Following the
slaughter of the innocents at Sandy Hook, there was some muttering very early
on concerning a possible connection between mass murderer Adam Lanza, his
penchant for playing violent video games and the killing of 20 students and 6
faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Very quickly,
public attention became focused, almost fetishistically, on the kinds of
weapons Mr. Lanza brought to the school – two semi-automatic pistols, a
semi-automatic Bushmaster long rifle and a shotgun that Mr. Lanza left in the
trunk of the car he apparently stole from his mother, whom he murdered before
leaving for the school.
One supposes Mr.
Lanza did not receive permission from his mother to use her weapons to
slaughter 26 people, and it seems reasonable to suppose in the absence of a
definitive criminal report -- which inconveniently will not be available until
after Connecticut’s General Assembly has enacted bills purporting to thwart
possible future Sandy Hooks – that Mr. Lanza came by his cache of weapons through
illegal means. State's attorney Stephen
J. Sedensky III, who is overseeing the investigation, expects the investigation
“will go on for a number of months, but I hope that it can be [finished] within
the time frame that I testified to before the Legislature, which is the
summer."
In this respect,
Mr. Lanza is no different from any criminal who gains unauthorized access to
weapons used in any criminal activity. It is the unauthorized use of weapons
that is chiefly responsible for the bulk of murders committed with guns in the
United States. There is a possible technological solution to the problem of
unauthorized gun use. Governor Dannel Malloy, who has been generous in
distributing tax dollars to some multi-million dollar firms in Connecticut, so
far has not “invested’” any tax dollars to encourage among Connecticut gun
manufacturers the production of smart gun technology, which enables the use of
a gun only for those designated by the purchaser as authorized users. There are several gun manufacturers in what is still called “the provision state,”
so named because revolutionary Connecticut has provided arms to the U.S.
government since its founding.
Before leaving
for Sandy Hook Elementary, Mr. Lanza took the precaution of destroying the hard
drive on his computer. Recent stories indicate that forensic investigators have
recovered partial information on two computer drives. It
has been said that Mr. Lanza had spent an inordinate amount of time viewing and
playing violent video games. A large cache of such games were found in the home
early in the investigation.
Other notorious
mass murderers in recent years also have been frequent viewers of violence.
After his arrest for having shot up a movie theatre in Colorado during a showing
of a batman film, 24-year-old James Holmes, reportedly “remained in his
murderous “Joker” persona”
in jail while awaiting arraignment before a judge.
“He thinks he’s acting in a movie,” a prison employee told the Daily News.
Along with other
mass murderers, Mr. Homes may – or may not -- have been taking psychotropic
drugs.
The scientific
research establishing a connection between violence, suicide and the use of
psychotropic drugs is so well established that Sen. Owen H. Johnson in March 2000 was induced to submit to the New York legislature
Senate Bill 703 which, according to a summary, “… adds a new
section to the New York executive law requiring police agencies to report to
the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) on certain crimes and
suicides committed by a person who is using psychotropic drugs. These crimes
include assault, homicide, sex offenses, robbery offenses, firearms and other
dangerous weapons offenses, kidnapping and arson.” Unfortunately, the bill was
smothered in the crib after it had been referred to the finance committee. It
is not known whether Connecticut’s General Assembly is considering such a bill.
The American Psychological Association reports that “The use of
psychotropic drugs by adult Americans increased 22 percent from 2001 to 2010,
with one in five adults now taking at least one psychotropic medication,
according to industry data.”
Often prescribed
in the absence proper evaluations by mental health professionals, psychotropic drugs, along with frequent
viewing of violent scenes on videos and movies, some observers believe, very
well may be a trip wire in mass murder sprees.
Not surprisingly,
former Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, now chief lobbyist for the multi-billion
dollar motion picture industry, disagrees. Having represented Newtown in the Congress
for more than 30 years, Mr. Dodd said in a recent interview that the Sandy Hook
slaughter “is much more than an abstraction to me.'' The former
senator even now, two months after the event, loses his composure whenever the
mass murder is brought to his attention. Even so, business is business: “Movies stimulate, provoke, challenge and educate. The
best movies elevate and enrich. They dare us to think differently, to walk
uncomfortably in another person's shoes.''
There are lots of empty shoes in Sandy Hook.
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