From reader Rick F.:
Today, on my evening commute home, I found myself looking (metaphorically) for a reason Adam Lanza chose to shoot and kill innocent children for his demonstration of mayhem. This may not be an original thought, but I have not seen it posed elsewhere . . .
I have read numerous accounts that Nancy Lanza was pretty heavily into firearms — some reports have suggested she was overly fixated on guns, which may or may not be true. I also have read stories that things were deteriorating to a great deal between mother and son in recent months. I even saw where mom had threatened to have her son committed to a mental institution. (Oh, but that she had…)
Whether or not Mrs. Lanza was overly fixated on weapons, I suspect Adam recognized they were important to his mother — likely very important.
Some have said that insane, suicidal murderers crave post-mortem infamy. They don’t really seem to care if they die, they just want to leave a sick, but memorable mark in order bring some sort of meaning (albeit insane) to an otherwise sad existence.
Is it possible that Lanza reckoned that killing little children en masse would be the final act that would bring gun-control to the fore — so as to punish his gun-loving mother? Obviously, other acts of violence (while similarly awful) had not created the groundswell of anti-gun rhetoric that has come about as a result of this event. If true, anti-gunners are playing right into the hands of a madman — though I doubt they’d care.