Posted on 12/15/2012 1:47:13 PM PST by drewh
Drudge Report: Connecticut Killer “Obviously Not Well,” “Suffered From Personality Disorder,” ”Played Video Games …” Owen Good
Now that we've got the right name of the killer in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre yesterday, the media profiles are starting to emerge. To the Drudge Report, playing video games is a remarkable enough thing that it bears mentioning in a headline. An italicized headline. Oh, it's factual enough, but that typeface and those ellipses raise a suspicious eyebrow, or at least mutter a "Just sayin'." Good work, Matt.
Having worked a cops reporting beat at a large newspaper utterly obsessed with tragedy, I can tell you what is going on: Reporters have been told to gather every single detail they can on Adam Lanza. They are. There is a bottomless desire to know as much as possible about the person who caused this tragedy. And it's absolutely fair game to mention Adam Lanza enjoyed computer games if it's part of who he was. If I was in my old job, I would have no trouble putting that into a story, as the Associated Press did—in the 16th paragraph, well below statements from investigators about Lanza's potential mental illness, and in obvious context of what Lanza was otherwise like as a person.
It's lazy to list that detail in a headline stack along with the more likely causes of a mass killing, such as having a personality disorder, or being "obviously not well." I'm sure parents of autistic children enjoy seeing the suggestion Adam Lanza was autistic, too.
So, what does "played video games dot-dot-dot" really mean? Stories say Lanza belonged to a high school technology club The game they played was not specified.
(Excerpt) Read more at kotaku.com ...
Stupid liberal parents (cultureless) are not able to discern their children “playing video game” from “living video games.” You need to shout out to wake them up. Kids need social interaction with their parents so they don’t become empty vessels obsessed with computers. It’s new. It’s got to be addressed by conservatives. Kids need taming.
In other News...it was reported and confirmed that Lanza had been eating 3 meals a day for many years...
That's what I want to know. There's even a new petition up at WhiteHouse.gov asking the administration to look into the causal link between mind altering psychotropic drugs and these mass murders.
These folks have been documenting the causal link between psychotropic drugs and incidents of extreme violence for years now:
I have two older sons. All of them, all their friends, play video games. Most are religious or from religious families. I doubt any of them will ever shoot up schools. My sons spend a lot of time with their little siblings and adore them.
It isn’t the video games.
A lot of the military work with “real video games” -— missiles, drones. So is every retired soldier going to shoot up schools??
Articles with Asperger’s Syndrome and autism in the first paragraph, were all over the afternoon/evening breaking news stories, yesterday. I knew what autism was; I had to research Asperger’s Syndrome, since I’d only heard it once before.
There are also new studies that link early heavy marijuana use to schizophrenia. We have had several instances in our county of murder by a mentally ill person who had been an early marijuana user.
We had a sixteen year old who flipped out and strangled a 350 pound woman and after carrying her up a ladder to her loft. I think that he must have stabbed her first and then strangled her with the vacuum cord after he got her up into the loft. Somehow the kid developed super powers while in a psychotic state. He was just a skinny medium height 16 year old.
We had another guy whose mental illness was attributed to early drug use, who went on a rampage and murdered all his neighbors and then stole one of their trucks and drove to a gas station where he killed a police officer and shot someone else.
Then there was the local guy who went off his meds because people told him that medical marijuana would work just as well. He took his mother and sister hostage and then when the father came in and tried to free them, he shot and killed his own father.
…and those are just the first three that I can think of.
Oh, I don’t know how I could leave this out. My son-in-laws brother is schizophrenic and the doctors also contribute that to early drug use (mostly marijuana) in high school and college. He hears voices and has tried to kill his mother several times.
I won't call bull on those studies, but I myself was quite the marijuana user when I was a teenager, and I've never come close to killing anyone, nor have I ever felt a homicidal impulse in my life. I know lots of others who can claim the same.
Psychotropic drugs are an altogether different matter. There's a rapidly growing body of evidence that those kinds of drugs have a direct causal link to homicidal behavior. Here's just one such report:
Prescription Drugs Associated with Reports of Violence Towards Others
I think in many cases you are correct.
I wonder how all these video games will effect my grandchildren.....they are all into society building and word games.
Are they going to become dictators demanding people spell everything.
As is in this case, in every tragedy, the loons come out blaming everything and anything - except the shooter.
I think I read he also pooped at least five outa seven days - a week every week of his whole life!!!!
Depends entirely on the nature and violence of the games. Trained in violence and dispassionate killing is an actual reason for why the evil in that young man won out.
His mother owning guns does not explain the murders. Trained in violence does explain them.
Not every schizophrenic is homicidal and not every heavy marijuana user becomes schizophrenic. I have just known several people whose family members have been told by doctors that their mental state was attributable to marijuana use. I didn’t believe them until I saw that recent study. I always thought the family members were either naive or trying to cover up more serious drug use or hereditary mental illness.
On the other hand the decrease in IQ of those who use marijuana heavily before maturity is fairly wide spread, though not everyone suffers the decrease in IQ to the same degree. An 8 point loss in IQ appeared to be the average.
Tens of millions of young people play video games of all types, including FPS, but I'm happy to report that tens of millions of young people in this country don't go on a murderous rampage due to playing such games.
To believe that video games are effective training tools for such massacres is pure bullshit in the extreme.
More like Demonic control.
The Liberals threw out prayer, the Bible, and God. Now three generations later, no discipline, school violence, low test scores, high drop out rate. They worship self, pleasure and a green earth god.
Makes me wonder if he played “Tea Party Zombies Must Die”.
The murder simulator that bludgeons Bill O’Reilly with a crow bar, shoots Glenn Beck with a semi-automatic weapon, or stab former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin with a knife.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/video-game-kills-palin/2011/09/07/id/410140
Liberalism is a mental illness.
Then there's not enough of a causal link between early marijuana use and violent behavior to consider in this case. Could be a contributing factor, but chances are just as good or better that it's not.
Some kids also come from broken homes where there was poverty and violence present. Most survive it, and go on to lead lives as decent people. Some don't.
I'm not saying that your suggestion is invalid as an entry point of unraveling this case. I'm only saying that it could be a possible influence. Most kids who smoke marijuana don't go on to become psycho killers.
“Some people call it a disorder of children whom only recognize traditional roles, the child as an adult is lost in the world, because the world has advanced but this child as an adult does not know how to function in the real world.”
This sentence is quite amazing in terms of what we know about Adam Lanza and in terms of his slaughtering his younger victims.
From what I am reading, his mother withdrew him from High School and started home schooling for his Junior and Senior years. Apparently, things took a turn for the worse for Adam. I have noted similar age/puberty patterns with previous perps in the mass shooting events.
I would really like to see Adam Lanza’s Psych-evaluation. I am sure that will never happen!
Thanks for the post
I am glad to see that we are actually blaming the murderer instead of whatever the murderer’s hobbies were. I also have played lots of video games, have asperger’s syndrome and am 26 years old, in fact I was told to take anti-depressants in the past but I refused primarily because I don’t like the idea of something external manipulating my mind. Anti-depressants have been known, as the years go by, to increase the number of suicides in depressed takers. I have hardly, if ever, used physical force for anything. I used to be very upset when the Columbine massacre was blamed on video games like Doom. I might’ve not really played FPS games back then but I couldn’t see a connection between blowing up aliens and going after people whose transgressions were responded to in an extreme manner.
When we blame video games, and violent movies for the actions of a shooter like the other poster said, we are also blaming guns. Many of the actors in those kinds of movies are outspoken Conservatives. Many of those video games actually have viewpoints, actions and objectives(including using deadly force if attacked) that many Conservatives would really like, including Homeland. There is even a FPS which has been subsidized and created by our own military called America’s Army. It is terrible that a massacre in Newtown, Connecticut happened but Adam Lanza is the murderer and he, alone, is responsible for what has happened.
I meant Homefront, sorry.
Firearms are very easy to use, and I was under the impression that this murderer had been familiarized with firearms earlier in his life.
Considering what he did, it doesn't take a rocket scientist or any kind of special training to perform the disgusting task he undertook. Excuse my cliche, but this was “shooting fish in a barrel”, and it wouldn't have been much different if he used, say, a sword or some other weapon that he was able to appropriate considering the targets he chose.
I know people are simply trying to “understand” what happened, and perhaps are even trying to point at some basic reason that could be “banned” or otherwise stricken from our society, but in my mind this is basically no different than saying it's the fault of “guns”.
The murdering lowlife snapped and performed a monstrous act. Blaming guns is wrong, blaming video games make little sense considering the overwhelming number of youths who play such games and don't act out like this psycho did.
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