Truthers and Sandy Hook

[arayder]

I should have said that the facts of Sandy Hook don't lead to even marginally believable conspiracy theories.

Most of the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories employ the usual ploy of asking questions, providing no answers and then filling in the falsely created doubt with speculation dressed up as reality.

Like. . .why was Adam Lanza wearing a mask?. . .why did acquaintances report he seemed a like a normal kid just a few years ago?. . .why did the cops at first think the attacker was Adam's older brother?

Then after about a dozen or so questions some conspiracy theorists come along and wrap all theses pretend earth shattering questions in a theory that makes much less sense and is much less proven than the "official version".

[JamesVincent]

You mean who has that time, when they should be mass consumers living the American apple pie life correct?

Yes my priorities of truth and knowledge over mindless dibble and useless banter that spews from most people's mouth is backwards to you I'm sure.

And I'm sure it would surprise you that me, my wife and two girls do not live with mine or her mother. But never let that stop people from using generalizations and personal experience to form beliefs.

No, buckwheat, I mean that when someone has a true and fulfilling life they don't spend hours a day on stupid triviality. I am a single parent of 3 and I can guarantee you, even when I was married, I didn't have 6-8 hours a day for months on end to devote to anything but either a. making a living or b. doing something with or for my kids. If anything I had even less time being married since that added c. doing something with, for or to my wife. If you added up every minute I spend on Quatloos for the entire week I doubt it would be 6 hours, much less more every day. Which means you either are full of merde or you don't put enough into your marriage and fatherhood as a parent should. Hell, just in the last week I didn't work for two days since all 3 had physicals and Mary had another Neuro appointment that took 3 hours. Being married and having kids should be the highest of priorities and pretty damn close to every minute of every day should be devoted to one of the situations described earlier. And I'm self employed, there's no way in hell you could do that working for the man AND having a family.

So, like I said, get over yourself.

[Judge Roy Bean]

I spent 6-8 hours a day for 6 months looking at the evidence, a couple of more years debating it online. We will never know what happened that day, and to speculate whose conspiracy is correct( the government's or the truthers) will never work out.

People are set in those beliefs, one way or the other.

My understanding of investigative procedure and the rules of evidence would lead me to believe that you've never touched a single piece of what would amount to be admissible evidence. Any "debate" (especially on-line) based on such is little more than a cut and paste exercise among the oddly-motivated ignorant.

[Jeffrey]

The state did an absolutely lousy job interacting with the public and media in the transparent form that happened with Columbine.

I don't think that contributed much to the genesis of the conspiracy theories.

IMO the big drivers for SH is that there's a conspiracy theory industrial-complex with established media infrastructure in place to push this stuff as fast and as hard as possible.

[Number Six]

There are plenty of groups pushing the conspiracy theories and a few like Snopes seeking to debunk them: http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/newtown.asp But of course the conspiracy theorists will always pull out the bias card that Snopes is funded but the intelligence complex and not independent. Wikipedia is also reasonably objective but will pull some controversial stories for fear of lawsuits.

[arayder]

I read through all this source material and I still don't see an explanation of how Adam Lanza got his hands on the guns in the first place. Apparently he shot his mother (I shutter) with a .22 rifle and then used the AR-15 at the school. He also took a couple of handguns with him to the school.

But everything I have read tells me that Mrs. Lanza knew how troubled Adam was. So one explanation is that in a colossal bit of poor judgement she allowed him access to the guns. It's possible he somehow got access to the .22 and then took the gun safe keys (if the safe was keyed) off his mother's body or out of her purse or some other hiding place.

Earlier he may have looked over her shoulder as she worked the combination on the gun safe (if that's the system she had) and used that knowledge to get the .22 and the other guns out of the safe while his mother slept. He may have used the .22 in the house because it less noisy than the AR or the handguns.

Hindsight is 20/20 but I think it would have been much more cautious on Mrs. Lanza's part to have stored the guns at a friends house or at a gun club or range that offers storage services.

[JamesVincent]

I read through all this source material and I still don't see an explanation of how Adam Lanza got his hands on the guns in the first place. Apparently he shot his mother (I shutter) with a .22 rifle and then used the AR-15 at the school. He also took a couple of handguns with him to the school.

But everything I have read tells me that Mrs. Lanza knew how troubled Adam was. So one explanation is that in a colossal bit of poor judgement she allowed him access to the guns. It's possible he somehow got access to the .22 and then took the gun safe keys (if the safe was keyed) off his mother's body or out of her purse or some other hiding place.

Earlier he may have looked over her shoulder as she worked the combination on the gun safe (if that's the system she had) and used that knowledge to get the .22 and the other guns out of the safe while his mother slept. He may have used the .22 in the house because it less noisy than the AR or the handguns.

Hindsight is 20/20 but I think it would have been much more cautious on Mrs. Lanza's part to have stored the guns at a friends house or at a gun club or range that offers storage services.

IIRC your memory serves correctly. The weapons were locked in a gun case and he used the mother's keys after he murdered her. The weapon in question was a .22 bolt action rifle that she used for him to shoot at the range and was stored separately. He was not of a violent bent, was diagnosed with a form of Autism, a high functioning Autistic, nominally Asbergers. She used shooting as a kind of therapy for him, somewhere for him to belong since he felt different from everyone else. It is unknown, again AFAIR, how he originally gained access to the .22 since it was locked up normally, maybe they were planning to take it somewhere.

As far as locking them away in another facility which one of us out there can tell when someone will commit murder that is totally out of character? I have a lovely collection of swords and hunting knives and I have 3 kids with issues, should I lock them somewhere else just on the less then .1% chance that maybe one of them will maybe use them to maybe hurt someone? And as has been pointed out multiple hundreds of times if someone does not have access to a ready made weapon, a hammer will do just as nice.

[arayder]

Thanks, James. I wondered about the .22.

I guess it's easy for me to assume Lanza's behavior was predictable since I have the benefit of hindsight.

The New Yorker article that I referenced earlier made it seem as though Adam had developed some troublesome behaviors in the months before the shooting. I suppose since the major source of the article was Adam's father who was seeing less and less of the child the perspective may be skewed.

One investigative problem, it seems to me, is that the one person who knew best what was going on with Adam was killed.

. . .And as has been pointed out multiple hundreds of times if someone does not have access to a ready made weapon, a hammer will do just as nice.

My New England grandmother used to repeat the old rhyme:

"Lizzy Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks.
And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41."

[Patriotdiscussions]

You mean who has that time, when they should be mass consumers living the American apple pie life correct?

Yes my priorities of truth and knowledge over mindless dibble and useless banter that spews from most people's mouth is backwards to you I'm sure.

And I'm sure it would surprise you that me, my wife and two girls do not live with mine or her mother. But never let that stop people from using generalizations and personal experience to form beliefs.

No, buckwheat, I mean that when someone has a true and fulfilling life
what makes a true and fulfilling life?

they don't spend hours a day on stupid triviality.

yes stupid of me to want the truth about 3k of my fellow Americans dieing, call me crazy, there was so much more important things going on

I am a single parent of 3 and I can guarantee you, even when I was married,
well you see, we had no kids then, was just dating and she kind of entertains herself, amazing really. Hate to bring it up, but spending all that time with her still left you single correct?

I didn't have 6-8 hours a day for months on end to devote to anything but either a. making a living
by making a living I can pretty much assume you mean working to buy nice things to impress people. We don't suffer from that, we keep our bills low so not to making a living as a workaholic.


or b. doing something with or for my kids. If anything I had even less time being married since that added c. doing something with, for or to my wife. If you added up every minute I spend on Quatloos for the entire week I doubt it would be 6 hours, much less more every day. Which means you either are full of merde or you don't put enough into your marriage and fatherhood as a parent should. Hell, just in the last week I didn't work for two days since all 3 had physicals and Mary had another Neuro appointment that took 3 hours. Being married and having kids should be the highest of priorities and pretty damn close to every minute of every day should be devoted to one of the situations described earlier. And I'm self employed, there's no way in hell you could do that working for the man AND having a family.

So, like I said, get over yourself.

Sounds like you kept that hamster wheel turning brother, good for you. I would recomend the book "the ten natural laws of time and life management" to help you plan your time a little better.

[Patriotdiscussions]

Thanks, James. I wondered about the .22.

I guess it's easy for me to assume Lanza's behavior was predictable since I have the benefit of hindsight.

The New Yorker article that I referenced earlier made it seem as though Adam had developed some troublesome behaviors in the months before the shooting. I suppose since the major source of the article was Adam's father who was seeing less and less of the child the perspective may be skewed.

One investigative problem, it seems to me, is that the one person who knew best what was going on with Adam was killed.

. . .And as has been pointed out multiple hundreds of times if someone does not have access to a ready made weapon, a hammer will do just as nice.

My New England grandmother used to repeat the old rhyme:

"Lizzy Borden took an axe and gave her mother 40 whacks.
And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41."

Of course lizzy was found not guilty

[JamesVincent]

by making a living I can pretty much assume you mean working to buy nice things to impress people. We don't suffer from that, we keep our bills low so not to making a living as a workaholic.

I don't know about you but my kids were pretty damn expensive, especially considering I had 3 in diapers at the same time and all 3 were lactose intolerant, which meant special formula that was even more expensive. As far as impressing other people if you haven't figured out by now that I could give two shits less about impressing others then there's even less hope for you then Famspear thinks. Making a living is paying the bills and paying for the things that make you comfortable.

BTW, I was concerned about a bunch of our people dying (one of the people who died in 9/11 lived less then 5 miles from where I'm sitting right now, if you go into town you will see a plaque with his name and a tribute to him. He was also military. ) so I re-enlisted and went back in the military, to help protect against others who would want to try it again. I sure as piss didn't sit around and piss and moan over something I never had the clearance to fully know. The day of 9/11 I watched the planes hit and called out of work right then. Then I volunteered myself and several other friends volunteered to drive into DC to help at the Pentagon, since DC was about 500 miles closer. A good friend, with whom I worked, was there for several weeks and was one of the ones that stayed on to pump out the water from the basement of the Pentagon. I went there on and off to help out when I could.

Regardless, a fulfilling life is just that, a self fulfilling life that creates it's own joy and doesn't need any outside forces to make it fulfilling. My ex never understood that, she only understood money and her "friends" which is why I am divorced and which is why I have custody of our kids (if you had ever bothered to go back through old threads you would have known that, I talked about it a good deal here and there, especially the legal parts of my custody over the years.) I drive a 15 year old work truck, have a nice little house on top of a mountain and my kids are happy and healthy, that's a fulfilling life. I have a drive to help others, which is what brings me to Quatloos, to help others. These kinds of things work against sitting around all day on the internet trying to "examine" evidence and "debating" a bunch of crap that you never knew to start with.

[arayder]

. . .The weapons were locked in a gun case and he used the mother's keys after he murdered her. The weapon in question was a .22 bolt action rifle that she used for him to shoot at the range and was stored separately. He was not of a violent bent, was diagnosed with a form of Autism, a high functioning Autistic, nominally Asbergers. She used shooting as a kind of therapy for him, somewhere for him to belong since he felt different from everyone else. It is unknown, again AFAIR, how he originally gained access to the .22 since it was locked up normally, maybe they were planning to take it somewhere. . . .

For anyone interested here is the State's Attorney's Final Report: http://www.ct.gov/csao/lib/csao/Sandy_H ... Report.pdf

It is interesting to note that months after the shooting witnesses were concerned that if their identity were disclosed they might be left open to threats and intimation (see page 7). The report says in a footnote that some witnesses were, indeed, threatened.

[arayder]

. . .by making a living I can pretty much assume you mean working to buy nice things to impress people. We don't suffer from that, we keep our bills low so not to making a living as a workaholic.

On the internet nobody knows you're a dog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Int ... u're_a_dog

[Pottapaug1938]

PD said: "yes stupid of me to want the truth about 3k of my fellow Americans dieing...."

Well, then -- stop paying attention to screwball conspiracy hypotheses, which are nothing but a collection of perceived anomalies and factoids, plus healthy doses of misunderstood or ignored evidence and an intense emotional need to believer in the existence of a conspiracy, without a coherent unifying theme.

[wserra]

Well put, James.

[JamesVincent]

For anyone interested here is the State's Attorney's Final Report: http://www.ct.gov/csao/lib/csao/Sandy_H ... Report.pdf

It is interesting to note that months after the shooting witnesses were concerned that if their identity were disclosed they might be left open to threats and intimation (see page 7). The report says in a footnote that some witnesses were, indeed, threatened.

Thanks for the link Arayder. I had never seen the whole report but had seen bits of it. Doesn't really mention much more then I remembered but it does tie together what I remembered.

[JamesVincent]

Thanks, James. I wondered about the .22.

I guess it's easy for me to assume Lanza's behavior was predictable since I have the benefit of hindsight.

The New Yorker article that I referenced earlier made it seem as though Adam had developed some troublesome behaviors in the months before the shooting. I suppose since the major source of the article was Adam's father who was seeing less and less of the child the perspective may be skewed.

One investigative problem, it seems to me, is that the one person who knew best what was going on with Adam was killed.

If memory serves he had always been withdrawn, which is pretty much a given when you're talking about someone with Asberger's. They have an entirely different outlook and a way of seeing things so it's kind of hard for them to relate to other people and most people are too busy to really come at them with something they can understand. Over the past year he had shut off communication with some people he had been communicating with, like his father and brother. Again, not a real symptom of any significant change, hell I've done that before and not talked to people for years that I had normally talked to. On top of that he was a growing young man and there are normal changes involved in that. The things that may have been most telling were not known to others around him. Things like his looking up Columbine and studying other mass killings. He had never shown violent tendencies even when provoked at school and had helped with school projects. He had several acquaintances that he did keep in relative contact with. Again, there was nothing to say that he was a danger to himself or others, much less signs then of any other mass murderer that I remember. The two that committed the horrible acts at Columbine screamed "We need some serious help" compared to the little hints with Lanza.

And you are definitely correct, the person who could have had the most impact on the investigation would have been his mother, his first victim.

[JamesVincent]

Well put, James.

Thank you Wes.

[arayder]

For anyone interested here is the State's Attorney's Final Report: http://www.ct.gov/csao/lib/csao/Sandy_H ... Report.pdf

It is interesting to note that months after the shooting witnesses were concerned that if their identity were disclosed they might be left open to threats and intimation (see page 7). The report says in a footnote that some witnesses were, indeed, threatened.

Thanks for the link Arayder. I had never seen the whole report but had seen bits of it. Doesn't really mention much more then I remembered but it does tie together what I remembered.

You are welcome.

The document reads like a "just the facts, ma'am" Joe Friday report. Things the investigators didn't know about they just didn't comment on. There is no speculation, no educated guesses.

I can see why some conspiracy theorists might think of it as a whitewash.

I suspect there are plenty of child psychologists who might have some good ideas about what was gong on in Adam's head. The report talks about some changes in his behavior and the fact that he wasn't taking his medication regularly in the the last few weeks of his life.

I suspect there are hundreds of Adam Lanzas in the world, the difference being that the rest of them were stopped before they shot their mothers and two dozen people at an elementary school. Maybe after they went after uncle Bob with a pocket knife, or while they were trying to make a fertilizer bomb in the garage? Maybe after a family member checked the medicine box and found out that about two weeks worth of pills were still there?

[arayder]

. . .The things that may have been most telling were not known to others around him. Things like his looking up Columbine and studying other mass killings. He had never shown violent tendencies even when provoked at school and had helped with school projects. He had several acquaintances that he did keep in relative contact with. Again, there was nothing to say that he was a danger to himself or others, much less signs then of any other mass murderer that I remember. The two that committed the horrible acts at Columbine screamed "We need some serious help" compared to the little hints with Lanza.

Well for that matter the fact that I have googled "Newtown shooting" several times lately doesn't mean anything, does it? But I have stayed on my meds. . .for blood pressure and cholesterol.

But to be honest I still am troubled by the idea of a highly medicated, immature 20 year old with Asperger's and OCD going off his meds in a house full of firearms, swords and knives.

But again that's in hindsight.