Police investigating links between Sandy Hook shooter and violent games

Because there’s clearly no link between his unbalanced mental state and the shooting though right?

Edit: Missed the bit about destroying his hard drive, but then wouldn’t you do that if you’d been researching something nefarious prior to leaving your house to never return?

…was a troubled boy living under a mother who was obsessed with guns….

I would say that was the reason right there. Although yeah, could be games *rolleyes*

If he was ”emulating” them , that means it was something wrong with him even before he had games…

Fed up…

Let’s not write and talk about this anymore. We will never change the views of people that don’t know video games, so why bother.

Dave, I salute you for not typing shooter’s name. Thank you and hopefully in the near future, more sites and news outlets start doing this instead of giving more popularity to those criminals.

As for the subject, I am going to say this: A crazy survivalist mother who had more than 5 different fire arms living with his troubled son. Unless the killer was mimicking the brutal decapitations of God of War 3 while also using Lancer’s chainsaw on his victims, they must be joking. Right? (I’ve even heard Dynasty Warriors being mentioned which almost fries my brain. A mindless brawler set in ancient Japan where you ride horses and wield giant weapons is NOT the same as using guns to slaughter children in an elementary school).

This is the probably with our society, nobody wants to take respondibilty for their action. And why do they keep referring to him as a boy? 20 years old is still considered a minor?

How embarrassing for Connecticut police…

After that, they can look into the role the devil played as well.

Please stop this BS.

Sandy Hook Shooter(TM) because using his real name would be letting him win. Or some such shit (I read his name on VG247 and it all made sense, so I shot my mother flipping hamster). Oh I’m sorry – I thought I was Media and would trivialise the feck out of something. My bad.

Fair enough that you don’t “want” to know about the guy Dave, none of us do, but it just seems like pointless posturing to “NOT write” about him.

If the press tried to keep his name a secret, it would just mean that everybody would be googling him, and the publicity and shock value would be that much greater.

Can we please stop trying to pretend that the internet doesn’t exist, and that the name isn’t already widely known, and will be for a very long time?

Adam Lanza. Adam Lanza. Adam Lanza, Adam Lanza. No bogeyman appeared, and no kids came back to life.

@10 It’s my choice dude, the guy did it to become notorious. I won’t name him.

@11 And it works. Adam Lanza is notorious. Everybody knows who he is. You’re not making a spot of difference.

You’re actually writing about him, without writing about him, which only makes him more interesting.

What are you achieving?

I had to google Adam Lanza. I never cared about his name or who the guy was. So now I know his name, thanks to you, DSB.

So I think it’s fair to say that Dave didn’t help anything.

Bloody hell, is Dave not allowed principles? I’m certain it makes no difference, but its his choice and we should respect that. And I agree, everyone knows his name, but it doesn’t mean he deserves a mention.

@14 Right, but the thing is, you’re giving him way more attention by demonstrably pretending like he doesn’t exist.

Arguably a guy who you can’t even mention in public has to be a lot more important than a guy who’s casually named every day.

It’s the same reason why some bands put on masks. It makes a bunch of worthless personalities seem more interesting.

That principle serves Adam Lanza just fine. It doesn’t serve the victims, and it doesn’t serve anyone in trying to understand what happened.

You might be able to force some kind of denial and forget, but I don’t think they ever will.

@15 I agree with you, but there are plenty of times in the press when a persons name isn’t mentioned, instead using the victims name ie the Bulger killer. It is surprisingly commonplace. Its not for the same reason as a band hiding their identity, its just about an individuals respect for a terrible event and its Dave’s choice entirely.

(CNN) — The shooting spree at Sandy Hook Elementary School may have been motivated by a desire by Adam Lanza to outdo Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man who killed 77 people in July 2011, law enforcement sources told CBS Evening News.

The unnamed sources said Lanza saw himself as being in direct competition with Breivik, who killed eight with a bombing in downtown Oslo before he moved to a nearby island where he hunted down and fatally shot 69 people.”

This is been denied by local police, so we don’t know if this is true in this specific case, but it is fact that some of these sickos do it for the infamy. Make their name indelible to history, and to end their miserable lives by going down as some mythical evil. I don’t have a problem writing the shooters name, but if I were a professional running a popular website, I’d probably take the same personal moral high road Dave has. No it won’t bring back any of those kids, but I understand not giving that coward what he probably wanted…

@16 It does happen, but part of the problem in this case is that Adam Lanzas crimes were indeed too atrocious to ignore.

Calling him the Newtown killer would be ignoring the significance of the event. A guy brought an assault rifle to a school and started murdering innocent kids.

That arguably raises a lot of questions that a lot of people will want asked, and a major part of the answer has to be Adam Lanza.

I don’t blame anyone for dreaming of a world where guys like that are instantly erased from any record of anything, ever, but that’s just not reality.

@17 He already has what he wanted. That’s the sad truth about these mass killings. They’re too terrible not to provoke a major reaction. You already lost that game.

@18 And they arguably shouldn’t be erased either because people need to learn from this and change things so the risk is removed or mitigated when the next persons tips over the inevitable edge. But there is also merit in calling him the Sandy Hook shooter because it serves to remind of the victims instead of adding to his infamy. There are two sides to this coin and which side you are depends on how you feel about the whole thing. I’m not denying either side or suggesting either is right/wrong, I’m just suggesting that an author should be allowed to pick his own side in a story like this.

@19 That’s fair, he could’ve gone with just “the shooter”. But then why add the “(Who I’m choosing not to name)”. That makes it look like a display, more than a gesture.

At least in my eyes, that draws a lot more attention than simply naming the guy.

@20 It does draw attention, that’s for sure. But in this age where everyone on the internet questions your motives, sometimes you do have to spell it out and I think doing it is alright for the most part. When the article is quoted, with the [] in it, having the reason explained makes sense.

@21 After the whole Doritosgate thing, I feel the need to justify everything I do, or else incur the wrath of the internet again. It depresses me thinking about it.

@22 Its depressing when you have to spend more time covering your arse than doing your job, but whilst we’re in vastly different industries, I have to think the same way. Someone is always out to shaft you so I empathise completely.

Doritosgate?

@24 http://lmgtfy.com/?q=doritosgate

@23 It’s slowly but surely putting me off. Seriously.

Larzen was a better shot than Breivik, much smaller targets.

@25 Thanks

@26: I never doubted you, Dave. You’re one of the few game journalists I could never doubt. Every article from you is a pleasure to read. Keep up the good work and don’t let the shitty situation of the Doritosgate fiasco drag you down.

@27: A little bit tasteless don’t you think?

@29 Thanks chief. I’m still bewildered by everything that happened. My PS3 arrived and is waiting to be mailed off to the Sick Kids Save Point charity in Edinburgh. Need to wait until payday though as the postage will be a beast!

Will post pics when I do it to get the haters off my back.

Persecution complex issues huh…

@27 That better be Poe’s law in effect there else I think you’re in the wrong place.

@Dave I’ve noticed that there are a lot of haters around lately. Seems the trolls are getting hungrier. I know its hard, but you can’t let idiots get to you although I know that this is your hobby AND your job so it makes it incredibly personal. As YZ said though, don’t let Doritosgate drag you down. You and the rest of the writers around here are one of very few sources of game information I trust. Keep it up.

@32 what do you mean dude?

@33: Agreed. Although it sounds too simple too be true, the best thing to do is to ignore these bastards. Either that or kick them off. It still boggles my mind that we have people like loki on this website. Guy doesn’t do anything but spam anti-pc bullshit.

Don’t let ‘em get you down, Dave!

Haters gonna hate.

Dave can often be seen posting vague “Why me?!” messages on facebook & lapping up the attention from his *friends*.

Big drama queen so he is.

^ You shut your cake hole, you!

Nothing wrong with a bit of drama, now and then…

@35 I’ve mentioned having an ignore button before but I got shot down by one of said trolls for wanting to ‘censor’ their free speech. Its my choice if I want to have their vile and hate filled grasp of the English language sprawled over the website!

@37 because gamers often forget that the games press are people too, not sounding boards for their hateful abuse and immature barbs

No attacks have occurred here.

@41 I’ll have to politely disagree with that mate, I’ve had some really shitty people giving me crap on here before.

I missed out on Manhunt 2 and Bully. I hope Rockstar makes sequels to them next gen like they did for Red Dead Revolver.

‘here’ meaning this thread and people who have contributed to it.
Anyhoo – cest la vie…

@44 Ah, well yeah here has been fine, I meant in general

@Dave Little late, but I’m with YZ and Samoan, you do an amazing job, I’ve been around for almost a year and it’s the best game news I’ve been to, you don’t sit in a pedestal ignoring your readers. Keep up the good work, don’t let the trolls/haters/morality police get you down.