I recall she bought it with him using it for target shooting, or something like that.
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shootingAlthough Lanza had no criminal record, and
Under Connecticut law at the time,[23] the 20-year-old Lanza was old enough to carry a long gun, such as a rifle or shotgun,[24] but too young to own or carry handguns.[25] The guns he used had been purchased legally by his mother.
Purchasing a firearm with the intent of passing it to someone else (as opposed to owning it yourself) is the definition of a straw purchase, and if done to give the firearm to someone who cannot legally own one, is illegal, in and of itself.
There remains the question of whether he should have had access to firearms:
Investigators evaluated Lanza's body, looking for evidence of drugs or medication through toxicology tests.[107] Unusually for an investigation of this type, DNA testing of Lanza was utilized.[108][109] The results of the toxicology report were published in October 2013, and stated that no alcohol or drugs were found in his system.[110] Lanza's autopsy showed no tumors or gross deformities in his brain.[
Report of the Office of the Child Advocate
The Report of the Office of the Child Advocate concluded: "There was not one thing that was necessarily the tipping point driving Lanza to commit the Sandy Hook shooting. Rather there was a cascade of events, many self-imposed, that included: loss of school; absence of work; disruption of the relationship with his one friend; virtually no personal contact with family; virtually total and increasing isolation; fear of losing his home and of a change in his relationship with Mrs. Lanza, his only caretaker and connection; worsening OCD; depression and anxiety; profound and possibly worsening anorexia; and an increasing obsession with mass murder occurring in the total absence of any engagement with the outside world. Adam increasingly lived in an alternate universe in which ruminations about mass shootings were his central preoccupation".[131]
The authors also noted that despite multiple developmental and mental health problems, Lanza had not received adequate mental health treatment. They wrote: "It is fair to surmise that, had Lanza's mental illness been adequately treated in the last years of his life, one predisposing factor to the tragedy of Sandy Hook might have been mitigated".[132]
The report also tentatively disagreed with the conclusions of the State Attorney about why Lanza targeted Sandy Hook. They noted that "According to the FBI, shooters are likely to target places or people that are familiar to them ... The elementary school may have been targeted because he could overpower people, a dynamic that is very important for mass shooters as they do not want to be thwarted".[131] [18]
Other statements about the already bad and deteriorating mental health of Adam Lanza would preclude his passing a NICS check, if that information was available in the database. In short, he would not have been able to purchase such a firearm, or any firearm on his own, given his mental health history.
Lanza was treated by Robert King, who recommended extensive support be put in place and prescribed the antidepressant Celexa. He took the medication for three days. His mother Nancy reported: "On the third morning he complained of dizziness. By that afternoon he was disoriented, his speech was disjointed, he couldn't even figure out how to open his cereal box. He was sweating profusely ... it was actually dripping off his hands. He said he couldn't think ... He was practically vegetative".[142] He never took the medication again.[154] A report from the Office of the Child Advocate found that
Yale's recommendations for extensive special education supports, ongoing expert consultation, and rigorous therapeutic supports embedded into (Lanza's) daily life went largely unheeded.[149]
In a 2013 interview, Peter Lanza said he suspected his son might have also suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia in addition to his other conditions. Lanza said that family members might have missed signs of the onset of schizophrenia and psychotic behavior during his son's adolescence because they mistakenly attributed his odd behavior and increasing isolation to Asperger syndrome.[148][142][155][156][157] Because of concerns that published accounts of Lanza's autism could result in a backlash against others with the condition, autism advocates campaigned to clarify that autism is a brain-related developmental disorder rather than a mental illness.[158] The violence Lanza demonstrated in the shooting is generally not seen in the autistic population[159] and none of the psychiatrists he saw detected troubling signs of violence in his disposition.[142]
Lanza appears to have had no contact with mental health providers after 2006.
Before driving to the school, he shot and killed his mother at their Newtown home.
The firearms Adam Lanza took, which he did not own (and likely could not, considering his mental health problems), belonged to his mother. Regardless of her motives or response to marketing schemes, she was not the one who killed people, although there can be made arguments that would question her permitting him access and not making sure he pursued the options available for such treatment as he needed to keep him on a more even keel, mentally.
Any response by him to marketing campaigns for the Bushmaster Rifle is moot. He didn't purchase, nor did he own the firearm used in the murders.
Consider that if the court rules that Remington is responsible, then any manufacturer of any firearm
which has been stolen and used in a crime could conceivably be held liable for the actions of any shooter who received that stolen firearm and committed a crime with it because of some supposed response to a marketing campaign, a campaign which NEVER advocates the irresponsible or criminal use of such products.
The survivors have already gone after the Lanza estate (without regard for the surviving son).
The case should have been dismissed.
