Associated Press/Jim Cole - Family and friends arrive for a memorial service for Nancy Lanza on Saturday June 1, 2013 in Kingston, N.H. Lanza’s 20-year-old son, Adam Lanza, killed her at their home in Newtown,
More than 100 family and friends gathered at a church in a small New Hampshire town Saturday to remember the woman whose son massacred 20 first-graders and six educators in a Connecticut elementary school last year.
The mourners and a few musicians filed into the white clapboarded First Congregational Church in Kingston for the memorial of Nancy Lanza, the first victim of her 20-year-old son Adam's rampage. She was shot dead in their home before he blasted his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on Dec. 14. He killed himself as police closed in.More than a dozen uniformed police officers from several agencies blocked off the street and guarded the church door, ensuring only friends and family were allowed into the service. Nancy Lanza grew up in New Hampshire and lived there before moving to Newtown in 1998.
A lone police bagpiper played as the processional arrived and lined up outside the church to enter together. Media outlets were kept 60 yards back across the street and behind yellow tape, and mourners declined to talk to reporters.
A few people wiped their eyes as they left the church.
Friends have said Nancy Lanza loved the Red Sox and gardening and talked of a growing enthusiasm for target shooting. The rifle and two handguns Adam Lanza took into Sandy Hook were registered to her.
Poor Nancy goes down in history as the worst, most irresponsible lawful gun owner ever. Or, should I say, so far.
Like many others, she was convinced that guns made her safer. But, like many others, she did not practice adequate care in safely and properly storing those guns.
Everyone knows the results. And anyone who says only young Adam was responsible for what happened, is taking a purposely simplistic view of the situation and turning a blind eye on the failure of Nancy Lanza to take proper and responsible precautions with her deadly weapons.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Ah, yes, she was killed to take her guns. She should have figured out a way to protect them from the "shoot your mom in the face and take her guns" loophole. Obviously she bears responsibility for the massacre too...
ReplyDeleteAll of the security around the service was because of people like you who have twisted ideas about transferring responsibility for crimes to people who didn't commit them.
Adam was responsible for what he did, barring a mental illness defense. Nancy was guilty for what she did - or failed to do.
DeleteWhy do you keep pretending you don't get me? I'm not transferring Adam's guilt or blaming his mom for what he did.
The mother here did nothing wrong that I'm aware of. The wacko son is solely responsible for his actions, barring, as you said, some mental defect. If he couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong, why wasn't he in an institution?
DeleteNancy Lanza did nothing wrong? Are you kidding? You must be striving to rival Kurt for the 3 o'clock position of gun-rights extremism.
DeleteI said that I'm aware of. Perhaps she should have taken her son to a psychologist. Perhaps she should have spent more time with him. I don't know what all went on in that home. But owning guns and having guns in the presence of an adult son is not, by itself, anything wrong.
DeleteGreg, your stubbornness is a drag. You know goddam well that Adam Lanza was not that kind of adult child. And Nancy should have fucking known it too. But she didn't, obviously. And that cost her her life as well as the lives a many others.
DeleteIt's curious that you never say the same thing when some lousy thug gets shot and you show us videos of mothers claiming that the boy was really good. Why don't you call them irresponsible parents for raising a criminal?
ReplyDeleteThere are days when I jokingly suggest that we need licensing of parents, but that's just a joke. Many parents do certainly need to do a better job.
I agree with you, MikeB. She is a poster-girl for the statistic that a gun in the home is 22X more likely to kill you than to save you. She was so afraid of the outside world that she failed to see the biggest threats to her life -- her son and her gun lust. I wish she were the exception, but I see stories like hers nearly every day.
ReplyDeleteWe see stories like hers every day? Every day, some wacko kills his mother and then shoots up a school?
DeleteBut since you're still quoting that discredited 22X study, there must be no limit to your delusions.
Every day, delusional gun owners (such as yourself, Greg) fail to understand the simple fact that guns make you LESS safe. Three different studies, one said 18X more likely to be killed, another 22X, another 43X, all of which are in international, peer-reviewed research journals. But all of them are shockingly high. And, of course, there is no peer-reviewed study on the pro-gun side to refute it. But that wouldn't be enough to convince the likes of you, of course.
DeleteAnd, let me clarify, every day I see stories (like Lanza) where people think their gun makes them safer but some significant other in their home kills or injures them with it.
Oregonian, you miss the key points:
Delete1. That's a huge variation in the supposed number of times greater danger. Make up your minds.
2. I've looked at those studies--all by Kellermann, no? He surveyed a tiny sample in two cities and drew a sweeping conclusion about all gun owners without controlling for any factors such as substance abuse, education, crime in the community, and so forth.
But let's imagine that his numbers are correct--whichever one is the correct one. There are 100,000,000 gun owners and more than 300,000,000 guns in this country. If those studies are correct, the danger either from outsiders or from people within the home must be so low as to be statistically insignificant. Otherwise, we'd all be dead from our guns.
What I see is that every day, delusional sheep such as yourself feel the need to be controlled. Fortunately, there are enough of us who aren't sheep to restrain your evil impulses.