Drugs cannot be ruled out in Sandy Hook massacre

ON FRIDAY December 14 in Newtown, Connecticut in the US, a 20-year-old gunman shot his mother to death, then walked to a nearby elementary (primary) school, and massacred 20 children, aged between six and seven, and six adults, before killing himself.

Theories about what led Adam Lanza to commit such an horrific act have been spreading over ever wider, and wilder, fertile ground.

Lanza killed his mother with her own gun one of five she owned, including a semi-automatic assault rifle that allowed him to fire dozens of high-velocity rounds in seconds, building up a quickly shocking tally of young victims.

Not surprisingly, the first knee-jerk reaction was to target the powerful pro-gun lobby in the US, and raise mounting pressure to call for tougher gun controls.

The US enjoys (if thats the right word under these tragic circumstances), a reputation as the country with the highest gun ownership rate in the world. Thats 89 guns for every 100 Americans, compared to a reported 12.7 in South Africa, according to a blog on The Guardians website in July (I would have thought its a lot higher than that), six in England and Wales, and just about zero (0.6) in Japan.

The Land of the Rising Sun has been able virtually to eliminate shooting deaths in part simply by forbidding almost all forms of firearm ownership, say analysts.

Yet the US does not have the worlds worst firearm murder rate. That 'prize' goes to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica, a blogger says in The Guardian. The US comes in at number 28, with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people, he says. Puerto Rico "tops the worlds table for firearms murders as a percentage of all homicides 94.8%", he says, followed by Sierra Leone in Africa, and Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean.

Im no fan of guns, and wouldnt have one in my own home. And while I can see the sense in banning all forms of firearm ownership, the fact is guns on their own dont kill. Its the people behind them who are deadly.

So if guns are not the prime suspect in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, then what is?

The shooting has renewed the perennial debate about the effects of violent video games. Lanza is reported to have been "obsessed" with playing violent video games.

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Drugs cannot be ruled out in Sandy Hook massacre