Newtown Killer's Gun Stockpile: Whose Weapons Were They Really?

Media narratives die hard, as in the case of the homicidal maniac who massacred those children and teachers in Newtown, Conn., in December. The narrative: This was the spontaneous act of a lone killer who snapped.

Adam Lanza was a deeply disturbed young man, obviously. But what about the role of his mother, whom he also murdered that awful day? In a few media accounts, which much of the mainstream media has chosen to ignore or at least not to pursue, Nancy Lanza was described by people who knew her -- including her sister in law -- as a well-armed "prepper," who was preparing herself (and presumably her son) for a social and economic meltdown that members of the paranoid survivalist movement believe is coming soon in America.

Search warrants released today show that a veritable arsenal of guns and ammunition and other weapons were in the Lanza home -- which the media accounts all seem to refer to as the "killer's home." Like this one.

Actually, in the interests of accuracy and perhaps a more clear-eyed understanding of how this horrific massacre was able (or enabled) to happen, the home was the killer's mother's home. The guns belonged not to the 20-year-old murderer, but to the boy's evidently also-troubled mother.

A gun safe, where some weapons were stored (not including the four he took with him to the elementary school for his massacre rampage), was found in Adam Lanza's bedroom, along with more than 1,400 rounds of ammunition. The police also found the killer's membership card to the National Rifle Association.

All of the guns were legally owned by the mother.


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