Crazy conspiracy theory

[martiancyclist]

What if that guy in Connecticut was actually a militant pro-gun-control activist who did the massacre in order to inspire more restrictive laws?

I don't know that I believe it, but it does fit what little I've heard.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Comments

[cmaried]

What crazy philosophy would he have been reading to decide that he should kill 27 people plus himself in order to accomplish that?

[karcy]

He had Asperger's actually

[martiancyclist]

Emphatically no.

My wife has high-functioning autism (which is closely related), and I also probably have something similar, though I have no official diagnosis. A whole bunch of our family have various high-functioning forms of autism as well.

Autism spectrum disorders, in general, have no connection to this sort of violent action. We do ofen have trouble with impulse control or with temper, but what this guy did was emphatically not lose control - it was definitely premeditated, and that's no more normal for aspies than it is for neurotypicals.

Unfortunately, the media has latched on to autism as the explanation. Any time a white person does a massacre, we have to find some way they are different. It doesn't even have to be true - the killers at Columbine, back ten or so years ago, weren't loner outcasts at all, for example (my wife was an actual outcast loner, and was treated as a threat by school administration because of it).

Now this guy probably had other problems, but aspergers isn't what did it.

[karcy]

Did you know anyone related to autism who had a need to keep themselves secure by violent imagery?

I'm not saying this because I think Asperger's = school shooter. I'm saying this because I have actual experience with a kid who had Asperger's and resorted to violence (in imagery) to keep himself safe. So just saying 'no it doesn't happen' isn't going to convince me.

[asciilifeform]

I've been a lukewarm subscriber to the Manchurian Candidate theory of "postal" murders for years. Witness the ready-made media hysteria machine that revved up to full speed even before the bodies were cold.

It fits the facts in many if not most of the cases known to me. Especially the latest one - where the killer left no manifesto of any kind, and was not known to have had a grievance against anyone.

[p_trekkie]

The destroying his computer bit would fit with that scenario....

[asciilifeform]

And likewise the uncommonly good aim.

Random fire, even with an automatic weapon (which this particular offender did not have, contrary to popular opinion) doesn't hit much in a 3D world. Not even in a crowd of defenseless people. Consider the North Hollywood Shootout of '97, where the cops and the robbers together fired ~2,000 rounds. Only 18 were injured, and two died (the perpetrators themselves, one by police and one by his own hand.)

The story of the Connecticut perpetrator's mother having taught him to shoot is rather questionable. As is the fact that the police changed their story regarding the murder weapon. At first it was announced that a rifle was found in the suspect's car, while pistols were found at the crime scene, near the dead suspect. And the new Official Truth holds that all of the victims died from unmistakable rifle wounds. Also note that the media hysteria machine brought out calls to bring back the Clinton rifle regulations immediately, without waiting for this development. Even though the first reports from

[asciilifeform]

See also: Herostratus. The real purpose of the media circus surrounding each "postal" murder is to make the next one happen.

[napoleonofnerds]

Dude, I think that's more than a pair of noia.