Connecticut Shooter Adam Lanza: 'Obviously Not Well'

[FarCenter]

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut this morning, was "obviously not well," a relative told ABC News.

Family friends in Newtown also described the young man as troubled and described his mother Nancy as very rigid. "[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said one friend.

Late today, police said Nancy Lanza's body was found in the family home. According to sources, Lanza shot his mother in the face, then left the house armed with at least two semi-automatic handguns and a semi-automatic rifle.

State and federal authorities believe his mother may have once worked at the elementary school where Adam went on his deadly rampage, although she was not a teacher, according to relatives, perhaps a volunteer.

http://gma.yahoo.com/connecticut-shooter-adam-lanza-obviously-not-well-182011729--abc-news-topstories.html

When are we going to get some nut control?

[BeyondGeography]

1. Another troubled family

Except they had an arsenal lying around.

[Warpy]

2. Nut control is right. Dismantling the state mental health system

in the name of "deinstitutionalization" has been as big a flop as "trickle down" and "free trade." All of them need to be relegated to the scrap heap of horrid history.

Mama knew he was sick and Mama still bought him his guns.

The more I learn about this, the sicker it all gets.

Abandoning the too-strict "danger to oneself or others" legal standard that means a person can be involuntarily committed only if he's there with a weapon in his hand might be the best first step.

[FarCenter]

3. He also has a juvenile record with the police

Fat chance that will be made public.

Of course, that is just the thing that would be needed if you were going to do a gun licensing check. Without access to juvenile crime records, gun checks are useless.

[Fumesucker]

4. The "institutions" for the most part were horrendous charnel houses

America has never had anything remotely resembling a decent mental health system.

[FarCenter]

7. Some people need a supervised living setting - keeping them in the community is not an answer.

[Fumesucker]

10. America isn't going to spend the money to do mental health care remotely right

Our prison population on the other hand is seven times that of Canada per capita, that's the mental health system that white folks are willing to pay for.

I'm white, BTW.

[LarryNM]

29. +1 n/t

[Warpy]

11. I worked in one

and it was largely a warehouse for women nobody wanted any more. They should have been discharged, of course, but the system should have been maintained. Acutely ill people went there, got medication and got better.

"Nothing" has not worked, is not working and will not work.

[Trailrider1951]

14. Amen to that, I have a sister who has diagnosed mental problems

No help, at all. Dear God have we no compassion?

[Iris]

22. Yes - I don't know how families with members who are mentally ill do it.

There is pretty much no safety net or support.

[Cetacea]

28. +1000

Out of sight, out of mind.

[Honeycombe8]

6. Maybe she didn't buy those guns for him. They were hers; maybe she inherited them.

When my grandpa died, my brother got his guns.

[Warpy]

8. She's the one who bought them.

[Honeycombe8]

20. So maybe she bought them for herself. Why would anyone think she bought them for him?

Why wouldn't she just give him the money to buy whatever guns he wanted for himself? Maybe they're a gun-totin' family, so Mom keeps guns.

[FarCenter]

9. Adam Lanza: What We Think We Know About the Apparent Newtown Shooter

The two had an "argument" this morning, sources say, after which Lanza reportedly killed his mother and drove her car to the school, along with three guns purchased by and registered to Nancy.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/adam-lanza-bio/60018/

[Honeycombe8]

19. One of the tv reports said he stole the rifle. It was the two pistols that were owned by his mom.nt

[FarCenter]

23. ABC local says that his mother owned a Bushmaster rifle + "numerous weapons",

ABC NEWS has learned that Lanza's mother had numerous weapons legally registered to her, including a Glock and a Sig Sauer however federal authorities say they cannot confirm at this time that they are the same weapons used as they have not completed their own serial number check. Nancy Lanza also owned a Bushmaster rifle - a semi-automatic carbine chambered for a .223 caliber round. However they cannot confirm whether it was the same weapon that appears to have been used at the scene.

ABC NEWS has learned that Peter Lanza, the gunman's father, also had a number of weapons legally registered in New Jersey, however it is unknown what makes or models and whether there is any link between these weapons and the crime.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/northern_suburbs&id=8920448

[Honeycombe8]

24. Wow. No wonder the guy reached for a gun to vent his issues. He was surrounded by

gun mentality. What a gun happy family.

I don't know the guns. I just heard reported, but it might be wrong, that the rifle belonged to someone else he knew....he stole it or something. But there's probably a lot of false info floating around.

[Cetacea]

17. I'm all for patients rights.

I'd rather see less lobotomies, thank you very much, and more more war-mongers locked up. Unlike the mentally ill, this group really is more violent than the general population.

[Warpy]

26. Lobotomies haven't been done for years

Where have you been? They'd stopped doing them at the state hospital I worked in sometime way before my time because they were non specific and didn't work as well as advertised. With the advent of the first antipsychotic drugs in the 60s, they were no longer necessary, at any rate.

I'd rather jail war criminals, too. However, what about a patient's right to a clean place to live and humane treatment? They're not getting it on the street. Who the hell says we can't do both?

[Cetacea]

27. Yes. They found a "cleaner" way of doing it with drugs and ECT.

I am all for the best care for victims of mental illness, as to me they are the people who are suffering the most. Most of us fail to see them as living in hell because of their odd behaviors. ( I am speaking of the kinds of clients usually found in clinical settings.)


We can do both. But we won't. We can't rely on a relative handful of enlightened people to help them out and bypass the stigma and all of the huge problems that go along with THAT whole problem.

[Warpy]

30. Drugs and ECT are not equivalent to lobotomies.

Please read up on them.

We can do both. We just need to gain the will as a nation to fund both efforts.

[Cetacea]

31. Have a series and get back to me. Better yet, do it on national TV with a six month follow-up.

I know people whose lives were destroyed by ECT, including a friend who could not count change and was forced to leave President Carter's economic team. (one of the country's foremost math theorists.)

Read up on it? Try reading the results of the only long term (six months) study done back in '06. Sachiem .
Significant cognitive deficits six months out. In every one of the subjects. In neurology, six months means permanent.

[Warpy]

33. Any crank with an opinion can go on TV these days

Get back to me when you've had some sort of a medical education.

GOOD bye.

[Cetacea]

34. Any crank can post here.

And claim they are experts. Like yourself. Your attitude towards the mentally ill here over the years is disgusting. You even humiliatied a fellow DUer about her mental illness once. GOOD riddance, warp.

[easttexaslefty]

21. Ya know, the term "nut job" is a big part of the problem.,

It's called stigma. If people, like you, wouldn't throw those kind of terms around, maybe it would HELP eliminate SHAME from mental health issues.
This terminology? Part of the problem.

[Warpy]

25. GOOD bye.

[Honeycombe8]

5. Maybe she tried to stop him. I wonder why she had two guns? (He stole the rifle, I think.) nt

[HappyMe]

12. We need to step up

fixing the mental health care. There are more and more of people like this that need help.

It needs to be de-stigmatized, there needs to be more awareness of all kinds. Or this is going to keep happening. If it isn't a gun it will be something else.

[Cetacea]

15. We can't "de-stigmitize" through further stigmatization. Though your intent is noble. n/t

[renie408]

13. I would imagine the first step would be to stop calling those with mental health issues 'nuts'.

Then the next step would be to quit being big babies about having to give up our toys and start enacting some intelligent gun control. When people can admit that they don't actually NEED a gun that shoots a hundred rounds a minute for anything other than an ego booster and that blaming the mentally ill is cheap and easy, then I think we just might be on our way to figuring this whole thing out.

[Cetacea]

16. Yup. It's really as bad, perhaps worse, than the "n" word.

Because despite our collective to think of them as something other than human, there are real people who are suffering hell beneath those labels.
Funny how we say a person HAS cancer. But another IS a schizophrenic.

http://depts.washington.edu/mhreport/facts_violence.php

[FarCenter]

18. "Nuts" has been used a lot today.

[FarCenter]

32. He was on medication

A neighbor who watched Adam when Nancy went out said in a Washington Post story that Adam was on medication. Although the neighbor is only a year older than Ryan, he said that Adam's outbursts were too difficult for Ryan to handle.