I agree it's quite possible that nothing and no one could have changed the circumstances leading to this particular event. Some people are just unreachable.
Still, there's a new article today in the Christian Science Monitor that had this to say. (It also has some new information about him, as opposed to yesterday, where there were just quotes from former classmates about how intelligent he was, and that he seemed unlikely to do something as horrific as this.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/1217/ ... t-funerals
At the same time, the lack of police data about Lanza's state of mind has only fueled speculation about Lanza's life – with his wealthy, survivalist mother; a mental disability, Asperger syndrome, that makes social cues hard to read; and a secluded life of video games and range shooting – and whether these factors, in total, played some kind of role in pushing the troubled young man to a ragged edge.
Counselors tried to explain more generically that the massacre was, as one said, "an angry, desperate act of a confused young man." Yet criminologists say that another reason why motive is important to understand is that major US school shootings usually take place in places very much like Newtown: upper class, tight-knit, and where young people may have a single shot at acceptance or social failure at school. That means the root cause of the massacre may involve others, as well, or the attitude of an entire community toward someone who did not fit in.
In any case, I'm not thinking so much about this one case, in itself, but why these things are becoming a regular event now, when they weren't (or at least, I wasn't hearing about them) 20 or 30 years ago.
Another thought is that it's just the copycat effect. Once one shooter targeted children, other disturbed people may be more likely to do the same thing.
And, no, these incidents aren't all clustered around holidays. I didn't actually say that.
But there is an increase in violence around the holidays.
Sorry, I didn't intend to sound dismissive of that.
I know that's true. Also suicides.
I just had the impression (which might be wrong) that the mass shootings were mostly at other times of the year.