!

I am all for stricter gun laws but this is ABSURD! So, I guess every child with any sign of mental instability would have to be locked away or heavily drugged according to your logic or the parents would face prison? I doubt even the parents of the most mentally ill in the country would be hard pressed to turn their own children into authorities as a potential mass killers!

Check your emotions with some REASON.

[RedCappedBandit]

71. I literally have no idea wtf OP is talking about. nt