Her friends have told us how, in the last year or so, she was increasingly burdened with the fact that her obviously disturbed son was growing into adulthood. She was devoted to trying to care for him ( I'd wager that was the cause of the marital breakup) but as he got older, began driving, was thinking about moving away to attend college, it was becoming harder to cope.
She may have felt comfortable introducing him to firearms, teaching him to shoot, indeed, she may have felt it was a way to reach him, maintain some contact, as he obviously was fascinated with firearms. She may not have perceived him as dangerous. On that, I have no idea, and no opinion.
But if she left these weapons around the house, unsecured, not locked in a gun safe, then everything that happened at Newton is on her. Period. For that was completely inexcusable.
It is also possible that she had a gun safe, had the weapons secured, but her son, who was a computer/electronics geek, and quite clever, might have found the key, the password. If that's the case, the blame is still on her, for being careless, but at least she made an effort.
I've been following the story fairly closely, and haven't seen the question asked. Which in and of itself seems odd, as it's so obvious.
She should never had any weapons in the house with a lunatic like that safe or not unless the thing was like fort knox.
Well, I am not insane, but we had guns in our house all the time I was growing up. In fact, I used to cleans them even before I was 9 years old. A gun safe isn’t the answer. The answer is training and supervision. I don’t think a gun safe would have stopped this kid. He did what he did because he was sick and needed more supervision than the woman could give him.
Is that correct?
The mother was murdered at home, not at school.
She was only a part-time teacher, had she taught at all this year at the school.
What business did he have at the elementary school the days prior to the mass murder?
The basic problem with having a safe is that you advertise to any visitors/workers that you have something of value inside the safe that is of greater value than what they might see around your house. Word can get around and at some point, someone waits for you, gets the jump on you and demands that you show them what’s inside the safe.
The blame is on Adam Lanza.
200K+ alimony
gun locker
Where was Dad in all this?
I got the drift that Mom took junior shooting as a way to “bond” with him. My dad did that with me and those times plinking were some of my happiest memories of him.
However, I suspect she had a lapse of jugement in just how open she was with him (again - trying to bond and all that -) and felt that his easy access to the guns would be trustfull, not abused, and strengthen their relationship.
No it isn't. It is still all on the nutjob who made the choice to commit the crime. Maybe it wasn't in a safe because she was keeping it close to her for protection. Either way, it is not 'all on her'.
Only a busybody liberal think she has the right to have a say about someone else’s home.
These thoughts occurred to me also.
If the kid were focused on getting into that hypothetical safe, there's lots of ways he could have gone about it. Maybe Mom had a password memory problem--like General Ripper in "Dr. Strangelove": "P-O-E", Purity of Essence, "E-O-P" -- Essence of Purity, and left clues around--or maybe she was careless with securing the original instructions with the combination. The question of whether she took any precautions is a good one.
I’ve seen speculation on this and I have to ask. Couldn’t he have just killed her and got the key’s or killed her and found the combination or maybe he already found the combination or she in fact didn’t have a safe at all.
ANd she was the first one to be slaughtered we may never know.....It is not as if the ‘powers that be’ want us to have the truth on this
I was wondering today if she had the key on a chain around her neck and he killed her and took the key.
Agreed. And she paid with her life.
perhaps she looked at her social outcast, skinny son and thought that maybe he needed to learn about guns to protect himself as he went out into the world.
I suspect he killed mom because she was trying to stop him.
If there was a safe I’d bet he knew how to get in to it.
I agree with you 100%
If I was the parent or spouse of those 26 murdered at the school I would want to know:
1—Was there a gun safe?
2—Was it secure
3—If it was secure, did her son manage to get gain access in spite of any safe guards. NEVER underestimate the cunning of the mentally ill.
There will be lawyers. There will be many lawyers asking those questions on behalf of the families. There will be claims against her estate.
If I learned the guns were not secured as much as humanly possible in spite of the fear of her son’s increasing mental illness, I would be first in line to file a suit against her estate.
If he was able to access those weapons in spite of precautions which would thwart 99.9% of anyone trying to access those weapons, she deserves to have that known as as well.
My father-in-law has a gun safe in the basement. My husband and I tried to open it one day, combination in hand, to no avail. We never did get it open. I could not believe a combination could be so complicated. I do not doubt it would have been less of a challenge to someone with Lanza’s mindset.
“I’ve been following the story fairly closely, and haven’t seen the question asked. Which in and of itself seems odd, as it’s so obvious.”
My thoughts exactly. My guess is that she had one, her genius kid got into it, and it’s NOT HER FAULT that the kid got to the guns. That being the case, it would not fit into the liberal media, and gun grabber’s template of an anti gun story.