<p>From what I have read about sociopaths, they are born that way. However, I have also read that most of them are not violent criminals. I think we’ve all encountered someone who just seems to enjoy bringing havoc to others through lying, manipulating, and so on- but none of these are crimes. As someone mentioned before, some do turn to crime and there is a high incidence of socipathy in criminals.</p>
<p>I believe his parents did everything they could to give him mental health, but that can’t change the way he was made. </p>
<p>Another thing to consider is the strain on the family of raising a child like that. It’s not an excuse, but I would bet that Adam Lanza wore his mother down to the point where she just couldn’t monitor him anymore. In both these families, there is a divorce and in Adam’s case, his mom was left alone to deal with him. I am not sure what the arrangement was in this family, but his parents may have felt like they were at the end of their ropes with him too.</p>
<p>An interesting idea would be to come up with interventions for families that would address some of the problems, before these kids end up being socially isolated outcasts left to their own twisted imaginations. Once disconnected from everyone, it seems like a descent into bigger madness.</p>
<p>I hope no one takes this question the wrong way, but since his sexuality was at the root of many of his problems, why didn’t he ever go to a prostitute? Or try to have sex with a man? He didn’t HAVE to be a virgin at age 22. Nor do any of the creeps on that PUA website.</p>
<p>For someone of obvious intelligence in some ways (his articulate writing), he was really dumb in others. His fixation on only an idealized kind of woman was one. So was his belief that “civilization” would be better off once all the women were gone. </p>
<p>He was living in the wrong place to meet girls who might be interested in him. Few college women have any interest in dating a 22 year old CC drop out. </p>
<p>I agree that we need some sort of linked registry so that when police are investigating possible crimes ( as in the three previous contacts), they could see what type & how many guns he had.
I expect the psychopathic behavior turned off his potential romantic contacts rather than the lack of a girlfriend came before his twisted thinking.</p>
<p>It’s pretty pathetic the murderer’s rants betray something else, an expectation of college life taken right out of the movies and expecting real life to match that.</p>
<p>This is apparent in the rant when he states his perception that everyone is partying and having sex in college, but him. He’s also expecting women to instantly take to him and ask him out when the common expectation is that it is HE as a male who should be doing the asking. </p>
<p>Also, there’s some reports of how he felt inadequate because he feels he’s extremely short along with a bit of internalized racism when he said he was thankful his Asian side didn’t show. </p>
<p>Granted, I seem to have been luckier in the height department and have had experienced some women coming up to chat me up and later, even go on a few dates…and I don’t take anywhere near the amount of care with my personal appearance* he seems to do nor do I own a BMW…or any car for that matter**.</p>
<ul>
<li>In my old NYC neighborhood, being so obsessed with one’s looks to the point he apparently takes with his grooming was considered unmasculine and would likely at the very minimum caused him to be ridiculed by many of the boys/men there. It also takes too much time I’d rather spend on other matters.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>** While I like some aspects of cars, I’ve always viewed them as instant liabilities for suckers…especially considering a new car loses a substantial amount of its value the moment one drives it off the dealer’s lot. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One major difference which the NRA folks love to trot out is owning guns is a Constitutional Right under the Second Amendment…while forgetting or ignoring the “Well-regulated militia” bit. </p>
<p>In contrast following this line of argument, there’s no constitutional amendment for the right to own a car…or drive one so it’s more ok to restrict car ownership/licensing to drive than guns. </p>
<p>@emeraldkity4 the police didn’t have a reason to think of guns as I understand it. However, he had purchased them, with California’s waiting period, within the year, I believe. California police had access to that information, if it had made the registry at all, but I don’t know how often it is updated. It isn’t a matter of shared registries having been an issue in any event here since this was a California registry and California police.</p>
<p>Since they are the police & since our country has a problem with mass murderers, it seems to me to fall under their jurisdiction to inquire about registered weapons before they make contact, no matter what it is for.
Its like putting on your seat belt.
You dont need it every time you get in the car, but if you need it, putting it on afterwards isnt going to do any good.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Serious social stigma and blow to one’s ego to going to a prostitute. Especially someone coming from a family with Hollywood connections as he. Conventional thinking is someone from a family like his shouldn’t have any problems finding women who are genuinely interested in him without having to resort to a prostitute. </p></li>
<li><p>Fears of getting venereal diseases.</p></li>
<li><p>Having sex with men advice doesn’t work with someone who is heterosexual or someone who insists on presenting himself as such. In fact, due to still present homophobia and related stigmatization in many areas of society…such a suggestion is likely to meet with a hostile response as it is likely to be taken as a serious insult by many heterosexual men or those who insist on presenting himself as such. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Uhh, I thought this was obvious, but the stigma of being a virgin comes from feeling like you’re undesirable to women. I don’t think sleeping with a prostitute or a man would change that feeling.</p>
<p>True, warbrain, but the fact that he thought of women as objects with no rights made me ask the question. And he talked a lot about the simply physical aspects of sex rather than the emotional connection behind attraction. Also, he seemed to go back and forth on the “stigma” thing. He seemed to want to talk a lot about his predicament, and felt “entitled” to women based on his good looks and gentlemanly qualities (his words). </p>
<p>I applaud the guy’s mom for calling the police. So very sad that he was manipulative enough to realize their weakness in trying to diffuse the potential. In the end, that phone call made it worse because he became much more cautious.</p>
<p>He is totally sick to think the guys should be killed because “they lead a crime of enjoying life” and the girls should be killed because “they rejected him, a perfect gentleman”. So narcissistic! It’s all about him. It’s a shame that that’s how some kids think: they are entitled to everything, even having a girlfriend and friends. Notice it wasn’t directed at one particular girl, but at all girls. </p>
<p>Because I’m so disturbed by this story, I explored further and found this. How kids bullied him when he was younger. I read kids in high school taped his head to a desk when he fell asleep in class one day. Was there a teacher who saw that? Someone who tried to help him NOT feel badly about himself? I think he did see some kinds of therapoist like a social worker. And if he did see a therapist, why didn’t that help? Why didn’t it stop him from being able to buy guns?</p>
<p>I don’t understand this thinking from another poster who actually defends guns: “Yeah, and time after time people defend themselves with guns too.” So they need a semi-automatic gun? The purpose of a gun is to shoot someone. What’s the purpose of a semi-automatic? To shoot a lot of people. He had four of them.</p>
<p>He saw multiple therapists, psychiatrists, and for some reason a social worker was also involved. Why didn’t it help? Good question. It frequently doesn’t help. Maybe, it’s like cancer. Seeing a doctor doesn’t always help. Unfortunately.</p>
<p>It’s really too bad that kids THINK they have to had sex by the time they’re in college. I bet that whole concept evolved once birth control became available and Roe vs. Wade was passed.</p>
<p>@limabeans my opinion is different than yours. I don’t see guns as causing the problem. He didn’t kill the people in his apartment building with guns, and his fantasy was of mowing people down with his BMW, his status symbol. I think law abiding people should be able to have guns, as also BMWs, if they can afford one. It is this person who was the problem, not the guns in my views. I understand yours but I disagree with them as strongly as you disagree with my view.</p>
<p>And if you are defending yourself against people with semiautomatics, I would think you would do better to have one yourself. However, I also don’t think everyone should be forbidden something just because of the way criminals act when they get it. </p>
<p>And I don’t actually know the distinction, but doesn’t ‘semi automatic’ just mean it has a clip? Normal guns are semiautomatics, I do know that.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids I think there are some, and they vary. But this guy wasn’t being diagnosed, as far as I can tell, and I think you hit the nail on the head when you suggested people didn’t give unpopular diagnosis because patients wouldn’t stay with them. But I recall some debate about Obamacare where doctors were supposed to be able to ask if you owned a gun and recommend anonymously (at least without telling the patient) that they couldn’t have one, with no process to contest or even know about it at all. I could see people who personally just don’t think anyone should have a gun just recommending that all over the place, simply to impose their mindset on others. That is why I am responding to this issue. If someone goes through a process where they can present their side and have references, I feel differently about it. But the first time is not going to be preventable, typically, any more than the first dog bite is. If we start assuming everyone is guilty/sociopathic etc that would be a sad society to live in, imho.</p>
<p>CNN is reporting that his mother received the manifesto just before the shootings (9:17PM) and the family was on the way to SB when they heard about the killing spree on the radio.</p>