Spreadsheet from Hell
You often hear the term “<whatever> from hell” used to refer to things that are unusually disagreeable or difficult. But on occasion, the phrase is chillingly apropos – and literal.
Consider Adam Lanza, Sandy Hook mass murderer. He was obviously mentally disturbed. But he could be meticulous about things that interested him.
How meticulous? Try conducting extensive research on past mass-killings – and creating a spreadsheet containing information about over 500 people killed in such incidents. Lanza’s research was both extensive and detailed, including such things as the number of people killed in an incident, their names, and the weapons that were used – down to the precise make/model of the weapons in some cases.
The spreadsheet, printed in 9-point type, would have measured approx 7 feet long and 4 feet wide.
Why did he do this? Simple. Lanza was off-his-nut full-blown batshit crazy. That was obvious to many who knew him, including his own mother.
Even so, there was also intellect behind and a method to Lanza’s madness. According to an unidentified career law enforcement official who attended last week’s International Association of Police Chiefs and Colonels mid-year meeting in New Orleans:
“They don’t believe this was just a spreadsheet. They believe it was a score sheet. This was the work of a video gamer, and that it was his intent to put his own name at the very top of that list. They believe that he picked an elementary school because he felt it was a point of least resistance, where he could rack up the greatest number of kills. That’s what (the Connecticut police) believe.” (emphasis added)
Gee – he chose a school because it was a “point of least resistance”. That sounds suspiciously like the police think he chose a school precisely because it was something called a “gun free zone”.
Just think about the implications of that fact, liberal ideologues: along with Lanza, you are to blame for this massacre. You helped him do this. And I’m going to tell you how you did that two different ways.
First: you are the ones who pushed for laws making many public places “gun free zones” where weapons are “prohibited”. Well, guess what – you got precisely what you asked for. Schools in Connecticut are indeed “gun free zones”.
But as Lanza’s twisted act shows, the term “gun free zone” is nothing but a politically palatable way to say “undefended” or “soft target”. Had even one person at that school been armed, there’s a reasonable chance the death total would have been far fewer than 26. But because it was a “gun free zone”, no one there was armed – except Lanza.
Why? Because other than Lanza, everyone else there were sane, law-abiding citizens. They obeyed the law.
Lanza wasn’t sane. And as events prove, Lanza didn’t give a damn about the law.
The result? 25 innocents killed by a madman before police could arrive. And when finally confronted by a bona fide threat to himself, Lanza committed suicide rather than engage that threat.
Second: you leftist ideologues are also the ones who rammed through “mainstreaming” of the seriously mentally ill – because you felt incarceration would be “a violation of their rights”. But did you stop to think about the ramifications of doing that? Or consider that sometimes selected persons need to be involuntarily institutionalized for both their own good and the good of the community? No.
Last year, legal changes were proposed in the Connecticut legislature that would have allowed involuntary commitment of profoundly disturbed people like Lanza. Indeed, at the time of Lanza’s murders his own mother knew he was seriously disturbed, and was actively trying to have him committed. But she couldn’t.
Why not? Because you liberal ideologues held fast to your misguided beliefs. The liberal-dominated Connecticut state legislature (60+% liberal Democratic majorities in both chambers) voted down failed to pass those changes to Connecticut law that would allow involuntary commitment under circumstances like Lanza’s. Under Connecticut law then in effect (and still in effect today), it’s virtually impossible for an adult to be involuntarily committed in Connecticut before they commit a violent act – no matter how blatantly crazy they are.
Want to see who (besides Lanza) is to blame for his killing spree, liberals? Look in the mirror. It wasn’t the gun Lanza used that’s to blame. And it wasn’t law-abiding gun owners, either. Rather, your misguided policies are what helped cost those 20 kids and 5 innocent adults their lives.
Yeah, but the libs get to feel good about what they do to the rest of us, until the next “crisis”.
Hondo,
Thank you, thank you. Not that any libtards are likely to read this and take it seriously.
Thank you for pointing out that the laws were so seriously skewed by the Ct legislature and the ACLU (may they all burn in hell for eternity) that Adam’s own mother couldn’t get him committed. That inconvenient truth was lost in the early days of the Newtown shooting by the agenda- pushing LSDM.
Another lost and inconvenient truth was the fact that Adam used a PISTOL to committ his massacre – NOT an “assault weapon”.
Unless he was able to rise from the dead, put the rifle (or shotgun?) back in the trunk of his car, then crawl back to the original place where he shot himself (/snark off).
I grew up in CT. I have a cousin who should be institutionalized. The laws have made it so even a judge told my Aunt not to try because my cousin would be protected by the law. She pretended to be be an FBI agent and broke windows etc… No one was hurt, but hands were tied and she could do it again! Effing crazy!!
I also had cousins in that elementary school who survived. The ignorance of my cousins after the killings is astounding.
I mean the Parents. Not the kidlets.
There is a hornet and a baby in your house. What do you do to protect the baby from the hornet?
1) Reason with the hornet
2) Remove the baby from the house
3) Pass a law prohibiting hornets from entering homes
4) Kill the hornet
No no no, 2/17 Air Cav. According to our liberal “brethren”, you use a paper cup to catch the hornet, use your hand to cover the top so as to trap it inside, take the hornet outside, and release it humanely. It has rights too, you know!
The fact that the hornet will almost certainly sting the sh*t out of you – repeatedly – while you’re trying to do that is irrelevant. That’s what you’re supposed to do, consequences to yourself be damned.
@6. Got it. Of course, there’s a problem with that approach. The hornet whose rights were protected and about whose humane release the lib feels good may return at a later date and sting the baby. When that happens, the baby may go into anaphylactic shock and lose its life.
@5 – Or you can do #5 – plant flowers that will attract the warrior bees (carpenter bees) and a place for them to buid a nest. The male has no sting, stays behind and guardst the nest while the female is out hunting for pollen and nectar. He has a little shield on his forehead. If a wasp, hornet or other insect comes within XX feet of the nest, the male bee will attack and drive away the invader by flying up to it and smacking it with that shield on his forehead.
The sound is audible. It’s as loud as smacking one fist into the other palm as hard as you can.
This little bee knows instinctively that there is no peace and quiet, no safe place to raise your children, no safe place to live, without a willingness to fight for it.
Now, now, 2/17 Air Cav – you know that such trivia doesn’t matter to our liberal “brethren”. You simply must do the proper thing as they define it. They said so!
It doesn’t matter if what they require is workable, affordable, or even nonsensical. They say it’s the correct thing to do – so you must do it!
Of course, as soon as they get mugged they go get a pistol – laws be damned. Just ask Carl Rowan how that works.
It was obvious within hours of the great release of mentally disturbed persons back in the day that it was a horrid solution to the “problem” of institutionalizing mentally disturbed persons. Those pushing the dumping of these mentally disturbed persons upon the streets seemed to not care one whit about the numbers of those persons dying on the streets after their release or the crimes that they committed. It was awful, especially for the people released with no ability to survive without supervision.
In Lanza’s case, it seems that there were plenty of people aware that he was seriously distrubed. Without the interferance of the gubmint, perhaps he could have gotten the care that he needed.
I’ve been blamed for lots of things, the biggest of which was 9/11 since, clearly, being a liberal incurred god’s wrath on the nation, at least according to Pat Robertson.
So, comparatively speaking, Hondo, being told I’m responsible for the Newtown massacre doesn’t upset me too much. Especially since this is about as compelling as the previous indictment. It does make me sad, though, that this is the state of the dialogue on things. You’re usually a lot smarter than this.
How about this Million Mom Marcher?
http://www.tincher.to/stevens.htm
Anonymous: you usually don’t have a blind spot. Here, you do.
Liberal ideologues are responsible for the laws that created “gun free zones” in schools and other places. And they’re also responsible for the mainstreaming of the mentally ill, along with laws making it difficult to commit people who desperately need it.
Both both of those factors directly contributed to creating the conditions necessary to allow a madman like Lanza to commit his crimes. The latter factor (the effective impossibility of getting someone involuntarily committed) gave him opportunity; the former guided him in selecting his target.
Lanza bears the lion’s share of blame here; he did the shooting. However, those who made it impossible for Lanza to be involuntarily committed – and those who made schools “gun free zones”, AKA publicly-identified “soft targets” – bear some of the responsibility for his rampage.
Frankly, I’m tired of seeing the left get away with blaming law-abiding citizens who simply want to exercise Constitutionally-protected rights for the acts of a madman. I’ll be glad to play that game – and I’ll do it by pointing the blame where it belongs.
Liberal ideologues got what they wanted when they pushed for school “gun free zones” and for madmen to be allowed to run free in society because involuntary commitment “would violate their rights”. However, the second order effect was that schools were publicly declared to be “soft targets”, and that a dangerous madman (Lanza) could not be involuntarily committed. The third order effect was that that same madman (a) meticulously planned his crime, (b) murdered his own mother, (c) stole lawfully-owned weapons, and then (d) used those stolen weapons to attack a location he knew that by law would be a soft target. The result was the massacre at Sandy Hook.
We really need a healthy and open debate on the mentally ill in this country. It would further our decisions on how to handle people like Lanza and help their parents understand what to do. I did 20 hours in a State Hospital as a part of my teaching degree and it was not the horror filled tomb that Geraldo portrayed. Like Krauthammer has said recently, we wrapped them in their rights and abandoned them on the streets of America. I would like to see Reilly have them both on to debate the issues.
As an aside, when a school goes on lock down the classroom doors should be locked from the inside. Obviously, Sandy Hook was negligent in that respect.
Like a lot of the reports about the incident so far, I have a problem with that story, being that it’s another anonymously sourced story (that manages to splurge tons of personal details about the source nonetheless) that focuses on some sensational aspects but doesn’t really provide any useful information or do anything other than reinforce something we already knew, namely, that Adam Lanza was nucking futs, if you catch my drift.
At this point in the process, I’d like to see an official report detailing Lanza’s background, his preparations, and his movements throughout the shootings, along with some concrete recommendations (I know that one task force has released some recommendations-focusing only on the firearms side) before we get more leaked stories that do nothing but reinforce Lanza’s craziness.
Good piece, Hondo.
One question no-one seems to want to ask about Sandy Hook:
How about the mother who *knew* her adult son was unstable, but left unsecured weaponry lying around? She did pay the ultimate price for that, but 24 other people died because she didn’t keep her weapons under control.
Fjaredson: all I’ve ever seen on that subject were claims by an acquaintance that Lanza’s mom “kept her guns in a closet”. I don’t think it’s ever been definitively determined whether or not her guns were secured (e.g., trigger locks, locked closet door, lockable cabinet, whatever) at the time Lanza started his rampage.
In this particular case, I’m also not sure it would have mattered all that much if her weapons were properly secured. Lanza apparently was quite bright, if crazy. He almost certainly knew/would have known where his mom kept her keys. His mom was reportedly found shot to death in her bed in her pajamas. Even if the weapons had been secured off-site, it’s plausible that Lanza could have gotten up early, taken her keys, gone to wherever the weapons were stored, stolen the weapons – and then shot her to death in her sleep.
I’m guessing fear her son might do something like this was one reason she was trying to get him committed.