…And seemingly oblivious to the real threat.
BELFAST TELEGRAPH: The mother of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza who slaughtered 20 US schoolchildren and seven adults was a gun-hoarding survivalist who was stockpiling weapons in preparation for an economic collapse, it has emerged. Nancy Lanza was shot four times in the head before her son Adam gunned down young pupils and teachers at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza told reporters at her Illinois home that her gun-obsessed relative was part of the ‘prepper’ movement that fears an economic collapse will lead to a breakdown in society. “She prepared for the worst,” Ms Lanza said. “Last time we visited her in person, we talked about prepping — are you ready for what could happen down the line, when the economy collapses?” Nancy Lanza (52) had five registered firearms, had begun stockpiling food and taught Adam how to shoot. He is believed to have used three of her guns — a Bushmaster .223-calibre, and two handguns, a Glock 10 mm and a Sig Sauer 9mm — in the school massacre after he shot her dead in bed. MORE
RELATED: Doomsday Preppers is an American reality television series that airs on the National Geographic Channel. The program follows various survivalists, or “preppers,” preparing for the end of civilization. The series interviews people who are preparing to survive the various circumstances through which life as we know it might come to an end, including economic collapse, societal collapse, electromagnetic pulse, terrorist acts, nuclear incidents, fuel shortages, war, pandemics, etc. The interviews detail the actions that the preppers have taken, and end with an expert analysis and recommendations for improvements. MORE
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VICTIM’S SISTER: “Just pray for peace,” said Marsha Lanza. “Do I think gun laws need to be changed? No. It’s the person that does the killing, not the gun.”
PHAWKER: No, actually it is the gun that does the killing. Your sister-in-law was killed by her own guns and you still can’t see that? Maybe bone up on the coroner’s report about the cause of death of 20 6-year-olds. Hint: it was your sister-in-law’s guns. I realize you are grieving, so I won’t bring up the fact that if your sister-in-law wasn’t so obsessed with paranoid, Glenn Beck-ian doomsday fantasia, perhaps she would have realized that her son was a danger to himself and others. My condolences.
RELATED: In the 48 hrs since the Newtown shooting, more than 160 Americans have died from gun fire; 300+ have been injured. MORE
RELATED: We’ve read the sickening script before. Following virtually every mass shooting in the United States, the news media focuses briefly on the question of whether anything can be done to prevent such incidents in the future. Soon, a softly spoken “no” infiltrates the coverage, either out of sheer hopelessness or the certain knowledge that our elected officials are so firmly in the thrall of the gun lobby that they quiver in fear at the mere thought of contemplating even tepid measures advanced by gun control advocates in the wake of the latest atrocity. If the aftermath of Aurora (12 dead, 58 wounded) plays out as others of recent or fading memory — Tuscaloosa, two weeks ago (18 wounded), Tucson in 2011 (six dead, 14 wounded), Binghamton in 2009 (13 dead, four wounded), Ft. Hood also in 2009 (13 dead, 29 wounded), Virginia Tech in 2007 (32 dead, 17 wounded), Northern Illinois University in 2008 (five dead, 21 wounded), Columbine in 1999 (12 dead, 21 wounded), etc. — the role of the National Rifle Association will be lightly brushed over, then dismissed. It shouldn’t be. Here’s why: In a nation armed with more than a quarter of a billion privately owned firearms, the NRA is correct to assert that determined outlaws will often find a way to get their hands on guns. The problem is that the NRA is the foremost enabler of many of those outlaws.
We can’t link the NRA directly to the hideous acts of alleged Aurora gunman James Holmes, 24, or to any one of the nation’s 9,000 to 10,000 annual gun murders and 338,000 rapes, robberies and other non-fatal assaults, or to the actions of the “deranged madmen” whom the NRA loves to demonize. What we can say with absolute certainty is that where there are loopholes in gun laws, laws that make it more difficult to get thugs off the streets and laws that endanger the lives of police and ordinary citizens alike, you will invariably find the fingerprints of the NRA. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s CEO and public face, may call his group “one of the largest law enforcement organizations in the country,” but under his leadership the NRA – with a 2010 budget of more than $240 million — has become the nation’s de facto lobby for street criminals, criminal gun dealers and an industry that reaps a sizable percentage of its income from criminal gun use. The NRA, says Pittsburgh police detective Joseph Bielevicz, “takes every chance it gets to stymie even reasonable efforts to combat gun violence.” MORE