AL's mental ilnesses and the shooting

How AL's mental illnesses may have contributed him to have the killer mindset?

From doing a lot of in depth research on the shooting and more specifically Adam Lanza and the events in his life leading up to the event at Sandy Hook, I can say that he had several mental disorders which undoubtedly contributed to his motivations for the shooting. For one Adam Lanza had Asperger's Syndrome which on its own does not cause aggression in people who have it but combine the obsessive tendencies, depression and social awkwardness of Asperger's Syndrome with his Sensory Processing Disorder, his possible Schizophrenia (no solid evidence so say he actually had it), and finally his overwhelming depression/anxiety from just feeling so alone in a world and culture that seemed so foreign to him. His mental issues contributed to the shooting happening but the final trigger of the event, in my opinion, was the lack of any true emotional support eg. a friend who cared enough to talk to him about his emotional issues and his mom actually trying to address his mental problems instead of accommodating them and ignoring them. I am certain that Adam Lanza was hurting on the inside, he did not originally want to be a mass murderer rather what led him to that decision was that he simply gave up fighting his anxiety and depression. Evidence of this can be read from Nancy Lanza's emails about Adam Lanza crying when going to college and being stressed out from the work and just in general feeling alone. He did want friends but he felt like no one could truly understand him.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Adam cut off his relationship with his father and brother in 2010 and what appeared to be his only real life friend in 2012. If he wanted emotional support, why do you think he would have done that?

Self-imposed isolation was a trend through much of Adam's life. Some people said that Adam was treated fine by most of his peers but when they reached out to him or tried to include him, he ignored them and didn't try to engage with them. However, others say he had a good time being part of a group once he warmed up. Do you believe that he was held back by anxiety or is it possible that he was not particularly interested in socializing? It's hard to know what was going on with him because there is evidence that he sought out companionship at times and avoided attempts by his peers to befriend him in other circumstances.

His father said that he could be a chatterbox (he actually said, "Man, that kid, you couldn't shut him up!") but most people had the impression that he would rarely speak and was very shy and quiet. I wonder whether this inconsistency in his behavior could be due to Asperger Syndrome, anxiety or something else.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] That is a very good question. The likely reason why Adam cut off communication with his Dad was because of the growing animosity he had towards his dad. His dad tried to talk him out of joining the military, tried to convince him to not take too many college classes, ect. This is the only information that we know publicly. There was likely more to the story though in regards to his Dad and him. As for his brother, I suspect he also had a strained relationship with him for various reasons. It should be noted that Adam Lanza mentioned about having a strained relationship with his mother when talking with a friend of his. So it is not far fetched to think he likely had similar feelings towards his Dad and brother.

While it is true that he imposed isolation on himself. This was done because he felt anxiety being out in public and around people in general aka social anxiety. Furthermore he probably had trouble to relating with other people so he felt even more uncomfortable when encountering or interacting with others. Overtime he became less and less social. Prior to middle school however he was quite talkative based on information that has been publicly available and more importantly based on the interview with Peter Lanza. The talkative personality of Adam Lanza went away when middle school came around though as his mental disorders progressed and got worse due to lack of therapy, treatment, and friends who he felt like he could truly relate to.

I definitely think his behavior was due to Aspergers Syndrome which he definitely had in my opinion and had been diagnosed with. Of course that was not the only mental thing he had, he also had sensory disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder.

Adam Lanza was social but his anxiety held him back, but if he ran into someone who he was was convinced he could trust and relate to, he likely would have opened up emotionally. We only know however what has been released to the public and the people who have came forward who knew him have said. I highly suspect that Adam Lanza was bullied extensively over the years in school, as having aspergers syndrome makes one a big target for bullying. The bullying and just lack of being able to relate to others is what formed his negative view of society.

Deep down, Adam wanted desperately to feel better and not be depressed, as indicated by a book he had titled "Train your brain to get happy". He wanted to socialize, just with people who he felt like would not hurt him physically or emotionally. Adam was terrified of the world and the people in it because of his tendency to over-analyze everything (due to his Aspergers) and his statistically likely experiences of being bullied in school.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] There is no evidence that Adam was bullied though. Mostly, people said that his peers ignored him because he seemed to have no interest in talking to them. Nancy was paranoid about it but Lysiak could only find one instance of Adam being bullied or ridiculed on his baseball team. I'm not saying that he didn't have an unpleasant experience but I don't think there was much bullying, if any at all.

I thought that the book you referred to was Nancy's book and not Adam's. I believe that Adam wanted to feel better but at the same time, he had a very rigid understanding of most things and he was prone to extremely negative thinking. He was convinced that he was right about his point of view, too.

I'm not sure that Adam's refusal to talk to others was really social anxiety. I think it was likely anxiety but I suspect that it was more closely related to Asperger Syndrome or sensory issues, as in he shut down in any environment that was unfamiliar or chaotic. His tech advisor discussed how he would have episodes that resembled a catatonic state when something unexpected happened. I don't know that this was social anxiety but I'm sure it was some sort of overwhelming anxiety.

Why do you say that he isolated himself strictly because of anxiety? Those who are experiencing schizophrenic symptoms (hallucination, paranoid, mood problems) often isolate themselves to hide their mental deterioration. It's also a possible indicator of depression. Adam apparently had periods where he would disappear for a few weeks at a time and when asked about it, he suggested that it was because he was depressed (which he jokingly described as "existential crises" or just "moping around"). I think it's possible that Adam avoided people for reasons other than anxiety.

I am aware of the difficulties with his father but don't you think it's a bit extreme to cut off a relationship completely for those reasons? I think it could be a clue as to why he avoided people in general. He wanted to be in control and when you are interacting with others, they will say and do things that you don't approve of and there's not much to be done about it. I think he may have been frequently frustrated with other people for this reason and decided that friendships weren't worth the trouble.

What exactly do you think terrified Adam about the world?

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] There may be no evidence that Adam was bullied, but bullying in schools is common and occurs often against neuro-typical people even, let alone people with ASD. I just am very skeptical that Adam Lanza did not get bullied heavily while in school. Statistically bullying is just such a common thing in the public school system. This is coming from someone who still remembers highschool all too well having been out of highschool for only 5 years now. I have ASD myself and believe me the bullying was terrible back in school. But with the lack of evidence of bullying, one can not say for a fact that the bullying did indeed happen, only that it was very likely.

I certainly agree that his depression that he most certainly had a very severe variation of, certainly caused him to think very lowly of himself and is also partly why he likely did not socialize as much and cut himself off, as this is a common thing that depressed people do. As for whether it was extreme to cut his communications off with his dad and brother? Of course it was extreme, but to someone with a certain mindset such as Adam's it seemed like a perfectly logical and rational decision. There has only been one or two pieces of evidence I can recall of him hinting at Schizophrenia, which he may have had a certain degree of it, particularly in his later years leading up to the shooting.

Schizophrenics do not have to hallucinate visually or audibly though, if Adam Lanza did indeed have Schizophrenia as you may suggest, it probably presented itself in the form of paranoid thinking. Adam was fairly confused about many things and was indecisive internally in his mind. All the evidence suggest that he did not even plan the shooting until 2011, in my opinion maybe even summer 2012 at latest. He obviously had thoughts of committing such an act though for many years but probably did not seriously consider actually carrying it out until he felt like he had nothing left to live for and no hope of feeling better. I think Adam was definitely going through an existential crisis, he constantly questioned the point of life itself and could only see the negative things in life. Him only seeing the negative was fed by his anxiety created a self perpetuating cycle.

Adam was terrified of the world for many reasons, some included the fear of being emotionally hurt, embarrassed, afraid of academic failure, afraid of being physically attacked which is why he often would walk close to walls when going from class to class so to avoid people and his perceived danger of them. Most of all though I think Adam was scared, scared of being controlled and never being able to keep control of his environment and stay within his comfort zone. As soon as the sign of his mother possibly moving came up, he probably decided that his very last comfort of existence was being threatened. His pent up anger was finally let loose and he finally committed his act of revenge against his mom who he despised secretly along with picking the easiest school to target close by, Sandy Hook Elementary School. Nevertheless, I am getting a bit ahead of myself, I feel pretty strongly about the whole event and feel that what happened to him was tragic and entirely preventable had he ran into the right people who really cared.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I am not convinced that Adam had schizophrenia but I bring it up because there is some evidence that supports the possibility and I think that it's important not to rule anything out since there are still many unanswered questions.

It's interesting to me that you say Adam was confused and indecisive about many things. I think he had formed a very particular perspective on most things and I think he was very sure of himself, or at least presented himself that way. Why do you think he was confused? The only thing I can think of that he ever expressed serious uncertainty about was his own sexuality.

I don't believe that Adam only seriously started considering committing a massacre in 2012. I agree that the summer of 2012 is probably when he decided for sure that he was going to do it but I think he may have first thought about it all the way back in 2006 when he started researching Columbine and was seriously considering it by early 2010 (I could explain why, if you care to know). I think he went back and forth in his mind for quite some time, or maybe even held competing visions of the future at the same time, but I agree that he seemed to hope that there was something out there for him other than death. I completely agree that the unsolvable existential crisis was pushing him toward it and I also agree that his anxiety was making him even more hopeless but I think that there is a chance that it worked the opposite way, too. His focus on mass murder and the fantasy of committing an attack of his own probably linked into his anxiety and encouraged his negative beliefs about the world.

I am skeptical of the idea that he was bullied in the traditional understanding of the word. Teachers paid too much special attention to him for any overt bullying to have been going on and to remain unreported to this day. Someone would have said something about it when the whole world wanted to know why he did this. However, I do think Adam's experience was probably difficult. As his friend stated, "Being left alone because one wants to be and being left alone because others don't want to be involved is pretty different." Also, I think Adam was perceptive enough that he would have been able to see other people quietly rolling their eyes or making faces or quiet comments about his behavior. I'm sure that this happened because it happens to even the most typical kids in school, but because it happens to everyone, I wouldn't call it bullying, even if it happened to him more often than most.

I do think he probably craved social contact but was held back by many things. Richard Novia's description of Adam's episodes in the Tech Club sticks with me as a metaphor for Adam's whole life. He would get upset and would move away from the group but not so far that he didn't feel safe. When asked if he liked to be alone, Novia said that Adam liked to be alone but at the same time, not. He wanted to be near others but not too close. There's a similar story about him when he was sick with a fever as a child. His mother stayed outside his door all night long but he would periodically call out to her, "Are you still there?" With all of his anxiety, he needed comfort and reassurance but he couldn't bring himself to get close enough to anyone to reveal what he was feeling.

I think the picture you paint of Adam is interesting. While I have always seen him as intensely anxious and depressed, I have never envisioned him as being particularly sensitive to the actions and opinions of other people. However, it would explain some things, like why he cut off contact with his father for so long; he was not angry (or, not only angry), but hurt that his father didn't have faith in him. This is not a logical decision though. It is an emotional decision motivated by a need to maintain absolute control and and stay in his comfort zone.

Are you sure that he was afraid of being physically attacked at school? I always assumed that this avoidance of peers in the halls during high school was related to his contamination phobia, which was quite severe. I figured that he did not want to be touched for this reason and because he had a general aversion to physical contact, even contact from those who he was friendly with.

Do you really think Nancy planned to move and that Adam couldn't handle that? I know that there is some evidence for the plan but as far as I know, she never told Peter or Ryan about this which makes me doubt that it was set in stone, but if true, according to what she told people, one of the motivations for moving was to get Adam into some sort of school. Adam did say that he always wanted to live in Washington state and that he eventually planned to live there. Why would Adam resent her for it and why would he resist this plan if it was tailored to his preferences? Do you think that once the inevitability of actually moving out of his comfort zone started to move closer, he finally realized that he would never be able to handle it and he gave up?

I'm glad to see that there is someone else on the forum who shares the interest.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] can you explain why he started considering shooting in dec 2010

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Adam tried to portray himself as best as he could at being confident and decisive when he did interact with others when it came to his convictions and opinions. With that being said, I think he was VERY emotionally conflicted in his mind and felt "lost". He held some strong opinions for sure and but he was doubtful about some of his other thoughts. For starters, he was indeed confused about his sexuality based upon the comments and posts he made in regards to referencing his low BMI to him wondering if he was somehow asexual because of that. He likely had sexual fantasies and craved a romantic relationship like so many other humans in our society do at some level, whether a person admits this or not. He felt disgusted however with how sexual promiscuity seemed so ubiquitous in our culture. He viewed human sexuality as something to be for romantic reasons only and not to be a casual thing. So this whole contrast of how he saw sexuality and how society often would see it as, confused him somewhat and made him wonder if he was asexual. I think he was bisexual or perhaps homosexual but certainly not heterosexual based on his comments and posts.

He was confused because of the clouded mind he had due to his anxiety, depression, and ASD affecting his perception of reality. Adam felt like there were many serious moral and ethical dilemmas that existed in our society that were so horrific to him that no truly moral human could ignore them as he thought. An example of a dilemma was the issue of humans eating the meat of other animals. He looked upon this with disgust and thus decided to be a vegetarian. He did not see most of society and the humans in it as innocent as a result of the moral crimes he felt like they committed against enslaving children and animals. As a result he felt like shooting and killing people was fair game and was morally right to him, for a threefold set of reasons, reason one: humans killed other animals for food when he thought they did not have to, this is ontop of how inhumane the conditions are on many factory farms. The second reason being the enslavement of children and deprivation of their basic human rights. The third reason being that he viewed our government with great contempt I suspect (we do not know his exact political views for certain, but their are some clues pointing to anarchism) and he viewed citizens voting and supporting the government as accomplices.

He had an "them vs me" mentality and since he saw children as being equal to adults morally he saw targeting children as not being profoundly different from targeting adults during his act of revenge. I suspect the most prominent reason though why he chose Sandy Hook Elementary School was because of the convenience as some reports hinted he was considering to target his old high school instead but may have decided against it due to the security or cops being around too often.

The reason why Adam became fascinated with violence in general was a combination of him having OCD or OCD like symptoms, ASD (which can cause obsessions of certain subjects), and finally his already existing depression which developed and grew overtime. I think he used thoughts of violence as a way of coping with his anxiety in a type of fight or flight response mechanic of sorts. However this way of coping obviously got out of control once those violent thoughts became violent actions.

Adam seemed to be a very very emotionally sensitive person and it think that very fact is what made him so susceptible to anxiety and depression along with his temper which was masked for years by his anxiety/depression until he finally could not contain his anger any longer. I think he definitely was afraid of being attack at school regardless of whether that fear was one to have with good reasons or not. He also avoided others due to his contamination phobia for sure. But that was not the sole reason, he simply avoided others because he thought the other people in his school harbored bad feelings towards him along with his contempt of society. This goes back to what I was saying before though, he wanted to be around people, it had to be people though who he could relate to and trust, which was not many.

Adam probably was constantly irritated by others subtle psychological jabs at him and it made him want to avoid others even more. Even around the people he was friendly with, he likely still did not completely trust them either, only enough to allow them to get close to him for a certain period of time. The timing between when a potential planned move was in the works and when the shooting happened, is quite apparent to me as being more than just a mere coincidence. He may have had thoughts about moving but was ultimately unwilling to do so because of his anxiety and desire to be in an environment that he was comfortable with. Back when Hurricane Sandy happened and the electricity went out at the Lanza home, Adam pretty much freaked out. So that should set the tone for how sensitive he was to his surroundings.

Finally, I should mention a few more important details about what led up to the whole shooting. In the many years leading up to the shooting, Adam had brain damage caused by malnutrition and anorexia as indicated by a post-mortem examination of his body. That alone explains a lot and the brain damage only served to worsen his already horrible symptoms and could have even possibly been the spark to the mental powder-keg. Adam shot his mom four times according to the police report and Peter Lanza in an interview states that the four shots represented Adam, Peter, Nancy, and Ryan. One shot for each of them. Eye witnesses at the scene of the shooting mentioned about Adam appearing very angry and yelling several times at the people. Adam was without a doubt furious.

Likewise, it is very encouraging to see that there are others besides me who really want to get to the bottom of why this event happened. I feel like a lot can be learned from it as this mass shooting was particularly interesting and unique to me. Adam's psychological profile was much more coherent than other mass shooters such as batman theater shooter.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I believe that when he mentioned his BMI, he implied that his low weight caused him to have an absent sexual drive but that when he gained some weight, he realized that he did have sexual desires and was not innately asexual. I think the gratuitous sexuality in our culture was a separate issue from this and probably not something he was confused about. I think he merely disapproved of it because he did not understand the cultural acceptance of meaningless casual sex and I would assume that he continued to disapprove of it even after he realized that he was not asexual. I do think he continued to question his sexual orientation, though.

Do you really believe that Adam felt murder was morally righteous? I don't think so. This would be inconsistent with his belief that inhumane treatment of animals was ethically wrong, especially considering that he viewed humans as glorified animals. It would also be inconsistent with his belief that all people, including children, deserve the right to autonomy. I think it was more likely that he shed all attempts to live a morally sound life and was completely unconcerned with questions of right and wrong by then. I don't believe that he had convinced himself that the children or adults that he killed were guilty of crimes deserving death. They were convenient targets and no mental justification for killing them was required. In my view, what he said that day illustrated the extent of his feelings toward his victims, on a personal level. "Well, you're here."

I am just guessing but I do believe that he may have seen himself as being "justified" in a broader sense, though I'm not sure that this word describes it accurately. Basically, I think it's possible that he came to accept that the concept of morality was a cultural construct in itself, with questions of ethics being mostly arbitrary (and often hypocritical) designations assigned with the goal of directing behavior to allow society to function. If person's nature was in conflict with societal and cultural mores, then there was going to be an inevitable physical and/or mental deterioration for that individual. In extreme cases, this could lead to a violent outburst. So, I don't think he saw it as right or wrong, just something that was bound to happen and unavoidable within a system like this. He expressed the belief that modern society was inherently destructive to humanity and I think he saw acts of mass murder, excessive antidepressant use, obesity and other similar issues as an indication that society does not serve the needs of the individual but that the individual must serve the needs of society, regardless of the harm it causes. A natural response to a threat of harm is to destroy the threat and so from Adam's point of view, his attack may have been a visible proof that society was harmful while also being an attack, both physical and symbolic, on the society that he felt had harmed him. This would mean it was "justified" by logic or natural laws, cause and effect, without a need for moralistic rationalizations.

Adam's OCD explains his obsessive behavior but not why his obsession focused on mass murder or violence. It is true that violence can be a common theme in OCD but generally, it is not a compulsion to commit violence. Sometimes it manifests as obsessive fears that one might lose control or harm someone impulsively (almost unheard of for it to actually happen) or rituals to prevent harm to oneself or loved ones. I do agree that his obsession was probably a coping mechanism for anxiety but I am still curious about how it progressed to a desire to act out in violence.

I am a bit confused as to why you say that Adam was a very, very emotionally sensitive person. Adam told his mother that his personality was "inherently unmoving" and most people described his temperament as somewhat "neutral." He clearly had low self esteem and feared failure and he was easily overwhelmed by unfamiliar or chaotic situations. I can picture him to be more sensitive than he let on but what exactly do you mean when you emphasize his sensitivity? He seemed more sensitive to sensory stimulation or abstract ideas than emotional interaction but it sounds like you are referring to interpersonal relations.

Why do you believe that he felt his classmates harbored negative feelings toward him?

Based on Lanza's relatively normal mental functioning toward the end of his life, I find it difficult to believe that the brain damage played any major role in his shooting. I don't think it explains anything about his outburst of violence but is an obvious indication of his physical deterioration due to anorexia, which was likely another coping mechanism for anxiety. I think it was hopelessness and rage that caused the shooting and without treatment, it would still have happened even if he was not anorexic on top of everything else.

I have always thought that Peter's comment about the four shots was interesting. First, because it implies that Adam was prone to making symbolic gestures and that could suggest that other actions were symbolic. Other than that, it implies that Peter was aware of the anger that Adam felt toward his family but maybe the extent was only apparent to him after Adam's shooting. Peter said that he had only seen Adam get visibly angry once or twice but Adam's online writings suggest that he was frequently irritated and the psychologists certainly picked up on his anger. For someone like Adam, I think it's easy for people to interpret a lack of emotional expressiveness as a lack of emotion.

With your first paragraph regarding Adam's BMI and his sexuality I think that is a good summary of those two elements in his life and have nothing more I can think of to add to that.

I do certainly believe that Adam felt like he was morally in the right for what he did. Adam had already demonstrated that he had emotions on numerous occasions and had felt bad for not talking to one of his friends in a while as indicated by an email he had sent to that person. So Adam was capable of feeling guilt/remorse at times and did indeed in cases of how he treated some close to him such as friends or in regards to how seriously he took his academics. There was a witness who had seen Adam at the theater where he went to play DDR. There was a mention of Adam having something like a cute or burn mark on him. (I can't remember the details but I remember it being mentioned in a report). Adam had constant suicidal thoughts which became more frequent towards the end of his life. Adam finally made the decision to kill himself and he could have left it at that, but instead he chose to kill his mom and to kill as many of the student at Sandy Hook. Had he not wanted to kill himself but instead just get revenge he would have worn body armor when going to the school and peacefully surrendered when the police got there instead of shooting himself in the head. Adam could have completely skipped killing his mother and did the school shooting when his mom was gone on her trip to New Hampshire. Adam deliberately did not do this, implying that he wanted to kill his mother as well and did so quite violently with more shots than necessary. Everything points to him absolutely despising his mom in the end.

Adam thought if morality did exist, it had to be objective in his eyes or else morality did not exist and it was merely a human created social construct made to stop chaos from breaking out. On the other hand if Adam did indeed just give up the idea of morality existing, he probably went with the idea that humans were simply glorified animals and so did not feel bad for lashing out on other humans in a last act of fury before ending his life. I think it is interesting that Adam chose not to end his life quietly on his own but instead chose to make such a commotion. Adam was not one who supposedly wanted attention, but this whole event disproves it. Adam wanted to be infamous after he died and to get attention ultimately, and after years of not getting the right kind of attention and treatment he did this shooting as the last desperate act of getting attention. Adam was smart and knew how much news coverage the whole shooting would get after he died. I would go as far as to say Adam was trying to be the catalyst for a larger wave of mass shooting. Adam often wondered why there were not more mass shootings in today's society considering all the ills that he observed.

Adam also left an extra gun in the trunk of his car that day he went out to commit the shooting. I suspect he had bigger plans for the shooting but when police arrived quicker than he anticipated he had to ditch the extended shooting he had planned. His Anxiety, depression, OCD, and ASD combined made him highly susceptible to obsessive thoughts, but what made him gravitate towards the violent obsessive thoughts and ultimately actions was a combination of anger and depression.

His classmates harbored negative feelings towards him for common reasons such as Adam simply acting weird or different, being from an affluent family, possibly being perceived as homosexual by other classmates triggering aggression or malice towards him, and finally just in general not fitting into social norms of his peers. Teenagers and children can be very fickle and will bully or get upset readily over even small differences let alone the larger differences that Adam had when compared to the other students.

His brain damage while proven and documented, can not be directly linked to the shooting and likely was not a sole cause of it. It could have very well contributed to it though, as the brain damage could have made his existing symptoms worse or made his mental issues progress, it is hard to say though since the autopsy report did not really go into much detail about the type of brain damage that occurred.

Once again though, I agree that hopelessness, depression, and most importantly his pent up rage/anger was the prime direct cause of the shooting. The shooting was entirely preventable though and was not fated in the slightest. There were many opportunities for Adam's mom or Adam to seek treatment for him but Adam was resistant to it and his mom was not willing to accept the fact that Adam was in serious danger and needed help. I know this is being said in hindsight after the event happened but, the warning signs were there for many years. The most direct and ominous warning that really should have made Nancy come to her senses was when she saw that very graphic drawing that Adam made two weeks before the shooting. The drawing showed a women being shot into and she was concerned about finding it and emailed a friend about it but did not even question Adam about it.

While every person and situation is unique, I think that little things do make a big difference when it comes to preventing tragedies such as this one. Something as simple as Adam running into a more psychologically assertive and persistent friend or his mom being more proactive before he turned 18 in regards to his mental treatment would definitely have changed the outcome for Adam dramatically.

*listens quietly, nods*

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I can understand your reasoning but I really think that what allowed Adam to override any sense of empathy for his victims was the same apathy and deadening of emotion that Dylan Klebold seemed to have experienced. I think he just didn’t care about anything anymore except for pulling off this attack and ending his own life.

The theater employee noted a large bruise on Adam's arm during one of his last visits. I've wondered about this but it's hard to know if it was evidence of self harm or just a side effect of anorexia, which can make people prone to easy bruising due to vitamin deficiencies. However, this same employee said that Adam seemed distant so he asked him if he was okay. Adam answered that he didn’t have any money but he just “didn’t want to go home now.” The employee gave him some money to play DDR and the next day, another employee informed him that he had to pull the plug on the game to get Adam to leave. Obviously, Adam was distressed and at that moment, he didn’t want to go back to the house where he had lived in isolation for so long.

Aside from this incident, Nancy allegedly told a friend about a year before the massacre that Adam was burning himself with a lighter, as if in an attempt to feel something. His growing depression and mental deterioration was no secret.

You could say that the overkill with Nancy Lanza was proof of his hatred toward her and there is evidence that he was resentful of her and that they did not get along but this could also be seen as Adam wanting to be sure that she died instantly and did not suffer needlessly. Evidence suggests that he shot her as she slept, meaning that she did not even know what hit her. If he had committed the attack while she was away, the blame and vilification she would have experienced in the aftermath would have been ten times what Sue Klebold went through and Adam would have been aware of that. As it was, people did not even want to count her among the victims when the details of her parenting choices were revealed.  I don’t necessarily believe that it was really any sort of “mercy killing” but I do think that it’s open to interpretation without a direct explanation from Adam.

Adam actually left the shotgun in the passenger seat of his car. He had two magazines containing 20 rounds in total and a single shotgun shell on his body. Without the shotgun and accessories, he was already carrying 30 pounds of weapons and ammunition so I suspect that he had trouble carrying everything, either due to the weight or the bulk, so he decided to leave the weapon with the smallest amount of ammunition, even though it was probably deadlier than the 9mm and 10mm pistols he did bring into the school. I'm not sure that he intended to use the shotgun once he left it because he knew from his research that law enforcement would probably be there very quickly. Many mass shootings are less than 10 minutes long, especially now that law enforcement has come to understand the nature of these attacks. I don't think he expected that he would be able to get out of the school and back inside without the possibility of being captured, which is something that he would not have risked. However, I do believe that he did plan to continue the shooting with his pistols and probably would have done so if the police had not arrived.

What you're saying about his classmates seems reasonable to assume but the evidence does not seem to support the idea that he was bullied extensively or treated negatively at all. Several people spoke of trying to encourage Adam to come out of his shell, especially in the Tech Club. Those kids did not seem to harbor any ill will toward him but liked him and thought he was intelligent and could even be funny despite being very quiet most of the time. They did say that they wouldn't be surprised if he had been bullied (and I wouldn't be surprised either) but while he was attending school, it's clear that he did have a group that accepted him as he was, with all of his quirks, and that some of them would have been willing to form closer friendships if he had been open to it.

I think Adam could have been helped, if he was willing to cooperate with treatment. He was very resistant to it but even when he was willing to participate, there were multiple missed opportunities and questionable choices. There was a period when he was improving with the help of a professional but this progress was destroyed in the next month when she insisted that Adam take medication against his will. This gives some insight into his later preoccupation with children being under the control of their parents and the corrupt mental health system. It was an unfortunate development because even if Adam's fears or objections to medication were unfounded, this decision destroyed the small amount of trust he had built with this professional and his mother ended up taking him off of the medication anyway, almost immediately. I know that delaying the addition of medication to his treatment plan would have been more of the same strategy of placation and that is probably why they insisted on it but it's obvious that the result of forcing him into it, without also securing Nancy's compliance, was disastrous. It does not seem that he received any particularly useful treatment after this (although he apparently continued to see a different psychiatrist for another six months) and it fueled his anger and distrust toward his parents and medical professionals. It was a mess and Nancy’s attitude did not help at all. I don’t think she ever admitted how much trouble Adam was in but it was not because there weren’t signs. She was clearly in major denial.

Adam gave up emotionally and wanted to die after years of the crippling anxiety, depression, and his building anger towards society. His anger towards society was in particular a trigger for the shooting because of his constant references to it and how he felt that industrialization along with a fabricated human made culture was detrimental to any biological life form.

I am pretty convinced that Adam did indeed self harm in the months leading up to the shooting if not even earlier. His mom mentioned about it as you noted and there were witnesses also alluding that he had visible signs of injury which were all likely to be self inflicted. His anger towards his mom likely progressed over time, he probably felt like he was being treated as a lower person than others, being singled out and coddled may have actually made him more irritated as he did not want to be overwhelmed with too much stimulation from others. If Adam really cared about his mom by the time he had committed the shooting and his subsequent suicide, he would have never killed his mom. Peter Lanza stated that he was certain that Adam would have killed him as well had Adam had the chance to do so. Indeed, the unbearable tension that fermented from all the years of his family's seemingly more conservative beliefs no doubt clashed with Adam's seemingly more unconventional philosophical beliefs.

Nancy was very much in denial about just how dangerous the situation was in regards to her son's mental disorders. She knew he had issues obviously, but she could not stand to think of the possibility of her son actually being even capable of committing mass murder let alone actually carrying it out and killing himself and her as well. The socioeconomic background of the family, seems to have contributed to the swirling pool of what was the perfect storm for disaster. Nancy did not want to garner the reputation of having a "troubled son" in such an affluent tight knit community. Adam had easy access to guns which to me made it very easy for Adam to quickly act in his rage when he finally did. To me what is a surprise is for how long Adam managed to keep functioning in such a non violent capacity all those years despite the clearly massive levels of anxiety and depression he had.

I still stand by what I had said earlier about the bullying. I know there is no evidence to back it up though. The level of bullying that Adam experienced is certainly debatable and it could have all just been verbal mostly. When one has ASD though even the most seemingly subtle things for others can be an absolutely horrific experience for an aspie. Bullying is covered up in schools all the time, even the bullying towards Eric and Dylan was very covered up. Sure we knew they were bullied according to several sources, but we don't have many specific cases to point to.

Adam was a remarkable marksman, he managed to kill most of the people he shot at. His accuracy though could be attributed to his countless times of practicing at gun ranges and in the basement of his home. I will agree that he likely was already burdened heavily with the existing guns and ammo he had on him at the time of the shooting and could probably not carry in the additional weapons and ammo in the car. The fact that he took them with him though certainly brings up the idea to my mind that he had bigger plans than what actually unfolded. He obviously knew that the police would be there pretty quickly however.

There is one thing that I want to know though, did Adam Lanza ever actually attempt suicide prior to the shooting? There is no evidence that seems to indicate it, but he no doubt had thoughts of it for a very long time. Another think that I had been thinking about just recently was about a supposed incident between an adult and the school staff that had occurred at the elementary school just a day before the shooting. The police claimed they were not informed of any altercation but it makes me wonder if the person who was involved with altercation was indeed Adam or not. It seemed like a big coincidence to me. Furthermore, the people involved with altercation were those who Adam has shot at the day later including the school psychologist.

As many problems as Adam had, he could have had a better outcome had his mom not been in denial.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I am not sure that Adam was an amazing marksman because the circumstances surrounding the killings were so skewed in his favor. He was very close to the adults in the hallway and he surprised them before they had time to run. The other victims were also trapped with no place to go and he had a high power semi-automatic rifle set up for quick reloading. I believe that he fired over 150 bullets in total. I think one of the first responders said that he initially wondered how the shooter had time to pile the bodies in a corner of the room and this was because so many children were huddled together in the bathroom and had died right on top of each other.

I don't know that Adam's family was unsupportive. His father told a story about Adam putting a funny caption underneath a photo of some Communist leaders and he thought it was hilarious so he printed t-shirts with the image. That seems almost excessively supportive to me. His mother also went to great lengths to accommodate most of his quirks and basically did anything she could to make him feel more comfortable, though she was often misguided and her personality seemed to rub Adam the wrong way. Even Nancy's trips to the shooting range with Adam were motivated by their shared interest in weapons. I have doubts that they criticized his beliefs but I also doubt that he shared most of his unconventional beliefs with them to begin with.

I completely agree that Nancy was concerned about her reputation and that this impacted how she handled the situation.

I don't think there's any reason to believe that Adam had previously attempted suicide but I guess there's no proof that he didn't either. I'm sure that he thought of it as obsessively as anything else that caught his attention and that it went on for many years.

If we are talking about the same thing, the incident with staff members was a female parent who did not arrive on time to pick up her children at their bus stop. When she arrived at the school, the principal felt that she was impaired and they would not allow her to take her children home. The police were called and felt that she was not intoxicated but that she seemed tired and sick so they agreed that her husband would come and pick her and the children up to drive them home.

I say that I think Adam was an excellent marksman based on how he managed to carry out the shooting without any real hiccups so to speak. Almost all the people who he shot at were killed. Adam was no novice when it came to knowledge of firearms as well, as he had plenty of hands on experience with weapons and had researched about guns extensively over many years. You are absolutely correct though that a few circumstances were in his favor. The first one being the flawed school policy of having children huddle together in a corner of a classroom. That is probably the worst thing that can happen but it sadly is common procedure in many schools across the country today in many cases despite it making the children sitting ducks and easier targets since they become a stationary clump instead of many moving targets. Adam having the element of surprise also gave him the advantage. There was no security guards at the school and security must have been pretty lite in general since all Adam had to do was simply shoot at a non-bullet proof glass window and just walk right on in.

Thank you btw for clarifying about the incident that occurred at the school the day before the shooting. The timing of the event made me suspect it somehow had a connection to Adam but clearly this is not the case based on the information you are saying. The idea of Adam attempting suicide to me is very easy to picture. But on the other hand if he did attempt it he would have used the same method he had used during the Sandy Hook School Shooting. A gunshot to the head is a fairly reliable way to commit suicide compared to a lot of other methods so this is the only real piece of evidence that would suggest Adam did not attempt suicide. Still though I bet he came very close to it at several points given the police reports mentioning about there being photos of him holding a gun to his head that were save on one of his surviving hard drives.

Of course his family was supportive of him in a superficial way of trying to understand him as a person but I feel like the tension between his family and him likely geared up around the age of 13 as the teenage years are a turbulent time for anyone let alone someone like Adam Lanza. Given how emotionally sensitive Adam was though, I think he probably took EVERYTHING personally and seriously. Since he had ASD this would further build upon this theory I have about his relationship with his parents and other peers around him in school. Sure on the surface there were no reported cases of tension that were glaringly obvious but I am certain that there was a massive amount of animosity in Adam's mind towards his mom, dad, and many people in his school but more specifically he hated society collectively as a single entity. Basically I would sum it up as a me vs the world mentality.

Adam probably holds the record for the shortest mass shooting ever (~5 minutes).

Personally, I don't think he was an excellent marksman.

As stated, most of the 6 year old kids that he shot were huddled together and in one Room they were all packed into a small closet - quite easy to get high kill numbers in that situation.

He also put many bullets (sometimes as many seven/eight) into each kid/victim as well, guaranteeing his/her death.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Good point. If Lanza had tried to commit suicide it's likely that he would have used one of his guns so that's a good indication that he had never attempted suicide before. It's possible that the photographs on his computer were intended to be Cho-esque publicity shots of himself. Maybe he thought that the police would release them but they never did. It would be nice to know exactly when they were taken though.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Interestingly, Steven Kazmierczak's shooting at Northern Illinois University was only about six minutes long and Lanza had an article about this shooting in his room. Robert Hawkins shooting was also around six minutes long and Lanza referred to him as one of his favorite mass shooters. However, Lanza's victim count greatly exceeded either one of these shootings.

There might be others but the shortest school shooting that I know of with a significant number of casualties was Patrick Purdy's shooting outside of an elementary school in Stockton, California in 1989. It lasted less than five minutes (although I saw one source quote that it was only one minute long and another saying four minutes) with over 30 injured and six people killed, including the shooter. This was a case of a chronically unhappy and socially maladjusted adult perpetrator attacking children (the victims ranged in age from 6-9) at an elementary school which he had previously attended, with a semi-automatic rifle, and then shooting himself in the head with a pistol, so there are several similarities to Lanza's actions, although Purdy never actually entered the school.

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Edit: I would also mention that Thomas Hamilton's attack at Dunblane was around four to five minutes long. It bore some similarities to Lanza's shooting, with an adult perpetrator (and suspected pedophile) attacking an elementary school before committing suicide, and being the deadliest massacre of children in that country. It even happened during the same time frame of 9:35-9:40am.

For those people they didn't even get their 15 minutes of fame, only 5 minutes or less...

On a more serious note, it is amazing how much destruction can happen in such a short time.

sororityalpha wrote:

On a more serious note, it is amazing how much destruction can happen in such a short time.

This is very true and those are not the only examples. Many high profile mass shootings were extremely short.

Jared Loughner killed 6 people and injured 13 in less than 5 minutes (and I have seen references that suggest he was only shooting for a total of 17 seconds).
Dylann Roof killed 9 people and injured 1 in about 6 minutes.
James Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70 in about 7 minutes.
Seung-Hui Cho killed 30 people and injured 17 in about 10 minutes.

And more that were 15 minutes or less.
Wade Frankum - 7 dead and 6 injured in about 10 minutes.
Jeffrey Weise - 9 dead and 5 injured in about 10 minutes.
Howard Unruh - 13 dead and 3 inured in about 12 minutes.
George Hennard - 23 dead and 27 injured in about 12 minutes.
Patrick Sherrill - 14 dead and 6 injured in about 15 minutes

And very recently there were Arcan Cetin, who killed 5 people in a mall in one minute, and Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, who killed 5 and shot 6 more in an airport in less than one and a half minutes.

That is amazing.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I am not necessarily as amazed by the fact that so many deaths and injuries can happen in a short time as I am amazed that such mass violence is so rare despite the number of potentials triggers for such violence in society being worse than ever with the rise in mental issues. One could say that people are simply identifying mental issues more clearly and readily than they used to much like how biological illnesses became more clearly identified and solved over time. Mental issues will likely be the next major pandemic though in terms of causes of death both directly due to suicides and also due to mental issues contributed or being linked to mass shootings. While it is my theory that overall levels of violence between only one person and another has declined for thousands of years. Mass violence and shootings are certainly on the rise and I would also state that warfare has been more and more deadly. World War II was fairly recent after all in the grand scheme of things.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Adam had planned the shooting out fairly well and achieved his main objectives. Could he have done more damage had he spent more time making a far more elaborate plan? Certainly that is easily imaginable, but when people are at the point at which they are psychologically ready and willing to commit mass violence there ability to think clearly can become diminished. I can personally point out several parts of the whole event that could have been altered or done differently by Adam to maximize causalities. Regardless though, Adam seemed to be a very intelligent person, and it bothers me to see when someone intelligent especially let alone any other person gets to the point of such despair and anger.

"If person's nature was in conflict with societal and cultural mores, then there was going to be an inevitable physical and/or mental deterioration for that individual. In extreme cases, this could lead to a violent outburst. "


Isnt that what he pretty much said on the radio program. When he called the anarchist guy. He said something like society often makes people act in ways contrary to their natural inclination and people often resist because it goes against their nature. Maybe this also ties into the whole pedophilia thing maybe Lanza really was a pedophile.

PredBull wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] can you explain why he started considering shooting in dec 2010

I believe around 2010 his plans of joining the military were destroyed and his mother bough him that AR-15 and his other weapons around that time 2010.

PredBull wrote:

How AL's mental illnesses may have contributed him to have the killer mindset?

Lanza was extremely isolated from his peers and the world at large. Isolated to a point few other killers were. He felt he had no control over his life. Waht is more, in a conversation with a member of this forum Lanza had admitted to suffering from delusions.

So first and foremost his mental ilness caused him a lot of distress and anguish. Remember that for any suicide-spree killer, the first step is his/her dissatisfaction with the world or his life.

Wirely wrote:

Adam had planned the shooting out fairly well and achieved his main objectives. Could he have done more damage had he spent more time making a far more elaborate plan?

Certainly that is easily imaginable, but when people are at the point at which they are psychologically ready and willing to commit mass violence there ability to think clearly can become diminished. I can personally point out several parts of the whole event that could have been altered or done differently by Adam to maximize causalities.

Possibly. I can see a few things he might have done to increase the bodycount, but I am entirely unwilling to openly discuss them here. We had at least one spree killer frequent this forum in the past, I certainly don't want to give bright ideas to other potential shooters. One thing I will say is that Adam seems to have thought out his plan and chosen his weapons carefully.

Wirely wrote:

Regardless though, Adam seemed to be a very intelligent person, and it bothers me to see when someone intelligent especially let alone any other person gets to the point of such despair and anger.

Well, he wasn't a dumb kid. But he also had the emotional intelligence of a doorknob, the social skills of a brick and on top of that he was suffering from apparently a very damaging mental ilness that included delusions. Homosexual and possibly pedophile fantasies didn't help him either.

Sabratha wrote:

We had at least one spree killer frequent this forum in the past

This forum has been active only since 2013. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which spree killer frequented this forum since then?

sororityalpha wrote:

Sabratha wrote:

We had at least one spree killer frequent this forum in the past

This forum has been active only since 2013. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], which spree killer frequented this forum since then?

The previous incarnation of this forum then to be precise.