Adam Lanza vs. The Knock-off Jihadis

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/17187-adam-lanza-vs-the-knock-off-jihadis

With all the rich detail about the Tsarnaevs, I'm struck by how little we know, by comparison, about Newtown killer Adam Lanza's family. There's no media conspiracy at work; I'm just wondering about the contrast. Certainly two weeks in, we had nothing like the detail about the Lanza family that we already have about the Tsarnaevs. Clearly one reason (suggested by a reader) is that Adam Lanza left no digital footprints - he even destroyed his computer's hard drive - while the Tsarnaevs were all over social media, from Russian social networks to YouTube to Twitter.

Another reason is the Lanzas' wealth, which made it possible for their dysfunction to fester in private. Nancy Lanza took her son out of school and home-schooled him in her suburban mansion when she became unhappy with his treatment in both public and Catholic schools. The Tsarnaevs lived in a dense, middle- to working-class Cambridge neighborhood, which meant their neighbors knew their business. Lanza apparently seceded from any public institutions that might have helped her; the Tsarnaevs were known to welfare officials and law enforcement (even before the FBI interviewed them). Early reports that she was a "doomsday prepper" haven't been confirmed, but Lanza's own gun enthusiasm seems at least partly responsible for the killings - safe in suburbia, she collected guns, and took her disturbed son to shooting ranges.

It's hard not to wonder whether we pursue reasons for the Boston bombing more aggressively than for mass shootings because one is designated "terrorism," and the other is just a fact of American life - not accepted, of course, but not treated as a horrific aberration that requires both explanation and measures to prevent it from happening again. There have been attempts at overviews of the Lanzas' troubles by various news outlets - this one by the Courant and PBS's Frontline is about the best - and the local papers cover new revelations regularly. But we still don't have anything like the rich, textured narrative we already have about the Tsarnaevs.

It's also clear that we don't generalize from the actions of white killers to reach conclusions about their "group"; the Tsarnaevs' Muslim religion also makes them "other," and more subject to scrutiny. No one has suggested that we study the Lanzas' fractured suburban family life for clues to why their son became a killer. We know far more about Anzor Tsarnaev than Peter Lanza. However, anyone involved in the debate over whether the brothers are white surely enjoyed the Boston Globe's revelation that Tamarlan taunted the Chinese immigrant he carjacked by suggesting that the young man wouldn't remember what he looked like, because "maybe you think all white guys look the same." Whatever others may think, Tamarlan considered himself "white" in America's ethnic mix.

[davidn3600]

1. We do look into the lives of mass shooters

We know what James Holmes was doing before hand. We know what Jared Loughner was doing beforehand. And I assure you that people are studying that stuff. And we do know a lot about Lanza's mother. That stuff was in the news for a long time. We saw lots of interviews of people who knew Nancy Lanza.

Mass shooters though tend to be more in the category of nuts and off their rocker. I don't think it takes a psychologist to figure out that there is something off about Loughner, Holmes, and Lanza. It's not just an NRA talking point, there is truth to it. These shooters tend to have some serious psychological issues that had been festering for many years and were unresolved. But you can't talk about mental health as being a reason or else you get labeled in here as a "NRA shrill gun nut."

But there is a slight difference. The Tsarnaev brothers were radicalized by political and religious fundamentalists. That is THEIR cause for what they did. No the entire religion of Islam is not to blame. But a small radicalized segment of it is to blame. You can also blame political motivations for the radicalization. Chechnya is a region that Russia had crushed in a very, very bloody and brutal 10-year conflict. So there is a lot more that went into the Tsarnaev brother's motivations than what went into Lanza's motivations.