The Case Of Adam Lanza

Not one person from Sandy Hook, Connecticut ever thought this sort of event would ever happen. On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Before the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Lanza shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at his home in Newtown, Connecticut. After the shooting, Lanza successfully committed suicide before he was detained. Which left, the state, officials, and the entire country to question why Lanza would do such a horrible act of violence to innocent children and staff members of the school. Also, questioning the security of schools, and even our country. There are many conspiracies of the

It is noted that many mass shooters have been diagnosed with some type of mental illness following their massacre.The most common diagnostic from mass shooters is schizophrenia, schizophrenia is defined as a long term mental disorder involving breakdowns with thoughts, emotions, leading to inappropriate actions or feelings (Metzel and MacLeish). Mass shooters such as Adam Lanza, the gunmen of the Sandy Hook shooting was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and James Holmes, Colorado movie theater shooting, was being treated for schizophrenia (Metzel and Macleish). Based on the statistics involving mass shooters and schizophrenia, mental illnesses should be more in consideration when solving for a solution than just the lack of gun control. The rise of mass shootings comes primarily from this last decade, and at the same time the rise of mental illnesses occurred too (Metzel and Macleish). With the rise of mental illnesses and mass shootings, one might believe psychiatrist should be able to predict gun violence with a patient. Schizophrenia does involve violent outbreaks and it can be treated. However with the 120,000 gun related deaths from 2001-2010, five percent of those were caused by a mentally ill patient. This leaves psychiatrists the inability to predict gun violence from mentally ill patients, regardless of the treatment. Over half of the mass shooters

In Liza Long’s blog titled, “I am Adam Lanza's Mother,” she documented her struggles with her own 13-year old son, "Michael," who suffered from mental illness, and just days before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, had been hospitalized after threatening to kill her and kill himself. Except for the brief moments when he experienced such rages, he was a sweet kid who loved Harry Potter, she said, and has an IQ that's off the charts. The main argument that Liza discusses is that all mothers, including her, of children that suffer with mental illness, have no options to help their children, besides sending them to

How could one deranged man voluntarily walk into an elementary school and open fire on children who haven’t even had all their teeth come in yet? Newtown, Connecticut is like any other small suburban town; quiet, quaint and safe. That was until a twenty-four year old “sociopath” (Alexander, Barrett, Donnelly, Swaine), by the name of Adam Lanza, put this charming town on the map, and not for a decent notable reason. Sandy Hook Elementary School educates students’ grades kindergarten through fifth and Lanza forced his way into the kindergarten and first grade level rooms.

On the morning of December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza (age 20) broke into Sandy Hook Elementary School and began to open fire upon the students and staff inside. According to Biography.com, after the attack was over twenty elementary students and six adult employees lay dead. This paper will discuss potential personality disorders that may have caused him to orchestrate this attack like Schizoid personality disorder, Schizotypal, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). One could diagnosis Lanza as a low sufferer of a Schizoid personality disorder. This is due to the fact that he often kept to himself and lacked interest in forming emotional relationships.

Often in violent crimes, the perpetrator can be tied to having a mental illness and/or disorder. In the instance of the Columbine shooting, one of the assailants, Dylan Klebold, dealt with ongoing depression and had numerous suicidal thoughts. In his private journal, he described how he was cutting himself, thus, showing he had a desire to end his life (citation). Klebold refused to seek help due to his self reliant attitude, feeling like he could deal with his problems himself (My Son Columbine Shooter). When someone is in a suicidal state, their thinking becomes impaired; they lose access to their self governance skills (My son Columbine Shooter). Due to Klebold's disoriented perspective, this made him especially vulnerable to be influenced

While several shooters had several traits in common, none of these traits were shared by all of the shooters who have been studied. The most common trait among active shooters is the perception that they were wronged in some way by someone or some entity. The majority of active shooters were not seen as loners and many had friends. Also, the majority of these shooters experienced some type of major loss (death of family member, etc.) prior to the incident. What the study found did not have any noticeable effect was violent video games, movies or other type of media. Very few active shooters showed any interest in this type of media prior to the active shooter event. However, over a third of active shooters did themselves write violent stories or poems (Ferguson, Coulson and Barnett, 2011). This study did focus more on school shootings, rather than active shooters as a whole. However, it appears these same traits can be found in some of active shooters who commit their crimes outside of a school setting. It should also be noted, active shooters who commit their crime because of an ideological purpose (i.e. Fort Hood attacks or the recent South Carolina church shooting) also may not necessarily display any of the above

On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and 6 adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. According to the Washington Post, we are now averaging more than one mass shooting a day. And yet, in the time since the major gun violence has been a part of the national discussion, seemingly little has overtly changed in the area of violence in entertainment and gun laws in some states may even have become more lenient Among the 11 deadliest shootings in U.S. history, more than half took place in the last 5 years.

School shooters are becoming more common in todays society. Adam Lanza was a school shooter and he is 20 years old, born on April 22,1992. His family members are Nancy, Peter, and Ryan. His mother spent her time volunteering at women's shelters and at local schools. One of those schools were Sandy Hook Elementary. When Adam was little he was diagnosed in 2005 with Asperger's syndrome.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning of March 6, 1915 in Brunswick Georgia, where kids were outside playing and residents were strolling along the busy streets of local businesses, but the inevitable happened when a 59 year old named Monroe Phillips went into a building with an automatic shotgun and opened fire killing six people and wounding 32. 84 years later and Seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado opened fire at about 11:OO a.m on April 20, 1999 on a planned attack and killed 12 students and wounded more than 20 others. Soon after the pair committed suicide in the school’s library at 12:00 p.m. A decade didn't even pass by when Adam Lanza killed his mother in her own home on December 14, 2012,

“Police: 20 children among 26 victims of Connecticut school shooting,” was one of the many news headlines seen by viewers, just hours after the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting. On Friday, December 14th, 2012, Adam Lanza decided to go on a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was the deadliest shooting at a high school or grade school in the history of the country, but it is far from the first. Several mass school shootings have occurred in our recent history. Some of them are the Virginia Tech Shooting, the Beslan Massacre, and the University of Texas massacre.

Many of today’s school shooters have similar characteristics. During the time of the shooting, most shooters have been white males, between the ages of 15 and 25. Most of them have shown signs of depression since childhood, and have been considered “outcasts” (Thomas, 2012). School shooters tend to have a higher intelligence level and are able to meticulously plan out their attack (Thomas, 2012).

On the other hand, the personal experience speaks the other part of story. For Lanza, the mental health plays a significant role. His mother has announced her worried that Adam had not left the house in three months, and he stopped to communicate with his father in 2011, had not contacted with his older brother for years, had stopped playing video games with others in the earlier year. According to Adam’s mental health history, he has learning difficulties, a lack of empathy, also violence for no reason. According to State’s Attorney, all of the firearms were legally purchased by the shooter’s mother. Additionally, ammunition of the types found had been purchased by the mother in the past (pages 28-35, The Report of the State’s Attorney). Long

On December 14, 2012 a very deadly and upsetting incident happened in Newtown, Connecticut. The murderer was later revealed as Adam Lanza. He was a 20 year old man who had been said to have been diagnosed with a sensory integration disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. For Lanza, growing up could be considered arduous. He had been in and out of treatment for multiple said “diagnoses” and other undiagnosed “problems”. He also took medication for his supposed OCD. His parents often would mistake his odd behaviors as a simple childhood or teenage stage. Before the school shooting, Lanza had killed his mother by lethal force at her Newton house. Lanza had shot 6 children and 20 adults fatally. After all was done, Lanza had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Since the late 1970’s, there has been a strong correlation between mental health disorders and the perpetrators of mass shootings. “Up to 60% of the perpetrators have displayed symptoms including acute paranoia, delusions and depression before committing their crimes” (Metzl & Macleish, 2015). In the case of Adam Lanza, infamously known for the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, the history of his mental illnesses is quite extensive. However, it has been discovered that when it comes to mental illnesses, it is not influenced by one factor, but rather many factors that have integrated into the individual’s life (Sue, 2014). These factors began affecting Lanza’s life at only two years old, continuing throughout his lifetime until his heinous act of murder at the age of twenty. Throughout his