Are any of our kids at this school that had the shooting?

DDD

Well-Known Member
Fran the two reports that I watched regarding him having an assigned counselor etc. stipulated that it was not due to any propensity for violence initiated by him. It was concern that he was so vulnerable that he would likely be targeted by the other students...bullying and harrassment. I so relate to that "deer in the headlights" photograph. difficult child#2 had that same of uncomfortable expression in photos for quite a few years. Fortunately that trait faded as he lived longer in our home and began to feel safe...at least "at home".

I'm very curious what medication he was taking...if any. If AS stands alone I don't know of any medication used except perhaps an anxiety medication or a sleep medication. It will be of interest to eventually find how he was diagnosis'd and by whom. Most of us have had to seek multiple professionals over a span of years to feel comfortable with the diagnosis. Somehow I can't place blame on his Mom. Like the rest of us she was imperfect but obviously dedicated and trying to do her best. DDD
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I hadnt heard the guns were loaded. Are you confusing my posts about years ago when we kept guns loaded here? We dont anymore. Though I really could use it since I really dont even know how to load most of them. One time I had to use a gun and I used it as a baseball bat..lol.

Billy is up in arms over them saying this boy only had aspergers too. He says if they had looked at him at that age they would have thought he looked blankly and didnt feel emotional pain but really how does anyone know that? Aspies tend to not show feelings easily especially with people they dont know well. Unlike me who will argue with a tree stump! (or blank internet page as it be)

If this boy had aspergers then he probably also had something else going on too. Aspies couldnt do this.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
There was no doubt more going on with him than AS, we all know disorders usually don't travel alone. I agree that the fact that his mom said never to turn your back on him and to watch him at all times is telling. I'm sure she was protective of him and not wanting to disclose what was going on, who does? It's apparent there was stuff going on. For the security person at the school to be that concerned about him tells you there was something there. If we learned anything by this tragedy it's that we have to be smarter and we can't ignore things and we have to keep advocating for our children and we can't hide problems. I'm not saying we have to yell it from the rooftops but if we keep things hidden then nothing will ever change.

If he was on medication he would be under a doctor's care. It's true that the medical field does not know how to treat these disorders. I begged for help when my difficult child was 7 years old and throwing tantrums that lasted hours. No one knew how to help and they didn't even recognize it was a problem. Listen to these parents talk now about their children, they are finally starting to open up, we are no longer alone, we can make a difference in getting the medical community to pay atention.
 

Kathy813

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Besides the mother suffered the ultimate consequence to her choice to leave guns unlocked.

Sadly, so did 26 other innocent souls.

Of course, we don't know that she didn't have them locked up. Maybe she had the keys hidden and he found them. Then again, if they weren't in the house in the first place. . .

I said I wouldn't post on this thread again so I will go back to my hole now before I get into trouble.

~Kathy
 

Jody

Active Member
I also saw on one of the news shows that a teenager that went to school with him, said he was extremely quiet but that no one picked on him, if they did no one saw it. I guess he always carried a briefcase to class, which of course probably caused some ridicule but she said honeslty that no one openly teased him or bullied him the year she sat behind him. She didn't recognize his name until someone said that he was the kid with the briefcase. Then she knew who he was. I have bi-polar and I hate when the media and public say that a person is bi-polar because they do something off, or isn't in the best of moods. I don't like that generalization. And I in no way believe anyone with autism or aspbergers, could do what this kid did, with only that diagnosis. I find it hard to believe that the school district would hire a full time aide to walk around with a kid who had the possibility to be teased, even when they are teased I have never really heard that they are then assigned a full time aide. At this point I don't think a diagnosis matters. Evil, perhaps, just plain evil. I can only think that anyone who could do something like this, for certain was mentally deranged, and void of all emotion. Something was broken and in a very bad, bad way. Unfortunately the outcome of even having assault weapons, and the carelessness and ireesponsibility of one parent has caused a nation anguish. Unspeakable pain for those who were close to the victims. Our schools are broke, we need better security, I think we in the United States are going to have to start doing a whole lot more volunteering. I know that I am. Maybe some of our returning veterans who are looking for work, (I saw that as a suggestion on facebook) could become the security in our schools. Of course with close screening. We can't prevent every tragedy from happening, but this one could have been prevented, and should have been.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Janet, I did not mean you...honest. Your boys and you are not dangerous anyway. Peace :)

As for school security, certain schools, in high crime areas, have metal detectors before anyone can get inside. Maybe that's what we'll have to do everywhere. We, who live in low crime suburbs or small towns or rural areas, get lulled into a false sense of security; a feeling that this can't happen to us and our kids wouldn't do this. Any kid anywhere can do this. I heard that in Rockford IL they have metal detectors and it's effective. Since I heard this second hand and can't verify, this could be incorrect.

I wonder if we will come to that. Metal detectors in the hallway of every school...
 

Jody

Active Member
Well in this case, he broke in, by breaking the glass and going in, so it wouldn't have worked. But in other cases it could work. Combined with harsher penalties for parents who don't keep their guns locked up properly or don't hide the key well enough to the gun cabinet. No assault weapons.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Me too Kathy....ditto!

Last word, on one of the talk shows yesterday there was a dad whose son killed two students and wounded eleven in California a few years ago. He had guns in the basement in a locked gun case. He said he always had the key. He begged other parents to get the guns out of their houses. He knew his son was a loner and had trouble socially also. He was in tears begging other parents to get rid of the guns. Locked cabinets are no obstancle.
 
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DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I do think we need a ban on assault guns but...the bigger issue is mental health. If it werent for the fact that this boy had mental health issues he could have been sitting on an entire arsenal of weapons...he could have had a pile of Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED)'s and he wouldnt have used them. Lucid people dont kill people. Oh you have the blue moon passion crimes or the break in's but they arent what you need to worry about.

MWM...I am not taking any of this personally. Not really. Some of the stuff where people are screaming that if there is a person in the house with a mental health diagnosis then guns shouldnt be allowed in the homes is ticking me off because you cant just make that blanket statement. There are mental health diagnosis's and then violent mental health diagnosis's.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
There are mental health diagnosis's and then violent mental health diagnosis's.​
There's also "stable" and "unstable"... and missing dxes... and... I too don't think you can make a blanket diagnosis about MI dxes and guns... but "unstable" or any hint of violence, with or without a diagnosis, is a different story.

There are no easy answers.
There are SOME really-long-term answers - but they belong to society as a whole, not just the "powers that be".
The best the "powers that be" can do is to shrink the size of the cracks in the system, so that fewer people get caught in the cracks.
 

Calamity Jane

Well-Known Member
Can someone clarify something for me? I've heard on the news that Lanza had no pain sensitivity, and he was cutting himself and burning himself, apparently. I don't know how they know this, however.
Is cutting yourself and burning yourself part of Aspergers? I never thought it was. That definitely sounds like a compulsion, or a mental illness. So let's say he was cutting himself or burning himself. If he did those things, how does that correlate to blowing away all those people? Many people unfortunately self harm, and they don't commit murder - or do they? It would seem more like he would've committed suicide, not homicide, then suicide. I don't think we'll ever get any reasons, because no reason would ever justify this atrocity.
 

Californiablonde

Well-Known Member
I'm bipolar and I'm a cutter. I definitely feel the pain when I used to do it. I've never heard of self harm being correlated to autism. At least my son never does it. I don't think we will ever have the answers we are looking for, unfortunately, since the shooter committed suicide. NO matter how you look at it, it just doesn't make sense. No one will ever know how he felt that day or why he did it. And that makes it all the more sad.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
My difficult child will accidentally cut or burn himself - with some regularity because of his interests - and not know he's done it unless he sees blood. He does not have the kind of sensitivity in his hands, especially, that most of us have. He's been taught to double-check bath/shower water temp using other means (i.e. not just sticking your arm in the water). This is not an Aspie trait - it's due to something else (we don't know exactly).

But... he doesn't deliberately cut or burn himself. Which would be definitely a sign of something serious going on.
 

buddy

New Member
Oh lots of kids with autism self harm ....there are different kinds of self harm though but head banging, hitting and biting self are some I have seen a lot.
 

Calamity Jane

Well-Known Member
OK, the New York Post online is now reporting that Nancy Lanza was looking into sending him away to a residential facility, and Adam got wind of it, and he felt very betrayed. NY Post also reports that Nancy was friends with the Sandy Hook school principal and psychologist, and Nancy often volunteered at the school. They write that Adam thought his mom loved the kids at the school more than him, and felt she was plotting getting rid of Adam with the psychologist and principal.
If all that is true, and who knows if it is, that could explain why he methodically plotted and killed his mom while she was sleeping and brought enough ammo to kill every student and faculty member at the school.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I think until everything has been released by the police we would be best not to speculate on motives or what anyone did or didnt do based on news reports. The cops have released a statement saying that they do not want speculation out there and could prosecute based on speculation. Or something along those lines. I do know they released something from the chief medical office saying they had confirmed his diagnosis of aspergers but they had no way of knowing if this was a correct diagnosis or his only diagnosis.

Considering the fact that earlier the school system denied any knowledge of this parent having anything to do with this school, I doubt she volunteered there. They would have known if she was one of their volunteers I would think. It wasnt that large a school. Also, how does a parent send a 20 year old to a Residential Treatment Center (RTC)? We have problems sending kids under 18 to them. After 18 they have to be voluntary. In some states it has to be voluntary after age 14.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Janet, remember these are just opinions. I grew up without guns and am not part of the gun culture. I would have been shocked to see a gun in anyone's house. I didn't know anyone whose family went hunting. Guns are foreign to me...and weapons not to be messed with. To me, if you have a mentally ill kid, it just makes good common sense not to have a gun in your house and certainly not to teach him to shoot it. I am puzzled by what this mother did...it makes no sense to me. That doesn't mean I think everyone with a diagnosis should not be able to hunt or defend themselves.

I do live in a strong gun culture now. However, my main reminder of this is of my daughter Jumper's ex boyfriend, J. He was seriously depressed and mentally ill (and knew it) and was constantly telling her he was glad there were guns around his house because he was going to have to use them one day. His parents know he suffers from serious depression. It is puzzling to me that they hand him guns and take him hunting and that he has access to the guns in the house. In his case, he could get help for his mental illness, but he won't. To me, the parents are just giving him an easy way to kill himself that he talks about a lot. But, again, I wasn't raised with guns so they are foreign to me. Everyone is different. Cultures are different, even in the US.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I only grew up with one gun...my grandfathers WWI antique 22 rifle that had been in the family since he died and it passed on to my mom. She guarded that thing with her life and we got it when she died. It was in awful shape then. She had taken it apart and it was all rusted up because she thought Tony was trying to steal it from her. He did want it simply because it was so old and she had let it get in such bad condition and he knew it was something that would be meaningful to me and my boys one day. He babied that thing when we finally got it and put it back together until it finally worked again.

I really had no clue about guns until I met Tony. I had no clue about a whole lot of things country...lol. I was a city mouse who met a country mouse. I didnt even know how to eat fish with bones in them, it was that bad.

Tony had always had at least two guns with him at all times. I think both were shotguns when I first met him but I cant really remember that far back. I do know the oldest one was a model 1897 mossburg. That had been his grandfathers. He loved that gun. When the boys got old enough to learn to hunt he got them a very small shotgun called a 410 which is about the smallest thing you can get. I dont know why we ever got rid of it. Im surprised we didnt save it for grandkids. Now they are plastic. They are single shot guns. I dont know if that even makes sense to someone who doesnt understand a shot gun. Some shot guns hold more than one shell, some dont. I had to get used to him taking the boys out and letting them hunt. They were boys and they loved being with their dad. Thing is we didnt ever do play guns so they understood guns had one use. Killing. They werent toys. We never played with them. They were very serious in our house.

I dont have handguns here. No need. We dont do anything we need a handgun for. I dont want to keep one in the house. My theory is having to keep one locked up in safe isnt going to do me much good if I have to protect myself. I can get to the shotgun faster. I would never own an assault rifle. I think they are awful. You cant hunt with them. We are hunters that have very strict standards that dont agree with killing just killings sake. If you arent going to eat what you kill, dont kill it. Tony doesnt just trophy hunt. He also uses all the meat on the deer. Some people only use two parts...the loin and the hams. Not us. We use it all and turn it into everything we can possibly use. We even feed the organ meat to our animals. When I met Tony I thought meat came from the grocery store, now I know differently and I find I actually prefer it when we grow our own. I dont like what I see from the awful conditions some are raised in.

Okay, probably more than was needed.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Janet and all, if she went to court and had him declared incompetent, then she could send him to an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) against his will, either temporarily or permanently. I just went though that with my cousin. The difference is, when she was told I was applying for guardianship (there is always a court appointed lawyer to represent the "minor"), she had a fit, just as Adam did, but she forgot the next day (and she doesn't own a gun). I was able to move forward and go to court with-o her there. Obviously, Adam was not forgetful. In fact, he was just the opposite.
So, yes, she could have sent him to an Residential Treatment Center (RTC), fwiw.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
But she would have had to prove he was incompetent and that is not an easy thing to do. If all he was presenting with was what they are reporting as aspergers, I dont see it. I could have no more had Cory declared incompetent than I could have flown to the moon.
 
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