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Targeting The Socially Deviant Parents Of School Shooters

Targeting The Socially Deviant Parents Of School Shooters

After the 2012 massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, then-Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, evaded calls for banning weapons of war. But he had other ideas. The "more realistic discussion," Rogers said, is "how do we target people with mental illness who use firearms?"

Tightening the gun laws would seem a lot easier and less intrusive than psychoanalyzing everyone with access to a weapon. But to address Rogers' point following the recent mass murder at a suburban Detroit high school, the question might be, "How do we with target the adults who hand powerful firearms to children with mental illness?"

The parents of Ethan Crumbley presented their clearly troubled 15-year-old with a high-powered weapon. He is charged with using the semiautomatic handgun to murder four students at Oxford High School.

This is hardly the first case of parents enabling a sick child to act on his violent fantasies. Nancy Lanza, the mother of the 20-year-old who killed 27 innocents at the Connecticut elementary school, left an unsecured Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle at her tidy house. Nancy was Adam Lanza's first victim.

Laurel Harper had previously placed her son Christopher in a psychiatric hospital, but that did not deter her from keeping unsecured guns at their home. Christopher brought six of them to his 2015 rampage at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Nine students died.

Both Nancy Lanza and Laurel Harper were divorced women left to single-handedly deal with children tortured by inner demons. But rather than steer their sons away from the gun culture, they both dove into it.

Nancy would go to bars at night and brag about all the guns she kept at home. Laurel, a nurse, spent long hours on forums, her subjects alternating between her son's mental illness and her gun collection.

"I keep two full mags in my Glock case," Laurel swaggered online. "And the ARs & AKs (semiautomatics) all have loaded mags." She criticized "lame states" that put limits on loaded firearms in the home.

Concerning disregard for the lives of others, no one would beat James and Jennifer Crumbley. The school called them in after Ethan was found having drawn pictures of a gun, a bullet and bloody figure with the words "the thoughts won't stop" and "help me."

They came in but refused to take Ethan home. They wanted to get back to their jobs.

The day before, the school informed the parents that their son was found searching online for ammunition. Jennifer responded by sending an insanely supportive text to Ethan: "LOL, I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught."

When these details emerged, the parents took off to hide from getting caught. They now face four counts each of involuntary manslaughter.

The central focus of the Michigan horror has rightly moved from a mentally ill high schooler to his socially deviant parents. Which leads to these two questions:

Aren't parents who keep loaded weapons in a home shared by a disturbed child with violent obsessions themselves mentally twisted? And what could be done about them?

A woman had reportedly told investigators in Connecticut that she overheard Adam Lanza say he planned to kill his mother and children at the elementary school. She even called the local police. But since Nancy Lanza, not Adam, owned the weapons, the police couldn't take them away.

If police had removed arms from adults without criminal records, the gun rights fanatics would have exploded with outrage. How dare you go after these noble defenders of the Second Amendment?

Besides, it's easy to identify mentally ill people who use firearms, right? It's certainly easy once the massacre is over.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

The Troubled Young Terrorist Next Door

The Troubled Young Terrorist Next Door

The details about Mohammad Abdulazeez, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga grad accused of murdering four Marines and a sailor, dripped out in the familiar pattern. The first thing to come out of the shocking news is the name of the alleged attacker. Then there is speculation about what sick ideology may have inspired the horrendous act. And there are pictures of the comfy suburban nest the killer came from alongside interviews with baffled neighbors.

Finally comes the inside story bearing the inevitable headline, “Family Troubles Before Killings in Chattanooga.” Abdulazeez’s mother had tried to divorce the father in 2009, accusing him of abusing her and the children and planning to take a second wife, which he held would have been allowable under Islamic law. The parents reconciled, but that’s a lot of craziness.

As for Mohammad, he was facing a court date for drunken driving and illegal drug use and had been fired from a job at a nuclear plant. A family spokesman said the 24-year-old had been fighting depression, pointing to mental illness as a possible cause.

It takes an extremely twisted personality — twisted for whatever combination of reasons — to shoot unarmed strangers, which the Marines and sailor were. So the terrorist needs a larger cause to hide behind.

It appears that Abdulazeez chose radical Islam as a cover for his personal disintegration — though investigators do not yet know whether organized Mideast terrorist groups got to him during a visit to Jordan.

Look at the back stories of other young men who committed or are accused of committing acts of terrorism in this country. The similarities are hard to ignore.

Consider Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old charged with massacring worshippers at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. His parents had gone through multiple divorces, and he had reportedly attended at least seven schools.

The kid was obviously unbalanced. He had previously dressed in black and asked creepy questions of workers at a mall. Police found drugs on him, and he was ordered to stay away from the shopping center.

Quite the mess, Roof found grandiosity among the fumes of white supremacist ideology.

Adam Lanza was the 20-year-old who shot up an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, murdering 26, mostly children. He was mentally ill, beyond a doubt. But even more craziness reigned behind his freshly painted suburban front door. Lanza’s mother was a gun nut who left weapons and ammunition lying around the house. He hadn’t seen his father in two years.

Neighbors saw Lanza as “a little weird” but not homicidal, according to a New Yorker article. But psychiatrists observed a deeply disturbed individual, his feelings of worthlessness alternating with flashes of self-importance.

And although Lanza didn’t seem glued to a particular ideology, the article did not hesitate to label him a terrorist: “Adam Lanza was a terrorist for an unknowable cause,” it said.

About half of mass murderers kill themselves at the end. As a Harvard psychiatrist noted, they want to “end life early surrounded by an (aura) of apocalyptic destruction.”

As such, Andreas Lubitz, the 27-year-old Germanwings co-pilot who crashed a planeload of passengers into a mountainside, could be called a terrorist, as well.

The question remains about what mix of toxic thinking and brain chemicals would motivate these people, all men in their 20s, to kill masses of unarmed innocents. And with that, we must wonder how much a role teachers of cracked belief systems play in causing such atrocities.

Do they create terrorists out of normal people, or do they provide the match that ignites walking tinderboxes of inner chaos? No easy answers are forthcoming.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: U.S. flag flies alongside a sign in honor of the four Marines killed in Chattanooga, Tennessee July 17, 2015. REUTERS/Tami Chappell

Newtown Marks Massacre Anniversary With Reflection

Newtown Marks Massacre Anniversary With Reflection

New York (AFP) – A deeply scarred U.S. town lowered flags to half mast and urged quiet reflection on the two-year anniversary Sunday of a school massacre that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Officials in traumatized Newtown, Connecticut said a public ceremony would not be held, but instead asked people to mark the fateful day with personal reflection and remembrance.

On December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza shot his mother and then stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School, spraying it with bullets before turning the gun on himself.

The mass shooting horrified the United States and triggered intense debate about America’s controversial gun laws.

Photos of the 20 cherub-faced youngsters cut down before their lives had properly begun circulated on social media Sunday, where condolences and prayers poured in.

School officials said the two years since the “awful” events were characterized by “days of joyful hope, and occasional dips of despair.”

“There is no escape from the realization that we are where we are because of the horrible loss of lives that occurred at the school on that fateful day,” a statement from local officials said.

Several lawmakers in Washington renewed calls for gun-law reform, and shared condolences with the families of those killed.

“The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School is almost unspeakable. Six- and seven-year-old children taken from their families and courageous educators who died protecting the children in their care,” said Senator majority leader Harry Reid.

“I stand with the families of Newtown and the vast majority of Americans who believe there should be background checks that help keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous criminals and the mentally ill.”

Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro remembered the “20 little angels and their six brave educators” that were gunned down, and slammed Congress inaction on gun-law reform.

“The lack of congressional action is shameful, and I will keep fighting until we make badly needed changes, but this anniversary is a time to focus on the families,” she said.

Newtown continues to focus on rebuilding.

A new Sandy Hook Elementary School will open in 2016, and a permanent memorial is being planned.

A photograph of Jessica Redfield Ghawi, killed in the Aurora shooting, sits near the podium during a press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on December 10, 2014 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb) (Correction: Jessica Redfield Ghawi was originally misidentified in this caption.)

Peter Lanza: ‘Adam Would Have Killed Me’

Peter Lanza: ‘Adam Would Have Killed Me’

By Alaine Griffin, The Hartford Courant

HARTFORD, Conn. — Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook Elementary School killer Adam Lanza, said in an interview in The New Yorker that he wished his second-born son who shot 20 elementary school children and six educators “had never been born.”

In an article written following a series of six interviews with noted author Andrew Solomon, Lanza speaks publicly for the first time about his son, Adam, and discusses aspects of his life since the shooting. Solomon said Lanza contacted him in September to say that he “was ready to tell his story.” The interviews are expected to culminate with a book.

Lanza told Solomon that he believed Adam had no affection for him. Lanza moved out of the family home Adam shared with his mother Nancy and older brother Ryan when Adam was a boy and he had not seen his son in the two years before the Sandy Hook shootings.

“With hindsight, I know Adam would have killed me in a heartbeat, if he’d had the chance,” Lanza said. “I don’t question that for a minute.”

Before the massacre at the school, Adam fatally shot his mother four times in the head.

“The reason he shot Nancy four times was one for each of us: one for Nancy; one for him; one for Ryan; one for me,” Lanza told Solomon.

Lanza, a vice president at a GE subsidiary, said he now thinks constantly about what he could have done differently and “wishes he had pushed harder to see Adam.”

The article goes over largely familiar ground about signs of trouble in Adam’s early days, his struggles in school, his increased isolation as he grew older and how Adam cut off contact with his father two years before the massacre.

Lanza confirms that Adam was diagnosed with sensory integration disorder as a young boy and had such compulsive behaviors as continuous hand washing and not touching doorknobs.

Back then, Lanza said, Adam was “just a normal little weird kid,” who struggled with basic emotions and making friends. Lanza said Adam “loved Sandy Hook school” but struggled in middle school when the structure of the day changed and sensory overload affected his ability to concentrate.

“It was crystal clear something was wrong,” Lanza said. “The social awkwardness, the uncomfortable anxiety, unable to sleep, stress, unable to concentrate, having a hard time learning, the awkward walk, reduced eye contact. You could see the changes occurring.”

Lanza said he and Adam’s mother, Nancy Lanza, whom Lanza separated from in 2001 and later divorced in 2009, initially worked together to get Adam help, taking him to psychiatrists including one who diagnosed Adam with Asperger’s syndrome when he was 13.

Lanza said though Adam did not accept the diagnosis, he and Nancy Lanza continued to try to get Adam help, enrolling him in a different school and eventually schooling him at home. Nancy Lanza taught him the humanities and Lanza instructed him twice a week in the sciences. He said Adam was “not open to therapy” and did not want to admit he had Asperger’s. Adam also would not take medication due to serious side effects he suffered after taking an antidepressant.

Lanza told Solomon “none of the doctors they saw detected troubling violence in Adam’s disposition.”

In an attempt, perhaps, to explain why Adam was allowed to shoot guns at a shooting range, Solomon wrote, “Everyone tried to encourage Adam and looked for ways to engage with him. Nancy would take him on trips to the shooting range. Nancy and Peter thought that their son was nonviolent; the best way to build a connection to someone with Asperger’s is often to participate in his fascinations.”

When police interviewed Lanza after the shooting, he told investigators that on “several occasions” prior to 2011, he took Adam to a shooting range in Monroe, and to a range in Danbury at least once. Lanza said he would buy the ammunition but would keep any unused ammunition “and did not permit Adam to keep any for himself,” according to the state’s attorney’s report.

Lanza told police he never gave Adam a firearm and was not aware of Nancy Lanza’s ever purchasing guns for their son though he believed Nancy had purchased guns.

Police found thousands of rounds of ammunition inside Lanza’s house. Records show that the four guns he carried to the Sandy Hook school that day were all legally purchased by Nancy Lanza between March 2010 and January 2012. The report redacts the locations where the guns were purchased. The Bushmaster used in the shootings was bought in March 2010.

The article does not address whether Lanza ever went shooting with Adam.

Lanza says he did not think his estrangement from his son was “ominous” and believed his son would eventually mature, though Lanza admits he did not introduce him to the new woman in his life who would eventually become his wife.

He said he last saw Adam in September 2010. Lanza told Solomon he was frustrated by the lack of contact but “felt that he couldn’t show up at the house in Newtown to force an encounter.” He said he considered hiring a private investigator to “try and figure out where he was going,” so Lanza could “bump into him.”

Lanza said he thinks Adam was trying to “hide his psychological decay” and that Nancy Lanza’s pride prevented her from asking for help.

“She wanted everyone to think everything was OK,” Lanza said.

Lanza said he last communicated with Nancy Lanza via email about a month before the massacre. Nancy Lanza wanted a new computer for Adam and Peter Lanza offered to give it to Adam personally. Nancy Lanza said she would discuss it with her son after Thanksgiving but he never heard anything about it again.

In the article, Lanza refuses to discuss Adam’s funeral and says he offered to meet with the victims’ families, though only two have taken him up on his offer. Lanza said he has dreamed of Adam every night since the killings.

While the article did not detail any backlash Lanza has received since the shootings, Solomon writes about “thousands of letters and other keepsakes: prayer shawls, Bibles, Teddy bears, homemade toys … crosses, including one made by prison inmates” that Lanza has received.

But Lanza admits he hasn’t eaten any food that was sent, including a bag of caramels sent to his home.

“There was no way to be sure it wasn’t poisoned,” Solomon wrote.

Solomon said on NBC’s Today Show that Peter Lanza decided to speak after being contacted by several victims’ families.

“He said he finally thought his story was an important part of the puzzle and that he had a moral obligation to tell it, that it might help the families or it might help prevent another Newtown,” said Solomon.

Solomon, who spent hours interviewing Lanza, described the gunman’s father as a “kind, decent man” who was “horrified his child could have caused this destruction.”

“He’s haunted, he wishes he could go back in time and fix what went wrong,” said Solomon, who said the gunman’s father described meeting with relatives of his son’s victims as “heartbreaking.”

Photo: Rob Bixby via Flickr