The Actual Motive Behind Sandy Hook

A lot of people have talked about Adam Lanza's suffering from low-functioning Aspergers as being he cause of the shooting but this is bullcrap. People with autism get tremendous value out of simple rules and it is a simple rule not to hurt anyone. The autistic population is nowhere near as violent as the normal population. The real reason A.L did what he did is simple; he had a cold relationship with his mother, the only one person who he could rely on in the world. When she volunteered to work at Sandy Hook, her dedication to other kids like him must have infuriated him. His tapped up anger over that broke through over some little thing she did which was bad for him and he killed her, drove to the school and annihilated the other people who had in his mind slighted him.

I'd imagine you have read the 2014 Yale Child Study Center's report on Adam Lanza's life?

That report outlines the key findings in Adam's entire life, through birth to 20. Yes, "AL's" acclaimed Asperger's wouldn't have played any role whatsoever in his actions on December 14th, 2012. And that argument is pathetic, especially when you take the entire autistic population into account. Only an infinitesimally small portion of these people go on to commit murder, much less to the extent shown in the Sandy Hook shootings. Regardless of weather he had a diagnosis or not, it wouldn't have changed anything.

It is difficult to determine; or make any sense of, AL's exact motive, considering both him and his mother are deceased as we know. Our only collective knowledge is that he was living in an upstairs room with garbage bags taped over the windows, communicating with his mother through e-mail, despite living under the same roof, and having Nancy attend to his every need. She never seemed to address her concerns about her son to anyone at all, despite his apparent state of despondency, isolation, and anorexia (apparently he was 6ft tall and weighed 112lbs in the autopsy report).

In all honesty, I can't really blame him for what he did. Hell, if I had a gun-crazed mother like Nancy, never left my bedroom for 4 months, and had no friends whatsoever, I'd probably go on a rampage too. I think anyone would if they were living AL's life.

If you want, I can PM you that document evaluating Adam Lanza's history. You should give it a read, it's some 100+ pages long, but it's definitely worth it if your into studying the psycho-social dynamics of mass shooters.

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You know why he taped of his windows and never left his room, he was extremely sensitive to sunlight. Anyways I think his Aspergers might have played a role of course in it self Aspergers is not dangerous at all but it was stated (in numerous reports) that Adam Lanza may have had some form of mental illness in addition to Aspergers (which is not a mental illness). Schizophrenia was suggested but not confirmed so who knows. So what I think is that the Aspergers "shielded" of the more serious problem(s) or that people wrote his odd behaviour off as Aspergers.

Further more I don't think it's completely fair to blame his mom, dealing with a person who has severe mental issues must be challenging she probably did what she thought was best. If you read the Yale report on Adam Lanza you know that she took him to many therapists and psychiatrists to help him. Sure having guns in the house isn't the best of ideas but it's very normal in the states especially in towns like Newtown (as seen in the PBS documentary).

Dataverse wrote:

If you want, I can PM you that document evaluating Adam Lanza's history. You should give it a read, it's some 100+ pages long, but it's definitely worth it if your into studying the psycho-social dynamics of mass shooters.

That would be great, data.

AngerTotem wrote:

Dataverse wrote:

If you want, I can PM you that document evaluating Adam Lanza's history. You should give it a read, it's some 100+ pages long, but it's definitely worth it if your into studying the psycho-social dynamics of mass shooters.

That would be great, data.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Here's the link.

Adam did not believe he had asperger. and you know what? He was right. He was absolutely, 100% correct.

I'm not sure if he had some other auttism spectrum disorder or not, but I'm pretty certain Aspergwr was not it. Only Asperger-ish trait he displays is poor social skills and his single-minded obsession with one topic (school shootings).

However, his socials skills can be explained by his overall isolation. And his interest with school shootings doesn't needf to be asperger related - you of all people should know this by default.

Last: Adam had described himself as having hallucinations. That is a big warning ligth and not at all asperger.

The whole idea of his mom as a teahcer causing the shooting is pretty much absurd. Adam's interest in schootings started at a very precise moment: early april 2009. That's also when all his onluine gun-related activity starts. This starts a flurry of Adam's activity on gun forums, sspree killign related sites and whatnot.

Adam wrote taht he feels "schizophrenic", having "rare instances of wild mood swings" and being "numbly perplexed over the foreign concept of loving life".

Up until I seen himself admitt having hallucinations, I brushed off his "schizophrenic" comment as a random: "I'm crazy and I don't know what schziophrenia is".

Now I think I was deeply wrong. Adam probably read at least online information about schizophrenia and probably didn't use the term randomly. He seems to be refering to a precise state of mind and experiences.


Then there is a sudden and deafening silence that comes early 2012. Adam stops even his onlien activity. There's something very, very wrong and significant occuring. No way is this asperger behavior or anything related to his mom social life.

I think we are all at fault for thinking Adam himself is useless aas a source of explanation and instead we were lookign at all sorts of other circumstances, external factors and random stuff (doesn't it sound familair? Manson&Nazi quotes thing again?). We need to stop treating Adam as a moron who totally fails to understand what's going on.

We need to start listening to Adam

AngerTotem wrote:

A lot of people have talked about Adam Lanza's suffering from low-functioning Aspergers as being he cause of the shooting but this is bullcrap. People with autism get tremendous value out of simple rules and it is a simple rule not to hurt anyone. The autistic population is nowhere near as violent as the normal population. The real reason A.L did what he did is simple; he had a cold relationship with his mother, the only one person who he could rely on in the world. When she volunteered to work at Sandy Hook, her dedication to other kids like him must have infuriated him. His tapped up anger over that broke through over some little thing she did which was bad for him and he killed her, drove to the school and annihilated the other people who had in his mind slighted him.

If things were a simple as him being angry with his mother, nothing would have happened like it did. His obsession with shootings and strange behavior was something else entirely.

Another point to add to what Sabratha was saying (mental illness being the largest factor), is that his hatred was if anything directed towards society as a whole rather than just his mother. Here is a link to his phone call to Anarchy Radio: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] He calls in to talk about a chimp named Travis whom attacked his owner before being shot by the police. Adam talks about how he believes that society drove Travis to do this.

A third point, is that he was a huge gamer, and most likely targeted young children in order to achieve more deaths/a higher score.

There is not really any evidence of Adam being angry with his mother, except that it would be the reaction of a normal person, of whom he was not. So how can you say that everything else is bullshit and it was entirely down to anger at his mother, when this is purely unbacked speculation?

I dont have much to say on this subject, but i will say that Its ridiculous to say someone with autism can't be violent because they're autistic. Anyone is capable of killing under the right circumstances.

Nirvana92 wrote:

I dont have much to say on this subject, but i will say that Its ridiculous to say someone with autism can't be violent as because they're autistic. Anyone is capable of killing under the right circumstances.

As a mother of a twelve year old autistic boy I have to say that in no way Adam Lanza was autistic. You are right when you say that someone with autism can be violent, yes, my son is hitting me in the face when he got his attacks, but there is a big diffence between planning and doing a shooting. Autistic people, doesn't  matter if it is Asperger or Kanner syndrom, have one thing in common, they create their own world with their own rules and their own rituals. They are frustrated and desperate if something or someone didn't follow this rules or rituals. For example, my son didn't go in his bed when his  blanket and pillow are not in the right arrangement. If I didn't fix it quick it leads direct to an outburst.

Most autistics are unsocial, that is right, one a little bit more than others. But they didn't feel unsocial, it is okay for them, they don't want to interact with others, because they have no or very little interest in other people. An autistic person does not understand why YOU are sad, angry, mean or happy because he feels in another way. My son laughs when I yell at him, and sometime he began to cry when someone laughs.

Unfortunately is it modern to diagnose kids with whatever at a very young age, and I think the most of this diagnoses are totally wrong. You don't need Asperger to be smart, a loner or maybe only "deadly" shy, but if you want to go on a shooting spree you better have something different than autism, because you can't handle the chaos, the screams, the noise, the panic.

[quote="Grandma"An autistic person does not understand why YOU are sad, angry, mean or happy because he feels in another way. My son laughs when I yell at him, and sometime he began to cry when someone laughs.[/quote]

I think this is a vital thign to stress and demands a thread of its own. I made one herE:
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The new thread also contains my reply to some of teh issues you have raised in your post.

I'd like to bump this thread and see if anyone's got some differing opinions four years later.

Grandma wrote:

As a mother of a twelve year old autistic boy I have to say that in no way Adam Lanza was autistic.

Since I'm not sure if this user is still here or not, I'm going to say this for the rest of our benefit:
It's unwise to compare two different autistic people and assume that they're both the same. Having lived with autism I can tell you that there's a good reason it's a spectrum.

I’ve frequently thought of why the attack happened, why Adam targeted children, why kill his mother, etc, etc.

However, over the years and largely since the release of the previously withheld journal entries, pictures, videos and school work I have started to think that the questions I previously pondered above were too granular in approach.

In my opinion, Adam was and always did have a strong misanthropic and largely disdainful personality, society around him never made any sense and was purely controlling, corrupting and harmful (there are huge numbers of writings from and about Adam to prove this) I think Adam wanted to inflict an irreparable hurt on the world and what better way to do that then target children in what many (including myself) view as one of the worst acts of violence in US history?

Yet questions remain, why 2012? Why kill Nancy? I suppose it’s fair to speculate that Adam was running out of time in terms of the longevity of his heavily controlled and insular world that was his home and we know that by mid-late 2012 that was being threatened by a move to Washington. I think this threat was a big reason for why the attack happened when it did and I would go far to say that Adam contemplated making the attack a day earlier (GPS info from Adam’s SatNav showed he went to the school at virtually the same time as his eventual attack on the day before the actual attack) but decided not to because of Nancy.

The question is whether Adam shot Nancy four times out of mercy, in a bizarre “you gave me the life I needed until now, I won’t put you through what I’m about to do” or out of revenge “you created me, tried to constrain me to social rules” who knows? In the end, I think Adam just wanted to hurt the world and didn’t think much beyond that, thus the lack of a manifesto or any defined ‘reason’ left behind because that didn’t matter, he went there to kill the most innocent people he could think of and did so until he believed he would be stopped, which is why he shot himself as soon as police arrived, he wasn’t there for a fight or to try and kill EVERYONE it was a focused attack on innocence and to leave a scar that will never heal in a world he hated for never making sense to him.