How planned was the Sandy Hook Shooting?

We know that Eric and Dylan planned Columbine for about a year, James Holmes planned his attack during several years, I don't really know about Nikolas Cruz but I think his videos prove that his decision was not made on an impulse.

But what about Adam Lanza? Do you think he planned the shooting for weeks? Do you think something made him shoot his mother and so things escalated? Because seeing his posts on SBB, I think he imagined himself doing a mass shooting and imagined himself setting a new record regarding the number of deaths, but I wonder if it was always a real plan he had or if for a long time it was just a fantasy. I think he even commented sometimes on SBB things that suggested that mass murder was a tragedy (although I may not remember well about that).

Well he apparently did threaten to shoot up Sandy Hook in 2008, but some people say that isnt true and stuff. But im gonna assume for a few years? Also if you notice, the Simon's Rock College shooting happened on Dec. 14th 1992. I think Adam did researched and mention Wayne Lo (the shooter) somewhere but i dont remember. Maybe Adam did his shooting on Dec.14th in honor of Wayne Lo?

TheOne99 wrote:

Well he apparently did threaten to shoot up Sandy Hook in 2008, but some people say that isnt true and stuff. But im gonna assume for a few years? Also if you notice, the Simon's Rock College shooting happened on Dec. 14th 1992. I think Adam did researched and mention Wayne Lo (the shooter) somewhere but i dont remember. Maybe Adam did his shooting on Dec.14th in honor of Wayne Lo?

I didn't think about that, but you may be right. It is hard to tell when a fantasy becomes a real plan.

.

Neah wrote:

We know that Eric and Dylan planned Columbine for about a year, James Holmes planned his attack during several years, I don't really know about Nikolas Cruz but I think his videos prove that his decision was not made on an impulse.

But what about Adam Lanza? Do you think he planned the shooting for weeks? Do you think something made him shoot his mother and so things escalated? Because seeing his posts on SBB, I think he imagined himself doing a mass shooting and imagined himself setting a new record regarding the number of deaths, but I wonder if it was always a real plan he had or if for a long time it was just a fantasy. I think he even commented sometimes on SBB things that suggested that mass murder was a tragedy (although I may not remember well about that).

I'm sure he was planning a shooting for many months, maybe years. He had all the time in the world to do so and from his internet activity patterns you can see he spent quite some time on Columbine-related sites/forums and read about other spree killings. I vividly remember him coming up with some excel spreadsheet list of various spree killings with all osrrts of stats there.

He also (under different monikers) spent time on firearm related forums. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a similar excel spreadsheet for firearms. Maybe its a coincidence, but I remember a forum thread back in the day about firearms (I think it was something like: "Which firearms would you ban and why?") where a lot of us, including msyelf, pointed to the Saiga shotgun and Glock handguns as being especially dangerous in a spree killing. I'm not sure if this influenced his choice of guns, but I think its possible. I also know that the "fuckcomments" youtube user watched and commented on various firearm-related videos. The consensus is that "fuckcomments" was Lanza - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Overall I'm sure Lanza did plan and research both killings as events, the killers and their strategies as well as the weapons used. I'm 100% certain he did invest a lot of time in choosing this.

Now the question when did he choose the Sandy Hook school itself as the preferred target is an open one. Nobody can be sure when he settled on that place.

Lanza had planned for a mass murder for years but I really think he really got into it once he got his mother to buy him his weapons such as the Bushmaster, the Saiga and the handguns. I think it important to note that Sandy Hook was actually one of three possible targets that he could've attacked, these other targets included a catholic school that he once attended and the other is speculated was Newton High School, data records on his car's SUV shows routes that was probably Adam scouting his two possible targets, Sandy Hook and the catholic school both elementary level.

I think one of the reasons Adam favored elementary schools over high schools as targets was due that shooting at 6-12 year olds would be far easier than teenagers as even with his arsenal weapons, the high school would probably put up more resistance in an active shooter situation than an elementary school, an average 15 year old who is more physically fit than Adam who was concernedly underweight and not physically intimidating without his guns would more likely rush or give him the jump if he could if Adam was reloading or sneaked up on him than say a 6-year old or elementary teacher who is more concerned on their students safety than confronting the gunman themselves. I think possibility of internal resistance from the schools themselves factored in Adam's decision on choosing a target as well as the shock factor of mass murdering children, hitting at what hurts most for society.

I think Adam planned out the first part of his killing spree most with the moving of arms to his car and the murder of his mother Nancy but I think the actual school attack was semi-improvised upon reaching his target, he knew he was going to school and shoot it up but I don't think he planned every fine detail to a tee, he probably just had a general idea of "enter the school and do your worst" and his quick suicide in the actual massacre was mostly due to the police arrival at the scene as he had plenty of handgun ammunition to continue shooting with and would tried to invade more classrooms, it's possible he choose Sandy Hook as he remembered the the layout and locations more which would make looking for targets far easier than say the catholic school.

All in all, Adam planned what he could planned, he knew exactly how Act 1 of his massacre would go, Act 2 and Act 3 had general ideas but it was only upon reaching them, that everything else came up on the spot.

UncontinuedProcess wrote:

I think Adam planned out the first part of his killing spree most with the moving of arms to his car and the murder of his mother

Did he prepare his weapons and outfit before or after killing his mother?


And about his choice to kill children, I think it is because he wanted to kill the most people he could, with the less injured as possible (and unfortunately it worked really well). I guess when you are interested that much in mass shooters, you want to do better than them.

In fact what I meant by writing this thread, is whether or not the Lanza in the first comments on SBB was already a killer-to-be, or was it first fantasy and did he only realized lately that he could make his fantasy become real, even if it was bad. I am sure on this forum a lot of people sometimes imagine themselves as a mass shooter, being the one with the power and with the momentary fame, but would never do that because they know it is bad. And yet, they can't help but admiring to some extent the shooters. And a very small number of them would, one day, really decide to do a mass shooting. This is how I saw Adam Lanza at first when I read his comments on SBB, but now I am not that sure. Maybe he had already decided early that one day he would kill people. I don't know if the distinction is clear or not, I find it hard to explain what I mean. Maybe I am just making a fuss over nothing.

Neah wrote:

I think he even commented sometimes on SBB things that suggested that mass murder was a tragedy (although I may not remember well about that).

You must always keep in mind that he might not have been truthful, or may have been thinking of it as tragic in a much different way you or I would use the term.

Neah wrote:

Did he prepare his weapons and outfit before or after killing his mother?


And about his choice to kill children, I think it is because he wanted to kill the most people he could, with the less injured as possible (and unfortunately it worked really well). I guess when you are interested that much in mass shooters, you want to do better than them.

In fact what I meant by writing this thread, is whether or not the Lanza in the first comments on SBB was already a killer-to-be, or was it first fantasy and did he only realized lately that he could make his fantasy become real, even if it was bad. I am sure on this forum a lot of people sometimes imagine themselves as a mass shooter, being the one with the power and with the momentary fame, but would never do that because they know it is bad. And yet, they can't help but admiring to some extent the shooters. And a very small number of them would, one day, really decide to do a mass shooting. This is how I saw Adam Lanza at first when I read his comments on SBB, but now I am not that sure. Maybe he had already decided early that one day he would kill people. I don't know if the distinction is clear or not, I find it hard to explain what I mean. Maybe I am just making a fuss over nothing.

Word has it that there are unreleased photos along with Lanza posing with his weapons that basically show him having a dress rehearsal of what he would wear that day.

Not really sure if he was totally prep before or after killing his mother, do we have an estimated time when Nancy died? If it was around 7-8am then he would have enough time to arm and prepare himself, I assume that killed her to get her out of the way of final preparations as I imagine Adam moving through the house, loading weapons, changing clothes might've put his whole plan at risk if Nancy woke up. Really depends on how of a heavy sleeper Nancy was, either the first shot from the .22 rifle was enough to silence her forever or Adam quickly fired the rest of the 4 shots before she had time to even react.

Having maximum deaths and minimum injuries and survivors was definitely on Adam's agenda, when he was shooting, he was shooting to kill and more or less overkilled his victims while victims such as Jesse Lewis was one of the very people in the massacre to only be shot once, Adam probably knew Jessie would only require a simple close range headshot to stop from telling his classmates to flee but if you want largest amount of carnage, you better not have any risks of resistances that could foil your attempt on securing your place on history like Adam could easily be physically overpowered but no-one did because it takes alot of courage and self-sacrifice to charge at a person wielding a semi-automatic rifle in such close proximity, elementary school teachers would probably focus more on protecting students who probably can't fend for themselves, not saying that high school teachers aren't the same but I assume naturally high schools might put up more of a fight against the shooter like we seen with Kip Kinkel who was overpowered by fellow students in his shooting which couldve served as a warning to Harris and Klebold not to open fire on the crowded cafeteria as they couldve been swarmed/mobbed.

Adam's first posting occurred in 2010 and around that same time, the Bushmaster and Saigia was bought and throughout his posting through 2011, he would acquire the handguns as well, I assume he was picking his weapons of choice, on the question if he was killer-to be or fantasist, I think by the time he started posting on SSB, he was a heavy fantasist dangerously or already was killer-to be, many mass shooters like Harris said that acquiring the weapons is the point of no return but if this was the case for Adam, it sure took him a long time to fulfill his ambition of becoming Mass Murderer Supreme, I assume he took so long to actually commit mass murder was due to possible feelings of thinking he wasn't well equipped enough to carrying out a mass shooter and that conditions during 2010 and 2011 didn't personally suit Adam to carry out a massive attack that he wanted to. I'm not really sure that it has been properly confirmed but Nancy seem to had plans of moving out of Newtown by early 2013, Adam probably saw this as a threat to the only place he felt slightly comfortable in which couldve lead to carry out his killing spree by late 2012 before the last prefect opportunity to carry out his attack at the places he knew best and with his stated disillusionment with then recent Aurora cinema shooting which I speculate that Adam no longer saw mass murderers as people of interests but as competitors and saw James Holmes as one and general discontent with tehn-state of mass murder as he stated in one of his last ever e-mails: "The enthusiasm I had back when Virginia Tech happened feels like it’s been gone for a hundred billion years", he probably saw it as his personal duty to lack of a better phrase, make mass murder great again in his eyes by finally showing off and doing what he had to offer to the grand table of mass murder. I'm wonder by the end of the massacre, not really sure if he even thought about it in his last moments that he did a good job in his eyes and happy with what he just committed, I wonder if he even knew that he had secured his firm place in mass murder and history.

QuestionMark wrote:

Neah wrote:

I think he even commented sometimes on SBB things that suggested that mass murder was a tragedy (although I may not remember well about that).

You must always keep in mind that he might not have been truthful, or may have been thinking of it as tragic in a much different way you or I would use the term.

Or was straight up lying to make sure no-one on the forum could suspect him of plotting mass murder. I think William could be used as a example of this type of behavior.

UncontinuedProcess wrote:

Adam's first posting occurred in 2010 and around that same time, the Bushmaster and Saigia was bought and throughout his posting through 2011, he would acquire the handguns as well, I assume he was picking his weapons of choice, on the question if he was killer-to be or fantasist, I think by the time he started posting on SSB, he was a heavy fantasist dangerously or already was killer-to be

Some people get confused by Lanza's tendency to delete or edit posts to be cleared of all content, but I've wondered if maybe the post deletion/erasures were him deciding "no, I can't go on a killing spree" and attempting to erase the idea from his mind by cutting ties with the community. Tellingly, the last time he stopped posting, he didn't delete or redact any of his posts.

QuestionMark wrote:

UncontinuedProcess wrote:

Adam's first posting occurred in 2010 and around that same time, the Bushmaster and Saigia was bought and throughout his posting through 2011, he would acquire the handguns as well, I assume he was picking his weapons of choice, on the question if he was killer-to be or fantasist, I think by the time he started posting on SSB, he was a heavy fantasist dangerously or already was killer-to be

Some people get confused by Lanza's tendency to delete or edit posts to be cleared of all content, but I've wondered if maybe the post deletion/erasures were him deciding "no, I can't go on a killing spree" and attempting to erase the idea from his mind by cutting ties with the community. Tellingly, the last time he stopped posting, he didn't delete or redact any of his posts.

That's a pretty interesting theory QuestionMark, I'm surprised no-one thought of that before, not redacting or deleting of his posts he finally stopped posting for good could be a sign of Lanza of going "screw it, im gonna do it, no point in deleting these anymore".

.

Dingus wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Some people get confused by Lanza's tendency to delete or edit posts to be cleared of all content, but I've wondered if maybe the post deletion/erasures were him deciding "no, I can't go on a killing spree" and attempting to erase the idea from his mind by cutting ties with the community. Tellingly, the last time he stopped posting, he didn't delete or redact any of his posts.

That’s an interesting idea. He redacted posts on less murder-oriented sites too though, sometimes years later. He returned to delete posts on the website for his game clan and attempted to delete a drawing on another website. Would you take these as his desire to distance himself from outdated interests, or do you think it reflects some other psychological desire?

I also first thought about him deleting his posts on SBB as a way to take a step back and try to avoid non healthy topics. But then since he often did that on several websites I thought maybe it was in fact another proof that he had mental health issues and that he was completly paranoid.

Sabratha wrote:

Now the question when did he choose the Sandy Hook school itself as the preferred target is an open one. Nobody can be sure when he settled on that place.

He had threatened to kill the children at Sandy Hook in 2008. So if that's true, it was 2008 or earlier. A source said he's been planning since 2011.

From the two massive erasures on SSB during 2010 and 2011, was the redactions at time noticed by members of SSB, all talk of the erasures seem to date post-massacre, I wonder if any members of SSB noticed the deletions themselves during the time that Adam was still alive.

eyutytuheu wrote:

Sabratha wrote:

Now the question when did he choose the Sandy Hook school itself as the preferred target is an open one. Nobody can be sure when he settled on that place.

He had threatened to kill the children at Sandy Hook in 2008. So if that's true, it was 2008 or earlier. A source said he's been planning since 2011.

This was confirmed to be false by the local police.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Dingus wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Some people get confused by Lanza's tendency to delete or edit posts to be cleared of all content, but I've wondered if maybe the post deletion/erasures were him deciding "no, I can't go on a killing spree" and attempting to erase the idea from his mind by cutting ties with the community. Tellingly, the last time he stopped posting, he didn't delete or redact any of his posts.

That’s an interesting idea. He redacted posts on less murder-oriented sites too though, sometimes years later. He returned to delete posts on the website for his game clan and attempted to delete a drawing on another website. Would you take these as his desire to distance himself from outdated interests, or do you think it reflects some other psychological desire?

I think he might have been distancing himself from those topics as well.

I dont think he planned the attack at all, he drove up to a random school on a random day on a random hour, had to shoot his way in alterting everyone before he even killed one person, then walking along a random route killing random people. Had he not stumbled across all those huddled up kids the death toll would have been way lower, you could say he was lucky.
If he had planned it, would he not have known that the door would be locked and have walked along a fixed path? His frequent reloading implies nervousness and his sudden suicide immediately after the cops arrived also implies panic, which means he did not know what to do which in turn implies he had no plan.
Its weird considering what type of person he was, or we think he was, you would think he of all people would carefully plan when, where and how to attack, following a strict plan until the end. But that wasnt the case, it seems like he never crossed the line between fantasy and planning before the attack, which may lead to some interesting conclusions;
He was a far less violent and dangerous person than what is believed
He was far less intelligent than what is believed
He was psychotic during the massacre and was motivated by hallucinations
He didnt care about besting anybody, but why commit the shooting then?

I dont think laziness would be a good explanation considering how obsessed he was with the subject at hand.

Neah wrote:

Dingus wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

Some people get confused by Lanza's tendency to delete or edit posts to be cleared of all content, but I've wondered if maybe the post deletion/erasures were him deciding "no, I can't go on a killing spree" and attempting to erase the idea from his mind by cutting ties with the community. Tellingly, the last time he stopped posting, he didn't delete or redact any of his posts.

That’s an interesting idea. He redacted posts on less murder-oriented sites too though, sometimes years later. He returned to delete posts on the website for his game clan and attempted to delete a drawing on another website. Would you take these as his desire to distance himself from outdated interests, or do you think it reflects some other psychological desire?

I also first thought about him deleting his posts on SBB as a way to take a step back and try to avoid non healthy topics. But then since he often did that on several websites I thought maybe it was in fact another proof that he had mental health issues and that he was completly paranoid.

I would also say it was paranoia, which would support the theory that he was psychotic during the shooting.

Dingus wrote:

That’s an interesting idea. He redacted posts on less murder-oriented sites too though, sometimes years later. He returned to delete posts on the website for his game clan and attempted to delete a drawing on another website. Would you take these as his desire to distance himself from outdated interests, or do you think it reflects some other psychological desire?

Well he's dead so we will never know for sure.

My own impression is that Lanza had a lot of free time and also had some obsessive behaviors like washing his hands very frequently. To me this seems like it all might tie in to his redacting and deleting. Perhaps it was yet another form of obsessive behavior. He kept going back to his posts trying to make them "just right" (bringing a temporary relief in anxiety) or deleting them in frustration if he found himself unable to sufficiently "improve" them.

imgview wrote:

He was psychotic during the massacre and was motivated by hallucinations

For all we know he was psychotic for what might have been many years before the shooting. From what we know, he stopped internet activity some time (February 2012 was the last time kaynbred was active) before the shooting, which might suggest that he was going through what is called an "acute phase" of psychosis at the time - a phase like that lastingh a year is pretty rare though.

I do not see any evidence that he was actively experiencing hallucinations when he was in the school. He didn't just randomly snap. He seems too well organized for that:

• 3 days before the shooting, he was sending emails talking about chinese spree killers and Olga Hepnarova.
  
• 24 hours before the shooting, he got into his car and drove past Sandy Hook (driving wasn't something he did often)
  
• When he went to the school on Dec 14th, he took a semiautomatic shotgun, semiautomatic rife, two semiautomatic handguns. He took quite a bit of ammo for these guns. At the same time he left all the slow firing bolt-action guns, as well as the .22 slow-loading revolver. He certainly brought exactly those guns which made sense for a school shooting.
  
• He has been interested in school shootings for a long time before.
  
• He spent time online researchign firearms, posting and reading posts on rifle forums, YT gun videos etc.
  

I'm sure he was planning "an attack" for many months, although he may have chosen the Sandy Hook School as a target rather late. I'm sure he planned it, though I'm not saying it was a very good plan. Let's leave it at that - I don't want to point flaws or missed opportunities out in case some future shooter is reading this post.

I also do not think Lanza was extraordinarily smart. From what I remember Smiggle's posts, at the time he appeared to me less smart than the average forum poster.

Quote :

His frequent reloading implies nervousness and his sudden suicide immediately after the cops arrived also implies panic, which means he did not know what to do which in turn implies he had no plan.

The frequent reloading has been discussed before in some depth. One explanation is that his guns jammed frequently and the reloading is little more than a result of that. Another explanation is that he picked up on the bad advice in "Bullet Time". Lastly he was probably afraid of being physically overwhelmed by an adult if he found himself with no rounds in the chamber.
Same with the cops.

I do agree that fear of being caught alive seems to have been a factor in his behavior. But such a fear is no evidence for lack of planning. Shooting himself as soon as he saw the police might have been part of his plan, he knew shooters like him had little to no chances against kevlar-clad professionals with fully automatics.

Quote :

He didnt care about besting anybody, but why commit the shooting then?

Well, we will never know if he wanted to "best" some score. The fact that he created that excel table with all those previous spree killings might be seen as evidence of that, but it is in no way conclusive.

The fact that he chose a school with kids aged 5-7 might suggest he was trying to find especially easy targets, which in turn might suggest he was in fact thinking in terms of "besting a score".

Quote :

I dont think laziness would be a good explanation considering how obsessed he was with the subject at hand.

Agreed. I just don't think that an imperfect attack is evidence of lack of planning. I'd sooner point out to Lanza's detachment, lack of real life experience. He was living in his own, mostly fantasy, world. It was a very grim world, but one that was nevertheless not well grounded in reality.

imgview wrote:

I dont think he planned the attack at all, he drove up to a random school on a random day on a random hour

Not true, he scoped out Sandy Hook specifically in the days before the attack.

Sabratha wrote:

Dingus wrote:

That’s an interesting idea. He redacted posts on less murder-oriented sites too though, sometimes years later. He returned to delete posts on the website for his game clan and attempted to delete a drawing on another website. Would you take these as his desire to distance himself from outdated interests, or do you think it reflects some other psychological desire?

Well he's dead so we will never know for sure.

My own impression is that Lanza had a lot of free time and also had some obsessive behaviors like washing his hands very frequently. To me this seems like it all might tie in to his redacting and deleting. Perhaps it was yet another form of obsessive behavior. He kept going back to his posts trying to make them "just right" (bringing a temporary relief in anxiety) or deleting them in frustration if he found himself unable to sufficiently "improve" them.

imgview wrote:

He was psychotic during the massacre and was motivated by hallucinations

For all we know he was psychotic for what might have been many years before the shooting. From what we know, he stopped internet activity some time (February 2012 was the last time kaynbred was active) before the shooting, which might suggest that he was going through what is called an "acute phase" of psychosis at the time - a phase like that lastingh a year is pretty rare though.

I do not see any evidence that he was actively experiencing hallucinations when he was in the school. He didn't just randomly snap. He seems too well organized for that:

• 3 days before the shooting, he was sending emails talking about chinese spree killers and Olga Hepnarova.
  
• 24 hours before the shooting, he got into his car and drove past Sandy Hook (driving wasn't something he did often)
  
• When he went to the school on Dec 14th, he took a semiautomatic shotgun, semiautomatic rife, two semiautomatic handguns. He took quite a bit of ammo for these guns. At the same time he left all the slow firing bolt-action guns, as well as the .22 slow-loading revolver. He certainly brought exactly those guns which made sense for a school shooting.
  
• He has been interested in school shootings for a long time before.
  
• He spent time online researchign firearms, posting and reading posts on rifle forums, YT gun videos etc.
  

That is where I distinguish between fantasy and planing. Fantasy is researching shooters, imagining your own shooting, its unparticular, unorganized ideas and thoughts that are not much grounded in reality. There can be a very basic plan included in this, as where and how you will do it, but those thoughts are not as much about what will be what is should be. A plan is an organized idea that takes into valuation the best "tools", the different szenarios that could evolve etc. You could say a fantasy is about what it should be and a plan is about what it will be.  
Adam didnt plan a shooting, he fantasised about it until he finally did it. He wanst organized at all, which is weird for an ocd autist and makes me think that he did "snap".
I'm sure he was planning "an attack" for many months, although he may have chosen the Sandy Hook School as a target rather late. I'm sure he planned it, though I'm not saying it was a very good plan. Let's leave it at that - I don't want to point flaws or missed opportunities out in case some future shooter is reading this post.

I also do not think Lanza was extraordinarily smart. From what I remember Smiggle's posts, at the time he appeared to me less smart than the average forum poster.

Quote :

His frequent reloading implies nervousness and his sudden suicide immediately after the cops arrived also implies panic, which means he did not know what to do which in turn implies he had no plan.

The frequent reloading has been discussed before in some depth. One explanation is that his guns jammed frequently and the reloading is little more than a result of that. Another explanation is that he picked up on the bad advice in "Bullet Time". Lastly he was probably afraid of being physically overwhelmed by an adult if he found himself with no rounds in the chamber.
Same with the cops.

I do agree that fear of being caught alive seems to have been a factor in his behavior. But such a fear is no evidence for lack of planning. Shooting himself as soon as he saw the police might have been part of his plan, he knew shooters like him had little to no chances against kevlar-clad professionals with fully automatics.

Quote :

He didnt care about besting anybody, but why commit the shooting then?

Well, we will never know if he wanted to "best" some score. The fact that he created that excel table with all those previous spree killings might be seen as evidence of that, but it is in no way conclusive.

The fact that he chose a school with kids aged 5-7 might suggest he was trying to find especially easy targets, which in turn might suggest he was in fact thinking in terms of "besting a score".
It might also mean that voices were telling him to kill children. Or he simply was a coward.

Quote :

I dont think laziness would be a good explanation considering how obsessed he was with the subject at hand.

Agreed. I just don't think that an imperfect attack is evidence of lack of planning. I'd sooner point out to Lanza's detachment, lack of real life experience. He was living in his own, mostly fantasy, world. It was a very grim world, but one that was nevertheless not well grounded in reality.

Yeah, but that fantasy world also had a connection to reality as shootings happen in the real world.

QuestionMark wrote:

imgview wrote:

I dont think he planned the attack at all, he drove up to a random school on a random day on a random hour

Not true, he scoped out Sandy Hook specifically in the days before the attack.

Thats not planing. He also drove past different schools the morning of the shooting.

imgview wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

imgview wrote:

I dont think he planned the attack at all, he drove up to a random school on a random day on a random hour

Not true, he scoped out Sandy Hook specifically in the days before the attack.

Thats not planing. 

Oh bullshit it isn't. You don't get to move the goal posts like that.

Quote :

That is where I distinguish between fantasy and planing. Fantasy is researching shooters, imagining your own shooting, its unparticular, unorganized ideas and thoughts that are not much grounded in reality.

Well, "not much grounded in reality" seems to be a perfect description of Lanza as a whole.

I'm not sure I fully get or agree with your way of distinguishing fantasy from plan. To me it seems rather arbiutrary and "academic". Fantasy can fluently transform into a plan. Or someone can plan, then back out of it and go back to just fantasy.

I'd say a fantasy is a thought process where you imagine yourself in a situation that is pleasant and enjoyable for whatever reason. Say a person derives joy from a power-trip when he/she imagines himself as a killer deciding who lives and who dies.
Pure fantasy stops when such a person takes active steps to implement the fantasy. Say buying a gun.

I think Lanza did just that. He read about guns and school shootings, deciding what patterns to follow, which shooters killed large numbers of people and why. He read about various firearms trying to find the best ones for the occasion. He got his mom to provide him with the weapons he needed. At some point he found the target itself, certainly by mid December he stalked out the school.
Rememebr that he was an indoor, severly disordered person. He didn't drive often at all - that fact that during the day he got into the car when his mom was away - that in itself means he was up to something. This was very unusual behavior for him.

Maybe this isn't a detailed enough plan foir you to consider it as such. But for Lanza, this was a plan. This was something he was preparing for quite some time.

Sabratha wrote:

For all we know he was psychotic for what might have been many years before the shooting. From what we know, he stopped internet activity some time (February 2012 was the last time kaynbred was active) before the shooting, which might suggest that he was going through what is called an "acute phase" of psychosis at the time - a phase like that lastingh a year is pretty rare though.

You may have missed the FBI documents that were released near the end of last year. Adam was active online through the summer and fall of 2012 after a brief "virtual suicide" right before the summer of 2012 and he also went back to the theater where he played DDR that fall. He was communicating lucidly and his behavior was more or less unremarkable aside from a possible increase in his depressive state. He may have been having psychotic symptoms which he was hiding from everyone else but I think it's very unlikely that he had an acute break from reality in the months leading up to the shooting.

sscc wrote:

You may have missed the FBI documents that were released near the end of last year. Adam was active online through the summer and fall of 2012 after a brief "virtual suicide" right before the summer of 2012 and he also went back to the theater where he played DDR that fall. He was communicating lucidly and his behavior was more or less unremarkable aside from a possible increase in his depressive state. He may have been having psychotic symptoms which he was hiding from everyone else but I think it's very unlikely that he had an acute break from reality in the months leading up to the shooting.

I know he was sending out emails, but I thought he ceased being active on forums and YT as Smiggles, kaynbred and fuckcomments.

Was there any specific site/forum where he was still active in late 2012?

Sabratha wrote:

sscc wrote:

You may have missed the FBI documents that were released near the end of last year. Adam was active online through the summer and fall of 2012 after a brief "virtual suicide" right before the summer of 2012 and he also went back to the theater where he played DDR that fall. He was communicating lucidly and his behavior was more or less unremarkable aside from a possible increase in his depressive state. He may have been having psychotic symptoms which he was hiding from everyone else but I think it's very unlikely that he had an acute break from reality in the months leading up to the shooting.

I know he was sending out emails, but I thought he ceased being active on forums and YT as Smiggles, kaynbred and fuckcomments.  

Was there any specific site/forum where he was still active in late 2012?

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Based on the dates of surviving reblogs that I (and other researchers) have found, he was probably active on Tumblr under these two names between mid July 2012 and early November 2012.

He uploaded videos to the Dailymotion account on August 17, 19, 20 and then on October 22, 2012.

Edit: Clearly, this is what he was doing during the three months of being at home that Nancy mentioned, so that mystery was solved with the release of the FBI documents.
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(Red dots are GPS records of trips that were presumably taken in Adam's car.)

Thanks, its interesting to know that the brakedown he had in summer 2012 was short.

QuestionMark wrote:

imgview wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

imgview wrote:

I dont think he planned the attack at all, he drove up to a random school on a random day on a random hour

Not true, he scoped out Sandy Hook specifically in the days before the attack.

Thats not planing.

Oh bullshit it isn't. You don't get to move the goal posts like that.

What?

Sabratha wrote:

Quote :

That is where I distinguish between fantasy and planing. Fantasy is researching shooters, imagining your own shooting, its unparticular, unorganized ideas and thoughts that are not much grounded in reality.

Well, "not much grounded in reality" seems to be a perfect description of Lanza as a whole.

I'm not sure I fully get or agree with your way of distinguishing fantasy from plan. To me it seems rather arbiutrary and "academic". Fantasy can fluently transform into a plan. Or someone can plan, then back out of it and go back to just fantasy.

I'd say a fantasy is a thought process where you imagine yourself in a situation that is pleasant and enjoyable for whatever reason. Say a person derives joy from a power-trip when he/she imagines himself as a killer deciding who lives and who dies.
Pure fantasy stops when such a person takes active steps to implement the fantasy. Say buying a gun.
Its still fantasy at that point, just one he wanted to realise.

I think Lanza did just that. He read about guns and school shootings, deciding what patterns to follow, which shooters killed large numbers of people and why. He read about various firearms trying to find the best ones for the occasion. He got his mom to provide him with the weapons he needed. At some point he found the target itself, certainly by mid December he stalked out the school.
Rememebr that he was an indoor, severly disordered person. He didn't drive often at all - that fact that during the day he got into the car when his mom was away - that in itself means he was up to something. This was very unusual behavior for him.
Again, he was simply indulging in a fantasy.

Maybe this isn't a detailed enough plan foir you to consider it as such. But for Lanza, this was a plan. This was something he was preparing for quite some time.

"A plan is typically any diagram or list of steps with details of timing and resources, used to achieve an objective to do something. See also strategy. It is commonly understood as a temporal set of intended actions through which one expects to achieve a goal. For spatial or planar topologic or topographic sets see map."

Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential – Winston Churchill

Plans are nothing; planning is everything. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

When I say "not grounded in reality" I mean that the shooters dont think about what will be (how will people react, how long does the police need etc.) but what they want it to be. (I will go in there and my shooting will be biggerer and betterer than Breiviks).
Cho and Breivik had a plan, Kretschmer and Steinhäuser a fantasy. There are cases where people are in between those two, like E&D themselves. They did have a plan, however it wasnt really realistic but grounded in wishfull thinking, they were just highschoolers after all. Bosse is another great example, completly overestimating the effectivenessof his weapons. I, however, dont think that Lanza falls into that category. Sure, he was delusional, but his "hobby" was grounded in reality, when reading about shootings he was confronted with reality. Its just weird to me that he didnt seem to have a proper plan because you would think he of all people would have one. And I dont see any evidence for a plan.
But of course, that is just regarding my standards for a plan. Getting guns, driving past a place and reading about shootings just doesnt cross the line for me.

P.S The same distinction, organized vs unorganized, is made for Serial Killers.

And I am not an academic

Yeah I think that's where we differ. For me a simple, ineffective or an unrealistic plan is still a plan.
But I get what you are saying - while Lanza's research and firearms preparation seem quite extensive, the actual "on site attack" plan of his seems very simple in comparison. Not what you have called a "proper plan". Obviously Breivik's plan was "better" because it was more deadly.

I don't think hallucinations are the best explanation for the discrepancy in his planning.

While it is possible that he killed his mother in some sort of entirely delusional state, it is highly unlikely that in that same state he would neatly pack all his "right" firearms and ammo and went to a school he staked out last day.

My own guess would be that the reason behind the simpliocity of his "on site" attack plan is his anxiety and mental health. This is a 20 year old who felt uneasy being left alone for a few days, disliked going out in daylight and from what we know had real problems with interacting face-to-face with other people.

So it was easy for him to be an "armchair researcher" and to read any and all firearm manuals or watch firearm videos he could find. But perhaps actually going out and visiting a place "in the flesh" was much more difficult for him, far more difficult than it is for you and me?

Perhaps a person with more social skills could talk his way into the school, learn the layout, etc and plan better. But I imagine Lanza was too anxious and too afraid that he would panic if a teacher started talking to him. So he just staked the place out from afar.

Just a guess.

Sabratha wrote:

Yeah I think that's where we differ. For me a simple, ineffective or an unrealistic plan is still a plan.
But I get what you are saying - while Lanza's research and firearms preparation seem quite extensive, the actual "on site attack" plan of his seems very simple in comparison. Not what you have called a "proper plan". Obviously Breivik's plan was "better" because it was more deadly.

I don't think hallucinations are the best explanation for the discrepancy in his planning.

While it is possible that he killed his mother in some sort of entirely delusional state, it is highly unlikely that in that same state he would neatly pack all his "right" firearms and ammo and went to a school he staked out last day.

My own guess would be that the reason behind the simpliocity of his "on site" attack plan is his anxiety and mental health. This is a 20 year old who felt uneasy being left alone for a few days, disliked going out in daylight and from what we know had real problems with interacting face-to-face with other people.

So it was easy for him to be an "armchair researcher" and to read any and all firearm manuals or watch firearm videos he could find. But perhaps actually going out and visiting a place "in the flesh" was much more difficult for him, far more difficult than it is for you and me?

Perhaps a person with more social skills could talk his way into the school, learn the layout, etc and plan better. But I imagine Lanza was too anxious and too afraid that he would panic if a teacher started talking to him. So he just staked the place out from afar.

Just a guess.

In USA you cannot just walk into an elementary school if you are an adult. So no way could he do that and learn the layout.

Personally I think Adam Lanza planned the attack.He researched the best weapon AR-15 liberal want to ban so you know its an effective weapon. He loaded and hid the weapons in his car.

I think his murder of Nancy was the most planned. The shooting was planned but it was not super planned like Breivik. Because for example the teacher locked all the doors and barricaded themselves in their class room if Adam Lanza planned he would have known this and maybe he would have pulled the fire alarm like Nick Cruz.


Of course the thing is Lanza did not need a lot of planning. He was not attacking a place with a lot of security locks and police officers. Nobody at the school had a gun aside from Lanza so even if he walked in there with no plan, the damage would have been great.

imgview wrote:

it seems like he never crossed the line between fantasy and planning before the attack, which may lead to some interesting conclusions;
He was a far less violent and dangerous person than what is believed
He was far less intelligent than what is believed
He was psychotic during the massacre and was motivated by hallucinations
He didnt care about besting anybody, but why commit the shooting then?

Given what he did, I don't see what makes you think he was less violent and dangerous than what is believed. I also don't see why reloading should mean it was unplanned. I don't think you can really plan and prepare yourself to the stress, excitation and tiredness that you will feel during a mass shooting because it goes beyond imagination and because what is at stake is huge. Anything that was not plan can happen and make a plan useless anyway, so it is probably why he always reloaded. And you can plan your behavior, but you cannot plan other people's reaction for sure.

Sabratha wrote:

I'm not sure I fully get or agree with your way of distinguishing fantasy from plan. To me it seems rather arbiutrary and "academic". Fantasy can fluently transform into a plan. Or someone can plan, then back out of it and go back to just fantasy.

I'd say a fantasy is a thought process where you imagine yourself in a situation that is pleasant and enjoyable for whatever reason. Say a person derives joy from a power-trip when he/she imagines himself as a killer deciding who lives and who dies.
Pure fantasy stops when such a person takes active steps to implement the fantasy. Say buying a gun.

I agree, and I also think (although you probably know better about that and could tell me if I am wrong) that fantasy and planning can be mixed. Isn't it possible for someone to think it is just fantasy while he is actually unconsciously planning the shooting? For example buying a gun because he thinks he just wants to try shooting (even if he is aware that he wants to try shooting because he is fascinated with shooters) while it is in fact for killing people but he is not even aware of it yet.

I should have explained what I meant when I used the word "planning" in my original post. In fact I think there is at least two meanings: planning as preparing exactly what will be done in a rather precise way, and even sometimes thinking about alternatives in case something goes wrong. But what I meant was simply when did he stop only fantasying about it and actually decided he would do it, even if there was no plan ("plan" in the first meaning).

Nancy bought Adam the Bushmaster in 2010, so I'm guessing since then.

I think it was definitely planned but he was not as serious untill towards the end

i believe Adam started planning the attacks around 2009/2010 around the time he began ostensibly researching killers, buying weapons modeled after His combat arms loadouts, Saiga 12, M4A1 (AR-15) and a Glock 23 (similiar to Glock 20SF). Around 2009 He all of a sudden begins making all his accounts on, Glocktalk, wikipedia and the High road, He starts discussing firearms obsessively and editing wikipedia articles on killers. Along with buying a large amount of firearms and attachments he calls in to Anarchy Radio talking about travis chimp, a unusual random thing for adam to do since he was very shy. As he grew older his fantasy world was falling apart and the big world he hated was closing in so he started planning from 2009. He had floor plans of the school and before the shooting gps data from his car showed that Adam had drove to and past SHES as well as St Rose of lima on numerous occasions, obvious scout outs and recon. Adam planned his attack very thoroughly and chose specific weapons, he dressed and performed the shooting in a tactical like manor with strategic reloads and dual mags, we can also tell it was well planned by the speed and non hesitation he showed in the massacre, he planned to kill as many as possible as quick as possible by making sure there was no survivors, he shot the children numerous times each to make sure they were dead. He planned his attack a fair amount.

TheyAllFloatDownHere wrote:

i believe Adam started planning the attacks around 2009/2010 around the time he began ostensibly researching killers, buying weapons modeled after His combat arms loadouts, Saiga 12, M4A1 (AR-15) and a Glock 23 (similiar to Glock 20SF). Around 2009 He all of a sudden begins making all his accounts on, Glocktalk, wikipedia and the High road, He starts discussing firearms obsessively and editing wikipedia articles on killers. Along with buying a large amount of firearms and attachments he calls in to Anarchy Radio talking about travis chimp, a unusual random thing for adam to do since he was very shy. As he grew older his fantasy world was falling apart and the big world he hated was closing in so he started planning from 2009. He had floor plans of the school and before the shooting gps data from his car showed that Adam had drove to and past SHES as well as St Rose of lima on numerous occasions, obvious scout outs and recon. Adam planned his attack very thoroughly and chose specific weapons, he dressed and performed the shooting in a tactical like manor with strategic reloads and dual mags, we can also tell it was well planned by the speed and non hesitation he showed in the massacre, he planned to kill as many as possible as quick as possible by making sure there was no survivors, he shot the children numerous times each to make sure they were dead. He planned his attack a fair amount.

Proof?