(MintPress) – Last Friday, a teary-eyed and emotional President Obama addressed the nation, stating that there have been too many tragedies in the last few years:
“Each time I learn the news I react not as a president, but as anyone else would — as a parent. And that was especially true today … I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do.
“They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own … Among the fallen were also teachers, men and women who devoted their lives to helping children fulfill their dreams.”
Twenty-seven children and adults were killed in a school shooting in the affluent town of Newtown, Conn. This, the second largest mass shooting in American history, has shaken this nation and the world to the core.
In remembrance of those lost, we list and recognize the victims of this tragedy:
- Charlotte Bacon, age 6, student
- Daniel Barden, age 7, student
- Rachel Davino, age 29, staff member
- Olivia Engel, age 6, student
- Josephine Gay, age 7, student
- Ana M. Marquez-Greene, age 6, student
- Dylan Hockley, age 6, student
- Dawn Hochsprung, age 47, school principal
- Madeleine F. Hsu, age 6, student
- Catherine V. Hubbard, age 6, student
- Chase Kowalski, age 7, student
- Nancy Lanza, age 53, mother of shooter
- Jesse Lewis, age 6, student
- James Mattioli, age 6, student
- Grace McDonnell, age 7, student
- Anne Marie Murphy, age 52, staff member
- Emilie Parker, age 6, student
- Jack Pinto, age 6, student
- Noah Pozner, age 6, student
- Caroline Previdi, age 6, student
- Jessica Rekos, age 6, student
- Avielle Richman, age 6, student
- Lauren Rousseau, age 30, staff member
- Mary Sherlach, age 56, staff member
- Victoria Soto, age 27, staff member
- Benjamin Wheeler, age 6, student
- Allison N. Wyatt, age 6, student
In all of this, it is easy to point out the gaping inconsistencies of the nation’s gun laws or how a strengthened policy could have avoided all of this. But, the first and principal point that must be made is that this happened to young children, aged 6 and 7. In all, our first duty is to our children, and such a terrible loss rips at the core of our shared morality. As Ted Anthony, in his essay for AP, said:
“But one of the pieces of common ground we still seize — no matter how much we differ on the methods — is the welfare of, and deep love of, our children. And the abrupt loss of 20 of them seemed, for an afternoon, to stop a nation cold.
“Twenty children who will not have children, who in turn will not have children, who in turn will not have children. Dozens of parents who will not watch their child grow to adulthood, graduate, come home for the holidays, walk down the aisle. Scores of grandparents who will look across the generations and see less than they would have 24 hours before. Hundreds of accomplishments that will go unaccomplished. Inventions that will not be invented. Good deeds that will not be committed. Ideas that will not be expressed. Romances that will never happen and kindnesses that will never be shared.”
On Friday, Adam Lanza, age 20 — an honor student from a well-heeled neighborhood — killed his mother and drove to the Sandy Hill School to commit an act that is second only to the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007 in regards to shootings for its horribleness and body count. Only the 1927 Bath School bombings, in which 38 children and six adults were killed and at least 58 were injured, constitutes a deadlier school-based murdering. Newtown was known for its “rural charm” and the safeness of its streets — prior to the school shooting, there was only one homicide in the town in the last 10 years.
Prior to the securing of the school’s front doors at 9:30 a.m., Lanza entered the school, dressed in black fatigues and a bulletproof vest and mask. The heavily armed man started shooting at approximately 9:35 a.m., while the school announcements were being read over the intercom.
Over a few minutes, Lanza entered one first-grade classroom, and then the other, shooting everyone he saw. Not saying a word during the entire ordeal, he shot himself after the spree. Recovered from the scene were a .233-caliber Bushmaster rifle, a 9mm Glock pistol and a 9mm SIG Sauer pistol. All three firearms were legally registered and owned by Lanza’s mother, who was a gun enthusiast. A fourth weapon, a “long gun,” was found in the car Lanza used to drive to the school. All of the victims were shot with the Bushmaster.
Adam Lanza was a troubled man, as reported in the Telegraph. A highly intelligent person, he displayed symptoms that suggest that he had Asperger’s syndrome, a highly functional form of autism — more commonly found in people with high topical intelligence — in which a person is unable to relate or connect socially. Lanza also displayed signs of sociopathy, or the detachment of rational consideration of consequence from personal actions. Those who knew him in school commented on Lanza’s behavior:
“A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn’t fall because he could get hurt and not feel it. Adam had a lot of mental problems.”
“He didn’t fit in with the other kids,” he said. “He was very, very shy. He wouldn’t look you in the eyes when he talked. He didn’t really want to lock eyes with you for very long.”
“It was almost painful to have a conversation with him, because he felt so uncomfortable. I spent so much time in my English class wondering what he was thinking.”
His extreme social discomfort made working and school difficult, and he was living with his mother — who gave up working to take care of him full-time. His father, Peter Lanza — a professor at Northeastern University in Boston who recently became a vice president for GE Energy Financial Services — has divorced and remarried, which was an emotional hit for the family. Adam, particularly, took it hard.
As presented by AP, Peter Lanza has issued a statement in regards to the shooting:
“Our hearts go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones and to all those who were injured. Our family is grieving along with all those who have been affected by this enormous tragedy. No words can truly express how heartbroken we are.
“We are in a state of disbelief and trying to find whatever answers we can. We too are asking why. We have cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to do so. Like so many of you, we are saddened, but struggling to make sense of what has transpired.”
Two days before the shooting, Adam Lanza attempted to buy a rifle at a sporting goods store in Danbury, Conn. He refused to undergo the background check or wait the mandatory waiting period and was denied the sale. A day prior to the shootings, Lanza was believed to have gotten into an altercation with four staff members at Sandy Hook School — two of whom (the school principal and the staff psychologist) were killed in the shooting and one (the vice principal) was wounded.
The roots of this evil
This nation has witnessed, as of late, an onslaught of gun violence. In 2012 alone, there have been eight incidents of school or mass shootings worldwide, seven of which occurred in the United States; this is up from five shootings in the U.S. in 2011 and three in 2010. A list of the incidents follows:
- Feb. 10: In Walpole, N.H., a 14-year-old shot himself in front of 70 students;
- Feb. 27: At Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio, a former student was arrested for randomly shooting and killing three students;
- March 6: In Jacksonville, Fla., Shane Schumerth, a fired teacher at the Episcopal High School, shot and killed the school’s headmistress, Dale Regan, with an assault rifle;
- March 19: In Toulouse, France, Mohammed Merah shot and killed a rabbi, three paratroopers, two of the rabbi’s children and a third unrelated child at a Jewish school in retaliation for the killing of Palestinian children;
- April 2: In Oakland, Calif., One Goh, a 43-year-old former student at Oikos University, opened fire on campus, killing seven;
- July 20: In Aurora, Colo., during a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises,” James Holmes opened fire in the crowded theater. At least 12 were killed and 38 wounded;
- Aug. 5: In Oak Creek, Wis., Wade Michael Page, a neo-Nazi, opened fire at a Sikh temple, killing six and wounding three;
- Dec. 14, 2012: In Newtown, Conn., the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
While there is no set profile for a person who would shoot up a school — a school killer can come from any segment of life and be of any color, ethnicity or environment — researchers who have studied the perpetrators of such acts have determined that certain characteristics are common. Among the different lists — including reports from the American Psychological Association and the National School Safety Center — a loose consensus of common warning signs for potential youthful offenders emerged:
- Chronic feelings of isolation or rejection;
- Frequent angry outbursts;
- Social withdrawal or depression;
- Fascination with or possession of weapons;
- Alcohol or drug dependency;
- History of bullying behavior; and
- Lack of interest in school or poor school performance.
Such profiling efforts are imprecise and — in the case of the Lanza case — inconclusive. In 1999, James McGee and Caren DeBernardo introduced the “Classroom Avenger” — a list of exclusionary and inclusionary criteria to be used in making early determinations of those likely to engage in school violence. Among the inclusionary criteria are:
- Male
- Caucasian
- Middle Class
- Average age 16
- Rural or small community residence in south or northwest
- Physically healthy
- Dysfunctional family (superficially normal)
- Family anger and power struggles
- Poor parent and sibling relationships
- Loner/social outcast
- Member of alienated group
- Attends public school
- Family history of mental illness, personality disorders or substance abuse
- Guns in the home, proficiency with firearms
- Appearance of normality to adults
- Negative self-image and unstable self-esteem
- “Geeks or nerds” who are rejected by mainstream students
- Average to above average IQ
- No history of serious school/conduct problems
This method won fans when it served to provide the closest profile to Kip Kinkel, who, in 1998, killed his parents and opened fire in the Thurston High School’s cafeteria, killing two and wounding 25. While many of these traits have been proven to be accurate — for example, there have been only two female perpetrated shootings recorded (in one of these cases, in 2008 in Baton Rouge, La., a nursing student killed two fellow students and herself at the Louisiana Technical College), and most of the perpetrators have shown signs of mental distress or illness — the United States Secret Service argues it is more accurate to ask about behavior than to ascertain subjective traits:
- What has this child said?
- Do they have grievances?
- What do their friends know?
- Do they have access to weapons?
- Are they depressed or despondent?
This process of predicting potential violent tendencies in children has been criticized heavily. A computer behavior assessment program — partially funded by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — has been made available to school administrators to identifying potential threats. This program — Gavin de Becker, Inc.’s Mosaic 2000 — which was released in 1999, received scathing reviews. At the core of the argument against the program and against student profiling in general is that it develops a bias on the most superficial of characteristics. Without understanding the causes of these traits and behaviors, educators and law enforcement are empowered to judge and separate without due process or fair consideration. In addition, the process violates privacy rights and exposes schools to retaliatory legal action. Kevin Dwyer, co-author of “Early Warning, Timely Response” — the Clinton administration’s report on the shooting at Thurston High — said:
“It is inappropriate, and potentially harmful, to use the early warning signs as a checklist against which to match individual children … It is important to avoid inappropriately labeling or stigmatizing individual students because they appear to fit a specific profile or set of early warning indicators. It’s okay to be worried about a child, but it’s not okay to overreact and jump to conclusions.”
Unfortunately, in times of crisis, this nation is quick to jump to conclusions.
As with other shootings, the usual suspects will be rolled out and accused. Evangelicals will blame the lack of Christian belief in this country. Media producers of violent content, gun manufacturers, Web sites and the shooter’s family will all be sued in due time in an attempt to make sense of the inconceivable.
Gun violence is a major issue in the United States. According to GunPolicy.org, the United States is the most armed nation in the world, with more than 270 million guns in civilian hands, or slightly less than one gun per every man, woman and child. To put this in perspective, the whole of the U.S. military has just over 3 million firearms. All of law enforcement in the United States has 897,400 firearms. In 2009, the United States had 2.98 gun homicide per 100,000 people (9,146 in total), which places the U.S. in the top tier of G20 nations for gun violence — at par with Argentina at 3.0 per 100,000 people, and dwarfed by Brazil and Mexico.
Gun ownership is a polarizing issue. Gun control advocates argue that gun violence in this nation approaches Third World levels, and that the proliferation of guns made even quiet bedroom communities possible war zones. Gun rights advocates argue that a person’s right to be armed is infallible and protected by the Constitution (many, however, argue that the Second Amendment is a state rights amendment ensuring the states the rights to form state militia separate from the national defense force, and not a personal rights guarantee). A recent poll shows the nation to be evenly split between gun control and gun rights.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has grown to be a corrupting force in American politics. With more than $1 million in political contributions, $2.2 million in lobbying, and $17.6 million in outside spending — according to OpenSecrets.org — the NRA has became a major player in the drafting and engineering of the Republican Party’s politics. For many in Congress, losing the NRA’s support constitute a kiss of death, causing — in many cases — a shift in politics opposite to popular public opinion. This was seen in the 2012 elections, in which less than 1 percent of all NRA’s political spending was spent on winning campaigns.
But blaming the Newtown tragedy on guns amounts to whitewashing over the true issue. This nation faces a bigger problem.
On why gun control may not be the only answer
One would have to ask if guns make a killer, or if the killer makes the gun? If Adam Lanza did not have easy access to his mother’s guns, it could be argued that Friday wouldn’t have happened as it did.
But it cannot be argued that the killings would not have happened. All of the emotional and stress factors would have still been present in Lanza, and the lack of guns does not preclude he wouldn’t pick up a chef’s knife or a baseball bat and used it as a weapon.
The very first school killing in this nation didn’t involve a gun; it was a car bombing. In a fit of rage, anything can be a deadly weapon.
More to the point, every gun used was legally owned and registered, and all four weapons would not have been banned by assault weapons laws. Nothing short than an outright ban on all private firearms would have stopped this.
The problem at hand is that this country is becoming a bully nation.
As we watch the news or read the newspaper, we see more and more example of intolerance. Politicians are declaring in Washington “it’s my way or the highway”; increasing numbers of cases of religious and ethnic intolerance against Muslim-Americans are being accepted or simply ignored; and school-based and Internet bullying is on the rise.
Imagine how you would feel if you were the one being bullied. You would want to find help, but the assistance available trivializes your pain as “growing pains.” You would want to turn to your parents, but they are too removed from the situation to truly understand. Your bullies made you a social outcast, so you have few friends, and you find yourself finding fewer and fewer avenues to turn to …
… Until you run out of avenues altogether.
Imagine now if you were the bully. You are acting out because it makes you feel good — picking on those smaller than you fills a void inside of you and makes you feel less incomplete. You watch on the news that adults are bullying just like you, and you feel emboldened. When you bully, people pay attention to you, you are no longer invisible. People fear you. People are honestly afraid of you, and you love how this power makes you feel. It makes you feel important, it makes you feel real.
The sad truth is that we are creating the monsters we now fear. It is not a coincidence that the numbers of mass killings rose as intolerant speech rose in this country. It was once said that everything we do and everything we say matters because there is always someone watching and always someone listening to you, even if that someone is you yourself.
The way we avoid situations like Newtown is through inclusion. Increased funding for in-school counseling and psychiatric care, programs that encourage social inclusion and tolerance, public funding for private tutoring and care and diversity programs that teach about different cultures and philosophies are good starts. But, we must be aware that our children are watching what we are doing and learning; what is the takeaway lesson from watching Democrats and Republicans engage in partisan fighting in Washington? What is being taught when pundits go on television and scream about Islamic extremism and how building a mosque in Manhattan — the most populous county in America — is disrespectful?
In this day of lessened tolerance and heightened passions over those who don’t look like us, talk like us, act like us or pray like us, we must ask if excluding those who most desperately need to be included and understood actually adds to our security?
If there is something to blame for this tragedy, it’s us. In our intolerance, we are all to blame.