Why did Sandy Hook mass murderer Lanza kill those kids? Violent videos don't explain it.

Killer dance move

The prosecutor's official report came out this week.  Adam Lanza played Dance Dance Revolution three afternoons a week and had been a devotee of Super Mario Brothers, and he played Call of Duty.   Sandy Hook was a dance move gone wrong?  Reason.com quotes the NY Post: that Lanza lived in an "eerie lair of violent video games" where he obliterated virtual victims ...until`the virtual became a reality".  That sold papers but didn`t give the reader enough information to understand the crime.

5 star read

This is always the case with horrific breaking news.  You read that at least ten people have died in an earthquake, then next morning it is a hundred, and two weeks later it is three thousand but few bother to report it. First reports are almost always wrong.  An excellent book, ``The First Casualty`` details how "The first casualty when war comes is truth".  Accurate information isn't available in the fog of war and the information that is available is massaged or falsified to manipulate people.  That sells policies and papers.  The Benghazi circus of lies and misdirection is a good example.

 Related news in the same report (see reason.com for the source): Adam had mental issues but not enough to deny him the right to buy a gun.   The new legislation wouldn't have kept his mother from legally buying a gun. He fired a bullet on average every couple of seconds, not a spray of fire.  He still had 300 rounds on hand when he killed himself, something that limiting magazines to ten rounds wouldn't address.  To top this off, "there is no evidence that people with Asperger's are more likely than others to commit violent crimes".

Adam didn't tell people why he was going to kill.  Why do we even think we should understand why?  I believe prosecution should be based on the act, not the state of mind and competency of the killer.  The verdict should be simple.  Let the punishment or consequences be complex with room for clemency.  The outrage we feel when a killer is declared "not guilty" when he or she clearly did the crime, diminishes respect for justice.