Here is the likely scenario:
Nancy Lanza, who homeschooled her son at some point, never noticed any behavior issues. To her, his mom, he was just a brilliant yet shy child. When you are around something or someone continually, without the perspective of others, you tend to accept otherwise questionable behavior as normal. Who Adam was, and how he was socially, 'was just him'. If she knew of Apserger's or Autism, she likely tried to manage it herself. The fact that she took both her sons target shooting suggests she believed Adam was mentally sound. Add to this a struggling marriage than ended in divorce, and its likely many tall tale signs in Adam were missed or ignored under the guise of 'dealing with the divorce'.
I'm certainly not blaming Nancy. It seems as a single mom, she did the best she could, probably a bit embarrassed and ashamed from her divorce and other life issues, including her children. There are lots of social pressures, too, in many 'affluent suburbs'. I've witnessed it among friends who worry about the most asinine things. Nancy, too, seemingly became a social outcast at some point, choosing to sequester herself from a once group of friends. Yet, here are the questions that jump out at me:
1. If he was indeed homeschooled, had a form of Autism, and then went to a public school, who managed that transition? For a child with Autism to go from public, to homeschooled to public school again as a teen is incredibly hard.
2. If Adam was indeed a social outcast in high school, and identified as having a form of Autism, what did school officials do to help?
3. If Adam showed signs of odd behavior as early as elementary school, what was done then by school officials? Did they recommend testing? Medication? Special classes? Psychiatric help?
4. How often did the boys see their father? Did the father know of Adamn's issues and what did he do to help?
Adam was a ticking time bomb, one that went unnoticed by the public school system and by his family. By all accounts, he was a computer geek and heavily influenced by extremely violent video games- without any impactful parental involvement. Right now, the usual suspects are using this as another means to control guns. But as the days go by, what will become clear, here, is Adam was a horrific example of the systemic failure our public schools have become, as well as the lack of involved parenting.
It’s beginning to seem to me as if he might have carried a grudge against the school and the administrators there. Whether than spins off of his own experiences at the school or somehow involves his mother, I can’t say. Maybe he blamed them for pathologizing him, for labeling him as having a psychiatric disorder. He turned up there in first grade. He killed the psychologists, the youngest kids and their teachers. Maybe it wasn’t random.
The Mother knowing her child very well, taught him to shoot proficiently. Knowing the history of kids like hers, they are a ticking time bomn, full of residual anger.
I do blame the Mother. I want to know why Adam and his brother Ryan became estranged?
“...lots of social pressures in many’affluent’ suburbs...”
The people I know who live in the wealthy or even just middle class suburban neighborhoods surrounding NYC (Rockland, Westchester, Fairfield, Bergen, Nassau, etc.)are extremely focused on “keeping up appearances” and sweeping trouble under the rug in order to seem perfect for their neighbors. I am sure this goes on the DC suburbs, etc., not limited to NYC. The children are prizes to be trotted out - who gets accepted into what school, etc. - if your kid isn’t fitting in there is lots of dysfunction that results. Nothing justifies this - but there is an unhealthy social dynamic out there that feeds into it.
Why shoot kindergarten kids, tho - they weren't likely to be teasers...why kindergarten kids? ....