School gunman Adam Lanza may have snapped over fears mother was going to send him to psychiatric fac

[FarCenter]

Bloodthirsty child killer Adam Lanza might have snapped, and carried out his unspeakable atrocities after learning that his mom wanted him thrown in the psych ward, according to published reports today.

Mom Nancy Lanza was the first person Adam Lanza blew away on Friday before unleashing his killing spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., murdering 20 little kids and six educators.

“From what I've been told, Adam was aware of her petitioning the court for conservatorship and [her] plans to have him committed," Joshua Flashman told. 25, FoxNews.com.

...

Nancy Lanza occasionally volunteered at Sandy Hook and was friends with the campus’ principal r and psychologist. Both of those women were among the first killed at the school by Lanza.

"Adam Lanza believed she cared more for the children than she did for him, and the reason he probably thought this [was the fact that] she was petitioning for conservatorship and wanted to have him committed," Flashman said.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/school_gunman_psychiatric_lanza_hmU0Sl1Skq3MqZTcmEdIMJ

[jody]

1. Unsubstantiated as it is it's still among the more plausible stories so far. nt

[a geek named Bob]

2. ...sigh...

isn't that a sign he should have been committed?

[Cleita]

3. If she knew the kid was psycho, why didn't she have the presence of mind to remove

her weapons from the premises and lock them up someplace. That's the first thing I would have done if I thought someone close to me could be dangerous. It may not have stopped Adam from offing her, but it would have stopped him from killing anyone else or being able to gun blast himself into that school.

[a geek named Bob]

6. still knives in most houses...

what about remanding them to the state?

[Cleita]

12. Knives are not high powered rifles.

Maybe he could have stabbed her to death, but I don't think he would have been able to get through the security at the school with kitchen knives or do the damage he did with them.

[a geek named Bob]

21. I thought the question at hand was her safety...hence the committment idea.

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. When twenty six-year-old children and six adults are slaughtered in a ten minute span with a knife

We should definitely have that discussion about knives.

Let me know when that happens.

[a geek named Bob]

22. the snark around here is incredible...

Why the resistance to having Lanza committed?

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. How you read my post as "resistance to having Lanza committed" is a great mystery for the ages

I'll not bother trying to untangle the twisted route by which you arrived at that conclusion.

[jody]

15. I understand your post but I ask all to put yourself in her shoes. I don't mean to excuse her but

ask that you try to understand the guilt she made have experienced in committing her own child for which she had love and affection to what could be confinement for life,

[Cleita]

17. Still you get rid of the objects that could be used against someone.

I have done it more than once when I felt a person I had to be close to could be a threat, my cousin for one, whom I took in temporarily when he was in between jobs. I didn't trust his mood swings, so I didn't allow him to bring his gun collection with him. I asked him to store his collection with another family member in a different city, and frankly I hid my chef kitchen knives the ones that could be lethal. Up to that time he hadn't done anything to anyone, but he did eventually shoot and kill someone a few years later and is still in prison for it. It's an instinct someone should have not to mention common sense.

[jody]

20. I agree with you but we have the luxury of being detached. Some parents in her shoes would not have

found the courage to consider committing to an institution.

We don't have to agree but that's my opinion. jody

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. You're absolutely right...such decisions are deeply emotionally charged

We shouldn't have to rely on people in the midst of such emotionally charged moments in life to secure weapons of mass murder from their mentally ill loved ones. Or even to responsibly and accurately gauge the danger to the community. Time and again we've seen that this cannot be an individual function, for precisely the reasons you correctly outline here. This must be a social/state function that cuts off access in advance. It's clear, as you imply, that relying on individuals to safeguard the community in such scenarios is a strategy that leads far too often to death and catastrophe.

[jody]

23. More thanks than you can imagine. nt

[malaise]

28. If I were worried about my son and htinking about having him committed

the guns would have been removed before that petition reached the court house

[SoCalDem]

4. FoxNews.com. n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

35. They can't screw the story up any more than the other media has

Its going to be a long time before there will actually be factual description of some of this

[Fumesucker]

5. If this is true and the mother still kept the guns in the house

She knew he was brilliant too.

The Beagle has landed.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Maybe she was that scared of him?

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. Did she keep a gun hidden in every room

to protect her from her mentally unstable son?

Neat trick, that. And, apparently very effective.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. I don't know. And I don't agree with it if that's what she was thinking. Just trying

to come up with a plausible reason why she wouldn't ditch the guns if he was that bad.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. There are plenty of plausible reasons...and they're all bad

People do stupid shit all the time - they plausibly and predictably make deeply stupid decisions.

Usually, we try to make regulations such that people's stupid decisions cause as little harm as possible, but on some issues, the whole culture is so stupid that it cannot bring itself to reduce harm, even in the midst of a public health crisis.

[GreenPartyVoter]

31. All so very true.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Responsible Gun Owner (tm) keeps massive arsenal in house with mentally ill, dangerous son

But, but, but, she bought her people-murdering machines legally, and was Responsible!

The stry is, of course, unsubstantiated, and that it comes from the NY Post makes it suspect on its face. But if she was petitioning to have Adam Lanza committed and she kept that arsenal in her home, it's shocking. Point being: such arsenals should not be available in the first place.

[magical thyme]

11. apparently that's what law enforcement is looking at as motive...

"Fox News quoted a senior law enforcement official, involved in the probe, sayingthat investigators are examining “his future mental health treatment” as a potential motive."

[LisaL]

30. Potential motive.

The whole story is based on hearsay.

[Atticus]

19. "Bloodthirsty child killer " " Mom Nancy Lanza was the first person Adam Lanza blew away "

Boy, that New York Post is some classy newspaper, isn't it?

[jody]

24. Atticus, I'm curious, are you from Monroeville, AL. or vicinity? A devotee of Nelle Harper Lee. nt

[FarCenter]

33. It and the Daily News are tabloids widely read on the subway.

They are looking to appeal to the average New Yorker.

[malaise]

26. And yet she left all those weapons in the house

Wow!

[GeorgeGist]

27. Google Joshua Flashman.

http://www.change.org/users/15957125

[BeyondGeography]

29. RWNJ

There's a lot of Republican/wingnuttery floating around this whole story. Mom and Dad were registered Republicans, Adam plastered the walls with military/weaponry posters, the guns...

I do have some sympathy for the mother, though. She was at her wit's end with that boy; no life at all, outside of her little jaunts to the bar.

[FarCenter]

32. Sounds like the type Nancy Lanza would have befriended at a shooting range.

The shooting range and the bar seemed to have been her social venues, although she and Adam were parishoners at St. Rose of Lima.

[customerserviceguy]

34. This substantiates my original opinion

that extreme self-centered jealousy motivated Lanza to go to the school to kill the children. At first, I thought she was a teacher there, but even after finding out that this was not the case, I figured that her involvement with the kids at that school provided the fuel for the jealousy of this narcissistic little asshole.

[ileus]

36. If she was that worried she should have secured her firearms better.

She owed that to society long before Friday.