SALON

Monday, Mar 18, 2013 3:47 PM UTC

Adam Lanza’s morbid spreadsheet and “gamer code”

Mike Lupica reignites the debate linking violence to video games, calling Lanza's rampage "the work of a gamer"

By

Topics: Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting, Adam Lanza, ,

Adam Lanza's morbid spreadsheet and Adam Lanza (Credit: AP)

A Monday column in the New York Daily News from writer Mike Lupica uses an unnamed “career cop” to argue that mass-shooter Adam Lanza had used “gamer code” to plot the murder of  26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Referencing reports that law enforcement had found research about previous mass murderers at Lanza’s home, Lupica says that “video gamer Adam Lanza” used a s0-called points system and “the code of the gamer” to plan the tragic school shooting.

Based on a conversation that occurred during a presentation at the International Association of Police Chiefs and Colonels mid-year meeting, Lupica quoted heavily from the anonymous cop who believed it was video games — not untreated mental illness, not easy access to an arsenal of firearms — that fueled Lanza’s rampage (emphasis mine):

The man to whom I spoke, a tough career cop who did not wish to see his name in the newspaper, was in the room when the state cop from Connecticut spoke, said the man was well into his presentation when he began to talk of the spreadsheets that had been found at “the shooter’s” home…

“They don’t believe this was just a spreadsheet. They believe it was a score sheet,” he continued. “This was the work of a video gamer, and that it was his intent to put his own name at the very top of that list. They believe that he picked an elementary school because he felt it was a point of least resistance, where he could rack up the greatest number of kills. That’s what (the Connecticut police) believe…”

“He didn’t snap that day, he wasn’t one of those guys who was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore,” the man said. “He had been planning this thing forever. In the end, it was just a perfect storm: These guns, one of them an AR-15, in the hands of a violent, insane gamer. It was like porn to a rapist. They feed on it until they go out and say, enough of the video screen. Now I’m actually going to be a hunter.”

Col. Danny Stebbins of the Connecticut State Police, who was giving the presentation that day, was far more restrained in addressing Lanza’s history of playing first-person shooter games. While he talked about how Lanza’s “tactical reload” strategy may have been something he learned from a video game, he also discussed Nancy Lanza’s “straw purchases” of weapons for her son, enabling and training his “gun obsession”:

“[Nancy Lanza] was making straw purchases of guns for him all along, and ignoring the fact that he was getting more and more fixated on them.”

Lupica and his unnamed source’s speculation will no doubt add fuel to the debate over the link between violence and video games, but as researchers have already shown, the connection between the two remains poorly understood.

Rather than reduce Lanza’s murderous rampage to “the work of a gamer,” social scientists and mental health experts continue to call for more thorough — and nuanced — investigations into how mental health, cultural and behavioral factors, gun regulations and access to firearms could possibly converge to yield such unspeakable tragedy.

Lupica’s fixation on video games distracts from that larger, and far more crucial, conversation.

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com. More Katie Mcdonough.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 11 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
169 points170 points | comment
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
157 points158 points | 84 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
151 points152 points | 98 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
143 points144 points | 13 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
78 points79 points | 21 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations