Court documents made public Thursday list items police found ? guns, ammunition, books on mental conditions ? at the home of Sandy Hook school shooter Adam Lanza. They reinforce an image of a troubled young man and a family struggling to help him.
The home of Nancy Lanza and her son Adam in Newtown, Conn., Thursday.
Michelle McLoughlin/Reuters
EnlargePolice search warrants for the home of Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman Adam Lanza, made public 3-1/2 months after the tragedy, reveal a family struggling with what to do about a troubled young man who clipped newspaper articles about school shootings and played hour upon hour of violent video games. The documents also show a family with a high degree of enthusiasm for guns and ammunition.
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State Police had requested the search warrants within hours of the shootings at the school in Newtown, Conn. The courts released them Thursday, with some parts blacked out. The documents also include a list of some items officials seized from the Lanza home after conducting the search.
Though the picture remains partly obscured, the documents give a more complete view of Lanza and his mother, Nancy Lanza, whom he apparently killed before going on the Dec. 14 shooting spree that resulted in the slaughter of 20 6- and 7-year-olds and six school employees.
One indication of how much guns appeared to mean to 20-year-old Adam: One item discovered at the Lanza home was a holiday card with a check from his mother to buy another weapon.
The state's investigation into the shooting is ongoing, particularly into Lanza's motive. Here's some of what police found at the home, as well as information gleaned from the search warrant.
? An arsenal of ammunition and guns at the residence. Some of the items were in a gun safe: a Planters can loaded with .22 caliber and .45 caliber bullets, eight boxes of Winchester Windcat .22 caliber bullets (50 rounds per box), a box of 30 Magtech rounds, shotgun shells, and boxes of rounds for rifles.
? Books that may indicate what the Lanza family was going through, including, ?Look Me in the Eye ? My Life with Asberger's? and "Born on a Blue Day ? Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant.?
? A New York Times newspaper clipping of an article about a shooting at a university in northern Illinois.
? A redacted portion of an FBI interview with someone almost immediately after the shooting. The individual, whose name is blacked out, tells the FBI that Adam ?rarely leaves his home,? is an avid gamer who plays "Call of Duty," among other games, and went to Sandy Hook Elementary School. "The school was his 'life,' ? the interviewee told the FBI.
The information was released the same day that President Obama, in a bid to breathe new life into his legislative proposals to tighten gun laws, held an emotional press event with parents who had lost children to gun violence.
?We have moms on this stage whose children were killed as recently as?35 days ago,? said Mr. Obama, at a White House event. ?I don't think any of us who are parents can hear their stories and not think about our own daughters and our own sons and our own grandchildren.?
Also on Thursday, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Mayor Thomas Menino, organized gun-control events at 120 different venues. The group also released a new television ad, which debuted in the Hartford, Conn., market and features families who lost their children at Sandy Hook.?The state legislature in Hartford is currently debating gun-control legislation.
Included in the list of items law enforcement officials found at the Lanza home is a "certificate" from the National Rifle Association. On Thursday, the NRA denied that either Adam Lanza or Nancy Lanza were members. ?Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory,? said the NRA in a statement on its website. NRA certificates are issued, by the NRA or other gun-training outfits, to people who complete education and training courses on guns.
Experts contacted after the release of the search warrants say the documents point to a troubled young man who was collecting weapons, learning to shoot guns, and reading up on previous mass shootings. The information ?is consistent with a certain percentage of mass shooters. It becomes a bit of a competition: people trying to make their mark in the world somehow,? says Ronald Schouten, director of the Law & Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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