Who or What Caused The Massacre?

[Jazzy]

Lanza killed 20 children aged six and seven and six adults at Sandy Hook elementary school having previously shot dead his mother Nancy last Friday. He then shot himself dead. Police are still searching for a motive.



It has emerged that Lanza spent his time in the basement of the family’s four-bedroom home in Newtown playing video games, such as Call of Duty and obsessing over guns and military equipment, according to an interview in The Sun with plumber Peter Wlasuk.



Call Of Duty is controversial because of its violent content. The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK banned daytime advertising of the game earlier this year.



“It was a beautiful house but he lived in the basement. I always thought that was strange,” said Mr Wlasuk, who went into the basement on several occasions while working at the house.



“But he had a proper set up down there — computers, a bathroom, bed and desk and a TV. There were no windows.”



“The boys were fans of the military. They had posters all over the wall in the basement.



“They had one poster of every piece of military equipment the US ever made.

“It was a huge poster with every tank every made. The kids could tell you about guns they had never seen from the 40s, 50s and 60s.



“The kids who play these games know all about them.



“I’m not blaming the games for what happened. But they see a picture of a historical gun and say 'I’ve used that on Call Of Duty’.”



It has also been claimed that Nancy Lanza taught Lanza to handle firearms to instill him with a “sense of responsibility” and even took him to the shooting range just days before the atrocity.



Lanza was apparently so emotionally detached in his teens that school officials assigned him a psychiatrist. They feared that he might harm himself, but did not regard him as a danger to others.



Lanza, a painfully shy computer “nerd” who was said to have had a development disorder, “loved being careful” with guns and “made it a source of pride”, according to friends of his mother Nancy.



Mrs Lanza, a gun enthusiast who owned at least five weapons and was the first victim of his rampage, introduced Adam and his older brother Ryan to firearms at a young age. Indeed, she took her younger son to a local firing range just days before the rampage, CNN reported.



“She told me she had wanted to introduce them to the guns to teach, especially Adam, a sense of responsibility,” a friend told NBC television.



“Guns require a lot of respect and she really tried to instill that. And he took to it. He loved being careful with them. He made it a source of pride.”

Source



Topic questions:



Did playing Call Of Duty cause his violent behavior?



Was his mother responsible by owning at least five weapons?



Did the psychiatrist fail to see that he was a danger to other?



Discuss......

 

[wirelessguru1]

Of course violent video games play an important role on this...

 

[Evil Eye]

Did playing Call Of Duty cause his violent behavior?



Was his mother responsible by owning at least five weapons?



Did the psychiatrist fail to see that he was a danger to other?

No, no and I'm not even nearly qualified to judge that.



Everything is always so easy in hindsight.

 

[Fatal Dawn]

Not more then his parents...

Seriously..

The guy's mother was building up a makeshift armory in her house and takes her emotionally-disturbed son (who is now even more influenced by the violent video games) to a shooting range.

“She told me she had wanted to introduce them to the guns to teach, especially Adam, a sense of responsibility,” a friend told NBC television.

Why couldn't she just get them a goldfish?

 

[Jazzy]

[font=tahoma, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(251, 253, 254)]Did playing Call Of Duty cause his violent behavior? [/background][font=tahoma, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(251, 253, 254)]I believe this played a major factor. [/background]



[font=tahoma, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(251, 253, 254)]Was his mother responsible by owning at least five weapons? [/background][font=tahoma, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(251, 253, 254)]Not by owning the weapons but by allowing her son USE the weapon when he was not in a stable mental state. [/background]



[font=tahoma, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(251, 253, 254)]Did the psychiatrist fail to see that he was a danger to other? [/background][font=tahoma, helvetica, arial, sans-serif][background=rgb(251, 253, 254)]Yep. Dropped the ball as so many do. They see hundreds of kids and don't have the time to really dig deeper into the problem staring them right in the face. [/background]



[background=rgb(251, 253, 254)]In my opinion, it was the psychiatrist that played the major role in what happened. He/She knew this boy was unstable but yet decided he was not a harm to others. Well, hell, what do you think now Mr. or Mrs, shrink????[/background]

 

[Sinon]

Would someone care to explain how videogames in any way contributed to this? From my understanding of it, the guy was a weapons nut long before Call of Duty came out. Additionally, if videogames are such a huge factor, why haven't I and a few million other people gone on murderous rampages?



Anyone notice that books and movies don't get demonized? Despite the fact the latter is generally more graphic than most videogames are, and the former allows a much larger freedom of imagination.



Also, that makes the fourth different videogame they've blamed as a contribution to this nutbar's mental inability to function as a normal human being. The other three being Mass Effect 3, Dynasty Warriors and Starcraft.



I have played Call of Duty for years, ever since COD2 which came out what...7 years ago? idk. I've played Dynasty Warriors for about the same length of time, and I've played all three Mass Effect titles multiple times. I've also been diagnosed with severe depression and had thoughts (and attempts) at harming myself/taking my own life. However, not once has it ever occurred to me to murder a bunch of children because the videogames tell me to. In fact, none of the games they are trying to pin the blame on feature children, aside from a short sequence in Mass Effect 3 during which you have no weapons and cannot harm said child. Therefore, I do not see a correlation between the two.



Notice how the person they interviewed in the article mentions a key comment. The boys were fans of the military. So how about instead of blaming fantasy media, we blame the military? Mass Effect 3 and Starcraft are science fiction - the weapons in it aren't real. Dynasty Warriors is set a long, long time in the past. No guns. Just swords, axes, staves, and other such weaponry. Call of Duty is the only one of the four to feature real guns. And if you think they handle in-game the way they do in real life, you're not really fit to comment at all.



I'd also like to point out his mother's lack of responsibility. Introducing her children to guns at a young age is fucking stupid. You don't hand a little kid a kitchen knife or a woodcutting axe, why the hell would you hand a little kid a gun? Stupid, stupid, stupid.



Instead of misdirecting anger at an already controversial form of media, why don't they look closer to home? Mental problems? He didn't get those from videogames. Obsession with the military? That didn't come from videogames. Obsession with guns? Didn't come from videogames. Developmental disorder? You know what I'm going to say.

 

[Jazzy]

On a side note, Humans are killers, we must not blame anything besides Humans...

I'm not a killer. Are you?

 

[Jazzy]

You're over-looking my point... :tongue2:/>

The thread title is who or what caused the massacre. I guess I just don't understand the point you're trying to make here.

 

[DrLeftover]

According to the protester at the press conference today it was the National Rifle Association.

 

[Fatal Dawn]

On a side note, Humans are killers, we must not blame anything besides Humans...

What are your grounds for making such a statement?



Biologically-speaking I would disagree. Some animals including humans do have mirror neurons – a sort of hardwired empathetic and emotional contagion. The only notable exception I’m aware of is those who are autistic who do not possess the same capacity for emotional intelligence especially in registering facial expressions. I would not even venture to believe sociopaths are void of mirror neurons. For example, it is said that sociopaths engage in manipulative behavior, suggesting some form of emotional intelligence; sociopaths might understand the mechanical workings of empathy to a certain degree in order to emotionally and psychologically manipulate others. Indeed in any regard there is something far greater to blame besides humans: the environment.



http://www.youtube.c...&v=t0pwKzTRG5E#!



Philosophically, I feel you have more of a point. Though even here I would try to emphasize ethical relativism, the distinction between the good and evil in the human condition is neither cleanly defined nor independently stagnant.



http://blogs.scienti...s-and-villains/







I would largely agree that video games cannot be fully blamed. However...



We do not live in a vacuum. For any phenomenon like violence, anything in the environment (media, social, etc.) can be a factor on the individual. While I agree that video games might not be the catalyst, there is no reason to suggest it was a non-factor in this case.



You also have to remember that this is an exceptional case in nature and hence I don’t feel can be support by an argument to the masses (I would hope millions of people would play video games without going on mass shootings). As for an explanation, I feel that the realm of psychopathology is useful. For example, studies have shown that people with aggressive tendencies are not always made so by video games, yet those type of people specifically seek out those type of games. The specific type of game is important as violent behavior is associated with those types of games – far more than say puzzle games which do not influence behavior in the same way. Lastly, it is important to consider not just the level of simulated violence, but how the violence is framed. Role-playing games or first-person shooters for, example, offer a more immersible game play. In this instance, knowing what exactly the suspect invested in the game is important, because people often identify with characters symbolically. In a sense you might be right, in that some psychologists believe the opposite – that video games can act as a positive an outlet (or vent) for some people with violent tendencies through aggression catharsis.

 

[wirelessguru1]

Society (aka, evil) is to blame.

 

[DrLeftover]

And then you have the ignorant:





http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-...lk-get-shot-just-when-the-vanilla-children-do

 

[Jazzy]

And then you have the ignorant:





http://www.breitbart...lla-children-do

And this is how he backs up what he said: http://crimeinchicago.blogspot.com/2012/12/connecticut-doesnt-have-shit-on-chicago.html?m=1

 

[Fatal Dawn]

And who's in this society?



Humans...

That says little about human nature (that is removed from the influence of social and cultural agents). Society is an institution framed by a cadence of dominant ideologies. Forget about subcultures for a moment and just consider the individuals in society who contribute minimally to shaping the dominant culture..



Even if society was evil, can the same thing be said to individual components within society? And if individuals cannot be held to societal ideologies, then how can this evil even be applied so broadly to human nature?

 

[DrLeftover]

Yeah, gun control has really worked in Chicago

All residents who purchased and registered their handguns prior to January 1982 were allowed to keep their weapons. Chicago became the first major city to enact a handgun freeze in United States history.

Soon other suburbs began passing gun control legislation. In the fall of 1982, Evanston banned handguns. In 1984, Oak Park became the third municipality to ban handguns. The following year, Oak Park became a battlefield for national forces, as both the National Rifle Association and Handgun Control, Inc., poured resources into a referendum on repealing the ban, which failed narrowly. The impact of the Chicago freeze was felt far away, as Mayor Diane Feinstein of San Francisco began her own campaign for similar legislation. Highland Park began restricting handguns in 1989.

In 1992, led by Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Chicago City Council voted to ban assault weapons. Contests over gun control continued in 1998, when the city and Cook County filed a lawsuit against gun manufacturers.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/557.html

 

[TommyTooter]

the mother was involved with white nationalist survivalists and that's what the weapons were about.



as with the aurora shootings, there were reports of multiple shooters that have been suppressed and both fathers were allegedly scheduled to testify in the LIBOR hearings.



the tin foil hat crowd has been lit up screaming CIA/mossad false flag operations about this whole spate of shootings since the gabby gifford shooting.



there is something highly questionable about how the tragedy has been played up to generate consent for gun bans when our drone bombs are killing children all over the place, our depleted uranium shells are causing birth defects in our own troops and a thousand kids die of starvation every day for every little white suburban kid that got shot that day.

 

[TommyTooter]

Yeah, gun control has really worked in Chicago







http://www.encyclope.../pages/557.html

historically, cities that tighten their gun laws experience increases in gun crime following it.



kennesaw , GA enacted an ordinance requiring citizens to keep a loaded gun in their homes and the domestic burglary rate fell by 85% in the first year.

 

[Jazzy]

the mother was involved with white nationalist survivalists and that's what the weapons were about.

So, are you saying the mother caused the massacre?

 

[TommyTooter]

So, are you saying the mother caused the massacre?

not really, though in a lot of ways she might as well have pulled the trigger -- if adam lanza was the only shooter. she introduced him to the gun culture and left him alone for several days right before the shooting.



the lone wolf crazy guy is too convenient a cover story. there appear to have been three other people flee from the school after the shooting and lanza didn't have the right gun or enough ammo to do all the shooting himself.