[tkrexvmz] Newtown terrorism

I speculate that terrorism -- violent crime for a clear political purpose -- was Adam Lanza's motive.  Countering many others' unfounded speculation that mental illness was the cause, I speculate -- just as unfoundedly, I suppose -- a mentally healthy individual rationally choosing an action to best advance his political cause of protesting highly stratified American society and deep class divisions.

Why choose an elementary school?  An elementary school is a relatively difficult target with considerable security (as a result of Columbine, etc.) compared to other possible targets.  A wealthy school district's small class sizes would require going from room to room to kill many people.  In contrast, a movie theater would have had none of these difficulties, and it had already recently been proven to "work" (James Holmes), if the goal was merely to kill lots of people.  No, it had to be certain young people who represent something.

The predominantly white, well-to-do ($100,000+ median household income) city of Newtown, CT is mostly populated by "white flight" out of New York City, wealthy parents seeking safer, nicer schools for their children.  Lanza chose Sandy Hook Elementary School to protest this attitude of, instead of trying to fix the poverty problem in inner cities, just moving away: out of sight, out of mind, leading to no political motivation to fix it, if anything, political motivation not to fix it, selfishly not wanting tax dollars to be spent on someone else.  The shooting was meant to be a wake-up call, to make people experience first-hand the dangerous, poverty-stricken, inner-city neighborhoods that they thought they had escaped and thought they could now safely ignore.

This speculation has an uncomfortable "Blame Canada!" feel to it: others say blame the gun lobby, blame mental health testing, blame school security, anything but blame ourselves.

If true, this motivation has significant repercussions for policy to prevent similar future attacks.  Teaching responsible gun use will not work.  Limiting access to guns will only slightly work against a rational, determined individual seeking to acquire them.  School security could be overpowered by a group of terrorists united around this cause.  Mental health screening will not work, unless there is a test for "patriot".

If we were to acknowledge this message, perhaps this act setting off social policies to decrease poverty and stratification, does it mean the terrorist has succeeded, which could motivate future terrorists?  To prevent future terrorists, perhaps we should bury his message, make sure it never becomes public and never has a chance to affect policy.