Media effects: Breivik and Lanza
by David Atkins
While Joe Scarborough and his friends blame movies and video games for mass shootings like the one in Sandy Hook, investigators have discovered a more plausible connection:
Investigators have a theory that Adam Lanza’s interest in Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik might have led to the Dec. 14 massacre that left 20 children and six adults dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
The theory is based in part on several news articles about Breivik that investigators found in Lanza’s bedroom at the Newtown home where he lived with his mother, Nancy Lanza, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation.
The sources emphasized that an interest in Breivik is just one theory. They said Connecticut law enforcement officials traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to brief unidentified federal authorities on the status of the investigation and discussed the possible Breivik connection.
Lanza’s mother was a right-wing prepper. He himself seemed to have an obsession with right-wing murderer Breivik. It’s not definitive, but it’s certainly suggestive. Millions of kids play video games and watch violent movies. But most don’t tend to have articles about politically motivated conservative killers in their rooms.
There may well have been media effects involved, but likely more of the Fox News variety than the Xbox one.
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