So, Nancy Lanza was a doomsday "prepper" & survivalist:

[LeftinOH]

Ironically, her fears about a coming apocalypse really came true: AND SHE WAS THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT!!

>"Last time we visited with her in person we talked about prepping and you know, are you ready for what can happen down the line when the economy collapses," said the gunman’s aunt, Marsha Lanza. The reporter asked, "Survivalist kind of thing?" "Yea," said Marsha Lanza.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/17/1171088/-Nancy-Lanza-s-Survivalist-Fantasy-Self-Fulfilling-Prophecy-v-Reality-Heroism?showAll=yes

>Nancy Lanza, whose gun collection was raided by her son Adam for Friday’s massacre at Sandy Hook school, was part of the “prepper” movement, which urges readiness for social chaos by hoarding supplies and training with weapons.
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/17/nancy_lanza_was_a_prepper/

>Adam Lanza's aunt Marsha Lanza told the Associated Press that Nancy Lanza "was stockpiling food. We talked about prepping a lot. She was getting ready for the economic collapse. I think she had the guns for self-defense because she lived alone."
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/nancy-lanza-was-survivalist-taught-adam-lanza-how-shoot-guns

She's dead now, but she bears much of the responsibility for what happened-

[we can do it]

1. I agree fully and got my head bitten off because I feel she is also responsible.

Paranoid gun nut mom with her own private arsensal teaching unbalanced son to shoot and how to prep for the Apocalypse what could possibly go wrong???

[LeftinOH]

2. You got your head bitten off for stating what needs to be stated?

I'm gonna say that I hope the historical record will include HER -along with her son- as a responsible party to this massacre.

[we can do it]

5. I do too. She is even more responsible IMO from what is known so far.

Yes, she paid the price, but when both she others knew Adam was losing it (or never had it to begin with) the guns needed to go. She should have called for emergency intervention if he was indeed burning himself.

[catbyte]

3. AMEN!

She was colossally irresponsible. TDB has a blurb tthat she warned a babysitter not to "turn her back on him " when he was 9 years old, for Christ's sake.

[we can do it]

7. That babysitter's probably been having nightmares the past few days.

yikes!

[Johonny]

16. I think that's pretty much the advice of any mother to any babysitter of a 9 year old

there comes a point where we might read a little too much into anything heard, said, rumored...

[xmas74]

23. I never said that to a babysitter when my child was nine.

I knew the babysitter had a bit of common sense.

Never turn your back means, to me, that the child has problems and cannot be trusted for even a second alone. That's never a situation you want to get into.

I babysat for someone like that when I was a teenager. He's in prison now-manufactor and distribution. He was also very abusive towards his girlfriend.

[catbyte]

27. I was a babysitter starting when I was 12 for several families & never heard that once.

Give me a break, please.

[Catherina]

35. She warned the babysitter not to turn her back because Adam could get seriously hurt

She warned the babysitter not to turn her back because Adam could get seriously hurt and and not feel any pain. It's why the school watched him closely when he played baseball with the other kids.

A “longtime” family friend said Lanza had a condition “where he couldn’t feel pain.”

“A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn’t fall because he could get hurt and not feel it,” said the friend.


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/adam-lanza-20-deeply-disturbed-kid-article-1.1220752

In an interview with the news wire, Richard Novia, the advisor for Newtown High School's technology club said of Lanza's condition: "If that boy would've burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically."

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-adam-lanza-could-not-feel-physical-pain-2012-12

I find some of the responses here unbelievable. Plenty of parents tell babysitters not to turn their backs on their kids when they're paid to watch them. You can bet your sweet ass if my 9 year old couldn't feel pain, I'd tell you not to let him out of your sight.

He also had mental issues where any parent would want the baby sitter to be paying attention.

He recalled meeting with school guidance counselors, administrators and with the boy's mother, Nancy Lanza, to understand his problems and find ways to ensure his safety. But there were other crises only a mother could solve.

"He would have an episode, and she'd have to return or come to the high school and deal with it," Novia said, describing how the young man would sometimes withdraw completely "from whatever he was supposed to be doing," whether it was sitting in class or reading a book.

Adam Lanza "could take flight, which I think was the big issue, and it wasn't a rebellious or defiant thing," Novia said. "It was withdrawal."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jqFo4gzH05O-U4ILHjw4rODKwF2A?docId=26dd825803b1440087624a76620f186f

There's no need to exaggerate and try to make him out to have been a monster at 9 years old.

[Swede Atlanta]

4. We don't have all the details but some facts suggest themselves.....

The presence of guns in the home increases the likelihood of someone being injured or killed by them.

The presence of guns in the home does not increase your ability to defend yourself.

Gun ownership carries with it a responsibility to secure firearms from anyone else, regardless of who they are.

Teaching the use of firearms to a child who the mother either knew or should have known had "issues" is not a prudent thing to do.


I'm not blaming the mother. I find the whole "prepper" conspiracy movement to be nutcases in search of a cause because they are so unfulfilled in their own lives. But that is another matter.

There is plenty of blame to go around. But I think this woman had a responsibility to the rest of society to ensure she secured her firearms and did not give anyone ready access to them. We don't know if she had her weapons in a gun safe and if so if it was locked and even if it was locked if other family members had access to the key.

I am sorry for her death as I am for any loss of life but in this case if she recklessly placed the lives of other people at risk by not securing the firearms, being watchful of her family members and seeking treatment for them as needed, she bears quite a bit of responsibility. If she didn't care about her own safety that is her choice. But she should not place others' lives at risk due to her own recklessness.

[reteachinwi]

19. mental health

She may have been no more mentally healthy than her son and unable to get him the help that was needed.

[Speck Tater]

6. The one thing she failed to do was to survive. Some survivalist!

She would have been far safer with no guns in her house.

[blm]

8. GOP, TeaParty, RW media mainstreamed these views so they became much more widely accepted

and, especially, since Obama took office. CNBC, FOX and CNN all pushed the idea that Obama planned the economic collapse of this country, in their efforts to get control of government back in the hands of the fascist elite.

[Tsiyu]

9. Those self-fulfilling prophesies bite

Oh, well. She doesn't have to worry about TEOTWAWKI now, does she? But look what her choices have wrought. The end of life for many babies and their teachers.

I just wonder what it must do to already anxious young people hearing their parent ( s ) discuss the end of the world as if it's a given.

What's the point in life, in securing a future, if you believe you're soon going to be fending off starving hordes? When people sell this idea to their kids, do they imagine how debilitating that can be to at-risk kids?

It's abuse, yet many preppers feel they will be the "wise" ones to start America over when it all heads south.

They feel superior to everyone, yet they are unable to even care properly for their own children psychologically.

No wonder a lot of kids are cracking.

A war on drugs, a war on life.

[WolverineDG]

10. She was getting $250K & change a year in alimony

what was her excuse for not getting her son the mental health help that he needed?

[Nay]

30. She was getting $250K per year and was afraid of economic collapse??? How frikkin' crazy

is that, right on its face?

[X_Digger]

11. Has anyone heard this from anyone other than this one aunt?

Notice that the source is the same person in all three articles. (And I can't seem to find any story that mentions this whose source isn't the aunt.)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

20. The single source comments do not agree with other data points

such as the kind of weapons she owned.

[Nevernose]

12. There's also a lot of thinly veiled racism in the prepper movement

And I have no idea whether it has anything to do with the case at hand.

Many/most of these people are concerned that in an emergency, people from "the inner city" will come and steal their stuff. That's often code word for "black people."

I know these people in real life as well as having seen them on TV.

[AntiFascist]

17. I think you've keyed into the basic "mental health" issue....

Tea Party types seem to have an irrational paranoia of some sort of black Muslim uprising being led by Obama. One can only point to right-wing media as fanning the flames of this paranoia.

[quiche]

13. I agree - the mother "was" responsible

Normal or average people don't stock-pile weapons. This was extremism and it bespeaks of mental instability in the mother. Normal people don't think like this. And they don't stockpile military weapons and they don't stockpile food (unless it's for a winter storm).

She had a child with severe mental illness issues and there's no excuse.

She was grievously irresponsible. If she had lived, you can bet in civil court she would have been held responsible. That high fancy lifestyle that afforded her the leisure and the money for these prepper delusions would have been stripped from her.

I also think that anyone who is irresponsible to the extent of having lethal weapons in a house with mentally ill people should be held criminally responsible.

[uppityperson]

14. "Normal" people don't stockpile food unless for a winter storm? Huh.

[xmas74]

24. What we think of as a stockpile and what the

preppers think of as a stockpile are two entirely different things.

I know people who hunt, fish, and grow massive gardens. They can, dehydrate, and freeze everything for the winter/spring. They stockpile but their stockpile to for survival during the harsh winter months, when they know they will not be receiving any regular income. (Construction workers) They have lots of food stockpiled but they have a good reason, one that makes sense to most.

Preppers stockpile for some impending crisis in which they believe that the world as they know it will end. They are stockpiling not for months, but for years into the future, with no plans to use their supplies until the event happens. Ever watch shows like Doomsday Preppers? They have people on their canning 100 1 gallon jars of chicken enchilladas and meatloaf for events years in the future, some for 20+years into the future. It's beyond normal and a totally different kind of stockpiling.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

21. Its not much of a stockpile and it is not what a typical hardcore prepper would have

Some additional data is coming out that refutes some of this as well.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. Notice the careful phrasing: "hardcore prepper".

That way when The Times finally gets around to confirming that Nancy Lanza was a gun nut survivalist whack job, the poster has an out. Not "hardcore".

Meh.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

31. What adjective would you prefer?

Doomsday prepper
Survivalist?
TEOTAWAKI?
Serious prepper
Prepper nut job?
survivalist whack job?

They all appear synonymous to me, which one suits your fancy?

Then there is this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022011030#post18 which might give a thinking person pause.

The facts are not yet out on many of this...and bluntly they will be of little impact. Lets be adults and wait.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

15. She wasn't very bright, that's for sure nt

[Separation]

18. Be ready to recant these words.

Just heard an interview with the governor saying that he has been hearing these reports of her being a gun nut prepper and its just not true. This was just 10 minutes ago.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. I heard some of that as well

[mizz pibb.]

25. This stinks to high heaven.

Really people, it's very disheartening to see so many so-called educated people on here AUTOMATICALLY believing this narrative! And with all the contradictions (IMO, done by design so that the Official Story is so convoluted that it doesn't have to actually add up), it's doubly surprising. But what happens is that the mind fills in the holes with its own ideas.

The very notion that a woman in upscale suburbia would be a doomsday prepper is sheer stuff and nonsense. Survivalist near a 1000 Charbuck's? Those types are usually not high-income nor surbanite soccer moms. They live out in the boondocks because, duh, that is away from the so-called chaos when all hell breaks loose.

I believe that "they" are trying to discredit those who believe that the economy is on the verge of collapse. "They" want those who prepare to be deemed not only crazy but criminal.

Oh, and smear parents who homeschool.

(By the way, does anyone find it convenient that this boy had a "shadowy" existence before this horrible event took place? )

[ProgressiveProfessor]

33. Actually some of it is understandable and IMO its mostly ignorance, not malice

The source for most of this is from the mother's ex sister in law. Not sure how correct she is but on the surface she presents credibly.

Preppers are suburban/urban versions of the older survivalists...and many of them were anti government cranks and crazy. There is some valid history there.

The Doomsday Prepper show which I saw for the first time recently was both hilarious and scary. I assume it is as phony as many other so called reality shows. However it gives a salacious feel to the term, something many people can't resist, even here on DU.

Many people do not realize that there is a broad prepper spectrum. I freely admit to being at the very small end of it. Like others here on DU, some even on this thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1996670 have owned up to it.

I live in the middle of raw desert in Socal. Since the earthquake is coming, I have water and food stored. I also have a means to convert my solar panels from grid tie to local usage. I have a comm plan to contact my family (I live alone). So yes I have made some plans. All of this is recommended by FEMA and the state disaster people. I know my neighbors (though they are not close) and there would be cooperation.

Prepper is a huge continuum. Some are hardcore TEOTAWAKI idiots that scare the hell out of me. Most are like Mormons doing the 1 year supply of food/provident living thing and are fairly innocuous. Some are like me, Nadin, and others DUers who look at week to a month. The differences are dramatic in cost and attitude.

Everyone knows some preppers along that sliding scale. Many do not talk about it. If they are minor ones, like me, you assume everyone has that level of stuff done. If they are some of the freaks they don't talk about in case the zombies are listening.
=========================
The mom has been labeled as some sort of Doomsday prepper. There is a counter argument building in the media here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022011030#post18 Her preps that we know about are not consistent with that portrayal. Canning seasonal fruit and an inappropriate for prepping weapons collection do not a nut case make. However all the data is not in so I am more than willing to wait for good information.

[Raine]

28. One of her neighbors said she didn't trust the government. I guess that would mean inparticular

Obama and the Democrats. IMO this is what happens when media like Faux makes people so paranoid.

[womanofthehills]

29. My girlfriend's husband doesn't trust the government

and they have enough food for 25 years. He grew up with a paranoid father.

[lunasun]

34. all these nuts do not fall far from the crazy trees it seems...........