The significance of the 14th

Something that's been pointed out on here and elsewhere is that Lanza's attack occurred the same day as the 20th anniversary as Wayne Lo's attack. We know he knew of Wayne Lo from this post that he wrote:

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So what, if any, was the significance behind the date? Well note that he mentions Wayne Lo was one of the early shooters in a trend of an increasing number of them. Was choosing the 14th a way for Lanza to symbolically present himself as the harbinger of a new trend of shootings, more numerous and deadly than before? Or are more mundane explanations at work?

He also posted this about Wayne, which indicates more of a connection:
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If you think his goal was to shock society as much as possible, the date's proximity to Christmas might have something to do with it. Also, anorexia causes coldness, which in winter months can become all but intolerable, which might have been a contributing factor to pushing him to action. But your idea about symbolically starting a new string of shootings is an interesting one and not one I've heard before. Whether or not he intended it, he did permanently change the mass shooting narrative.

I doubt these have anything to do with it, but here's some other attacks on that date:
1903 Meißen familicide (Ernst Julius Bienert)
1923 Drew shooting (Joseph Pullen)
1990 Honghua attack (Huang Yachun)
1993 Aurora Chuck E. Cheese shooting (Nathan Dunlap)
2005 Nagarkot massacre (Basudev Thapa)
2007 Sasebo Renaissance sports club shooting (Masayoshi Magome)
2010 Panama City school board shootings (Clay Duke)

Non-mass murder related events on that date:
557 - Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, is significantly damaged by a 6.4 magnitude earthquake
835 – Sweet Dew Incident: Emperor Wenzong of the Tang dynasty conspires to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot is foiled.
1287 - During St. Lucia's Flood in Northwest Netherlands the Zuiderzee seawall collapses with loss of over 50,000 lives. Fifth largest recorded flood in history.
1774 - First incident of American Revolution - 400 New Hampshire militiamen successfully attack Fort William and Mary
1812 – The French invasion of Russia comes to an end as the remnants of the Grande Armée are expelled from Russia.
1814 – War of 1812: The Royal Navy seizes control of Lake Borgne, Louisiana.
1918 – Portuguese President Sidónio Pais is assassinated.
1940 – Plutonium (specifically Pu-238) is first isolated at Berkeley, California.
1963 – The dam containing the Baldwin Hills Reservoir bursts, killing five people and damaging hundreds of homes in Los Angeles, California.
1999 – Torrential rains cause flash floods in Vargas, Venezuela, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, the destruction of thousands of homes, and the complete collapse of the state's infrastructure.
2003 – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly escapes an assassination attempt.
2008 – Bush shoeing incident (I now feel somewhat obligated to start a rumor that the shooting was a misguided attempt at celebrating the shoeing's anniversary.)
More are available here and here.

To be honest I don’t think there’s much evidence that he even had a pre-determined date for his attack much less that the date had any relation to another event such as Wayne Lo’s shooting rampage.It doesn’t appear to me that Adam had a specific fixation on Wayne Lo in particular from everything that I’ve read and seen about him and this post is the only one where I’ve seen him mention his name other than in his mass murderer spreadsheet.It honestly doesn’t seem to me that there was a particular mass murderer that inspired him enough to have an influence on his actions though if you have evidence to the contrary please respond and show me cause I would like to know more about this specific idea.

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Mr Bubbless wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Or are more mundane explanations at work?

It's most likely a coincidence. Columbine was originally planned for the anniversary of the Oklahoma city bombing but was delayed by one day, making the shooting happen on Hitler's birthday instead. Much like how the Columbine shooters didn't intentionally plan for it to be on Hitler's birthday, I think we can also apply that same logic to Sandy Hook.

" was originally planned for the anniversary of the Oklahoma city bombing but was delayed by one day"
This is a myth, one comment says it will be on the 19th, the 7 1/3 days comment.

Prior to that, another comment says they wonder if they should do it "before or after prom". Before or after prom means April 12th to the 20th is all in play. All prior mentions say just "April".  

It seems to me Eric's 18th birthday on April 9 was what they were waiting for. That is before the 12th. That opens the door again to 4/20 being for Hitler's birthday.

Or they just gave themselves a year to plan from April 98. Both far, far more likely than OKC. The only influence OKC had was that it had the high score for them to try to beat. That combined with Eric's America Love it or Leave it rant has people imagine him as a McVeigh acolyte and prepper.

And the 19th is not just the anniversary of OKC, it's also the anniversary of Lexington and Concord, and Columbine was the Revolutionary-era Rebels.

I assumed Lanza did it because of December 2012 Doomsday stuff like Y2K doomsday stuff with Columbine's date. Wayne Lo makes sense to me as an added influence, to do it a week early of doomsday so to speak.

cakeman wrote:

I assumed Lanza did it because of December 2012 Doomsday stuff like Y2K doomsday stuff with Columbine's date. Wayne Lo makes sense to me as an added influence, to do it a week early of doomsday so to speak.

That's definitely an interesting idea. I doubt he believed the doomsday theory, but the date could've been a less than serious allusion to it: reality easily could've been a bit fuzzy for him.
Also, odd that you mention that specifically. Min Yongjun (Chenpeng Village Primary School stabbing), the attack mere hours before Adam's rampage, was motivated at least in part by the 2012 doomsday phenomenon.

cakeman wrote:

The only influence OKC had was that it had the high score for them to try to beat. That combined with Eric's America Love it or Leave it rant has people imagine him as a McVeigh acolyte and prepper.

I've also speculated before that the duo wearing shirts with their respective motives ("Natural Selection" and "Wrath") had taken inspiration from the fact that McVeigh was arrested wearing a shirt that said "Sic Semper Tyrannis".

QuestionMark wrote:

cakeman wrote:

The only influence OKC had was that it had the high score for them to try to beat. That combined with Eric's America Love it or Leave it rant has people imagine him as a McVeigh acolyte and prepper.

I've also speculated before that the duo wearing shirts with their respective motives ("Natural Selection" and "Wrath") had taken inspiration from the fact that McVeigh was arrested wearing a shirt that said "Sic Semper Tyrannis".

Hm, that's possible. It also had the Tree of Liberty quote from Jefferson on the back, and the original NBK.doc plan had the shirts with NBK on the front and R and V on the back. However a part of me still doubts that connection, as they never wrote about it. McVeigh's shirts had graphics too - Lincoln and a tree. Also a bit wordier. I've speculated if it was to do with LARPing as someone else and/or confusing who the perps were. "Reb and Vodka" did it rather than Eric and Dylan, or "Natural Selection and Wrath" did it.  Consider that final molotov with crickets left around - it doesn't seem like the shirts would be seen by anybody but their victims had all gone to plan.

Of course that still doesn't really explain "Where did they get the idea for words on the t shirt", and yours does. I might have to add that exception to the general point. I had in mind more referring to the plans. "Anarchists Cookbook and OKC' seem the myth when it was the vidya.

dyonqqr wrote:

cakeman wrote:

I assumed Lanza did it because of December 2012 Doomsday stuff like Y2K doomsday stuff with Columbine's date. Wayne Lo makes sense to me as an added influence, to do it a week early of doomsday so to speak.

That's definitely an interesting idea. I doubt he believed the doomsday theory, but the date could've been a less than serious allusion to it: reality easily could've been a bit fuzzy for him.
Also, odd that you mention that specifically. Min Yongjun (Chenpeng Village Primary School stabbing), the attack mere hours before Adam's rampage, was motivated at least in part by the 2012 doomsday phenomenon.

Just to clarify I don't mean that reality was fuzzy at all like "as a sacrifice to the mayan gods he believed in" I mean more so the press plays it alongside apocalypse stuff and the massacre seemed foreshadowed. As cynical media strategy, basically. Like picking 9-11 because 911 is memorable.

Also of course, even if the perps didn't believe the doomsday theories, it was their doomsday, their (and others) last day on Earth.

I think it is probably a coincidence. Lanza knew about Wayne Lo... just like he knew about pretty much every single spree killer up till his day., Remember the excel spreadsheet?

Given the amount of spree killings, coincidences are to be expected. Example of the top of my head:
- Christina Grimmie was killed on the 2nd anniversary of the Oregon HS shooting.

Heck, if anyone would happen to do a shooting today, people could jump at the "July 14th - France day!" conclusion.

I would need some more connection to assume it was a conscious tribute to Lo.

I dont personally believe that the 14th had any proper significance to Adam as the date of the attack. Nor about it being connected to Wayne Lo if Sandy Hook had happened on say December the 5th instead of the 14th. Then i could totally believe in there being a connection with the west road's mall shooting.

Since Adam did say that Robert Hawkins was one of his favorite shooters and in part a sort of morbid tribute to one of his favorite shooters.

It seems like the whole massacre was a morbid tribute to several of his favorite shooters. The hat like Mike Ryan of Hungerford, the tape on the magazine like Hawkins, the black sweaters left outside like trench coats at Columbine.

Some have seen him leaving the big shotgun in his car as a tribute to Breivik. I have to wonder if it was more Columbine and DOOM. Seems like it was basically Eric or Dylan's weapons or DOOM's main weapons, a shotgun and a rifle, but the most lethal shotgun and rifles there are. Maybe since he wasn't the Terminator and weighed 110 wet he had to leave it.

Also the infamous spreadsheet was supposedly to study the different weapons used in massacres, and what his edits on wiki were all about.  That's what he seems rather cynically concerned with.

Regardless, I see no reason to say it would be Hawkins rather than Lo. It seems a safe bet he had an academic level of interest with both if not an obsession, and several others.

Some wild imaginations here

Someone pointed out in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] that the 14th was also the first time Steve Kazmierczak attempted suicide. I was iffy on it before but I'm increasingly of the opinion that the 14th was not a date chosen at random.

QuestionMark wrote:

Someone pointed out in [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] that the 14th was also the first time Steve Kazmierczak attempted suicide. I was iffy on it before but I'm increasingly of the opinion that the 14th was not a date chosen at random.

Cho was also court ordered into outpatient mental health treatment on December 14th.

I'm actually the opposite. I used to think the date had special significance because of the reasons laid out in the thread but now I'm not quite so sure. After hearing CulturalPhilistine say this:

"Um, well, I still don't care enough about dying to kill myself and even though I recognize that's my best option I just don't care enough to do it. Um... I guess I'll just enjoy the weather in the next few weeks and the next month or to the end of this year because these tend to be the gloomiest months and I enjoy that."

"Once the New Year starts it... begins to snow and everything gets bright again and it's just awful."

I think it's more likely that he chose a date far enough away from the holidays that no one would be on early vacation but so that he could have as much of the time of year that he liked as possible. Plus, he hated holidays. Maybe he just couldn't take the holiday season anymore.

There does not have to be any real significance attached to the date. I understand that speculating about it is fun, but it is best to renounce judgement given the lack of evidence.

I personally think that he didn't really have a specific date to commit his crimes. December 14 was the day that his mother arrived from a long trip in New Hampshire(if I'm not mistaken) and must have been tired that she somehow forgot to lock the door before sleeping.

AL took advantage of this fact so it was a convenient day for him to off his mother first. (I believe killing his mother is the first step before shooting up a school) If Nancy locked that door he probably wouldn't have done it on that day.

(I'm assuming that the youtube account "fuckcomments" was him because in one of his comments he mentioned that he almost have gone on to a shooting spree but has to abort his plan because "someone's door was locked "

I probably read this from sandyhooklighthouse website. Will send the source of that comment once I found it again.