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For Whom the Bells Toll - Not for Adam Lanza—or his mother.
By Mark Joseph SternThis Saturday, all houses of worship in Connecticut will ring their bells 26 timesonce, at the behest of the governor, for each victim of the Sandy Hook shooting. But 28 people died in the massacre: 20 students, 6 teachers, the shooters mother, and the shooter himself. Why will the bells fall silent two tolls short?
The fraught and complex question of honoring the perpetrator of a mass atrocity along with its victims has long troubled such memorials. The 15 crosses erected to commemorate the victims of Columbineincluding two for the shooterswere quickly reduced to 13, then to none at all. Following the tragedy at Virginia Tech, students gathered 33 stones as a makeshift memorial, but the stone representing the shooter was later removed. And on Saturday, the commemorative tolls will leave out not just Adam Lanza but also his mother, who died at his hands but who has posthumously been assigned some share of the blame.
Its easy to understand the reasoning behind excluding a killer. In the aftermath of a tragedy, the shooter becomes the villain. And his family members become the accomplices. The families of the Columbine victims sued the families of the shooters, claiming they should have seen it coming, and won a settlement. In Newtown, after all, it was Lanzas mother who bought the guns he used. But she didnt just enable her deeply disturbed son. She was his first victim, shot to death in her bed, and its dishonest and unhealthy to simplify the grieving process by depriving her of her proper remembrance.
Whatever blame people assign to Nancy Lanza, Adam Lanza is the one who fired the bullets: first at his mother, then at the schoolhouse, then at himself. His act, the standard narrative suggests, was one of crazed retribution, then malice, then cowardice. Lanza never deserved to live, and so of course he clearly deserved to die. And now that he is dead, the argument goes, his memory shouldnt be commemorated: It should be cursed.
:::snip:::
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/12/newtown_anniversary_should_nancy_and_adam_lanza_be_mourned.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content
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For Whom the Bells Toll - Not for Adam Lanza—or his mother. (Original Post)
DonViejo
Dec 2013
OP
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)1. Mom brought him up in gun culture. The whole thing is sad, but she had a choice.
Those kids and teachers did not.
frylock
(34,825 posts)2. zero fucks given
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)3. This story is far from over imo, the school disrict has been fighting the release of his educational
records to date. Lanza's father was a parent too..the family dynamic includes him and
how it has been determined he is not culpable is not clear to me.
It is a disturbing story, the losses unimaginable..all their lives.