Mass Shooting Case Study

The motivation that backs a person to commit a mass shooting has peaked the minds of many over the years. Maybe none quite as much as the shooting that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School, December 14th 2012. Adam Lanza decided to end the lives of twenty six innocent women and children, and then turned the gun on himself. There is no excuse for something so disturbing as this crime, but there are explanations for why something like this may happen. In Lanza’s case there were so many big changes that were happening in his life. There was also numerous warning signs that were overlooked that could have potentially ceased this tragedy from occurring. Lanza also suffered from Asperger’s syndrome, anorexia, and depression that all
Well Lanza did have a friend, until he didn’t. Lanza had a falling out with his one and only friend months before the shooting. They had an argument over a movie and Lanza demanded that they should never speak to each other again. Before their fight Lanza and his friend who remained named, would spends hours at a time playing video games together. They did more than just play video games, and actually created a real friendship. Lanza and his friend “talked about multiple topics, including computers, chimp society, human nature, morality, prejudice, and sometimes about his family. AL told his friend that he had a strained relationship with his mother” (ABC). Lanza would sometimes talk with “his one and only friend” about the topic of mental health or depression. He did tell his friend that mental health issues were not a reflection of the character of a person, but were symptoms of something else going on inside a person (ABC). You can conclude that Adam was defending himself because he suffered from mental illnesses of his own, including Asperger’s syndrome, anxiety, anorexia, and depression. Lanza and his friend also talked about their interest in mass murderers or serial killers. And they both also had a love for horror movies, which was believed to be just a mutual interest, but was really a precursor for horrible things to
According to Dr. Peter Langman, who has studied mass shooters in his career, “in order to kill innocent little children, it's possible the killer lacked compassion or empathy for them, instead seeing them as symbols of something he wanted to obliterate” (Huffington Post). His absence of empathy was clear when Adam did not hesitate to cut his only friend and father out of his life. Lanza’s love of shooter games and mass murders also exploits his loss of empathy. Two weeks before the shooting, Nancy Lanza discovered graphic pictures in her son’s room of dead bodies, but she did not confront him.
In an email dated December 11, 2012, three days before his attack, Lanza wrote to an unnamed chatter: "The inexplicable mystery to me isn't how there are massacres, but rather how there aren't 100,000 of them every year."
Played video game “School Shooter”. Character resembled Dylan Klebold, shooter of