Anguished search for an explanation

Slowly, amid rumor and misinformation, a picture of the killer is emerging, and it is dismayingly familiar. Adam Lanza was yet another young, withdrawn, middle-class male who for some unimaginable reason graduated from his adolescence as a mass murderer.

What happened Friday in Newtown, Conn., was a variant on what the country has witnessed repeatedly in recent years. Once again, it was a pseudo-commando attack, as if the killer were playing a video game and racking up points for every victim. Once again, the crime appeared to be staged for maximum shock value. And once again — just as in Aurora, Colo., this past summer — there was the element of overkill, with multiple weapons, a military-style rifle and massive amounts of ammunition.

Video

Police say the relationship between Adam Lanza and his mother could be key to discovering his motive for the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.

Related stories

On gun control, Obama’s record shows a lack of political will — until now

Philip Rucker and Sari Horwitz

Until the Newtown attack, the issue was deemed politically untouchable.

History of gun control is cautionary tale for those who seek regulations

Scott Higham, Sari Horwitz, David S. Fallis and Joel Achenbach

The fights ahead will be protracted and brutal — and any legislation may well be riddled with loopholes.

Frustrating search for motive

Marc Fisher, Robert O’Harrow and Peter Finn

With Newtown attack, Adam Lanza gave little away.

Obama wants action on guns within a year, calls for fundamental change

Peter Whoriskey and Sean Sullivan

In interview on NBC, he reaffirmed intent to address guns, said day of killings was worst of his presidency.

History of gun-control legislation

A look at legislation since 1934 regulating guns in the United States.

Haunted by Sandy Hook

CLOSE TO HOME | Beyond our love, we can guarantee our children so little.

Remembering the victims

A look at the 27 people killed by a gunman in Newtown.

Lanza, 20, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, at home, and then invaded Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 20 first-graders and six adults, firing 30-round clips from a .223 Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle before taking his own life. How many bullets? “Hundreds,” Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance said Sunday.

Detectives recovered evidence at the Lanza home that might help explain the killer’s thinking, but authorities have not revealed what they found. For the moment, the Newtown massacre remains as inexplicable as it is horrifying. “We don’t have a specific reason,” Vance said.

The location and lethality of the Newtown tragedy, and the preciousness of the victims, have turned the holiday season into a period of national soul-searching and calls for action to curb gun violence. Newtown dominated the Sunday talk shows. President Obama flew to Connecticut to join the mourning, and people nationwide revisited with new urgency the complex issues of gun laws, mental illness and access to mental health care.

The Newtown discussion necessarily sweeps in the news media, which give the killers a notoriety they couldn’t have achieved legitimately. The discussion touches on Hollywood, which markets spectacular make-believe violence. Also implicated: The computer gaming industry, which profits from ultra-realistic shooting games that are bloodier than ever.

“I point the finger unreservedly at the entertainment industry, which has spawned and cultivated gaming that by design is increasingly real, geared to action as the shooter’s point of view, increasingly dehumanizes victims, and increasingly rewards players by how many they kill,” said Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist and chairman of the Forensic Panel, who works on more than 20 homicide cases a year.

Although the profile of the mass shooter is often a familiar one, that is true only after the fact — when it’s too late. And the overwhelming majority of young men who play violent video games and are social misfits do not commit any crimes at all, much less shoot up a grade school.

How does society tell the truly dangerous ones from the ones who are just a little weird?

“We’re not even good at predicting minor violence. When you’re talking about preventing a mass shooting, that’s a needle in a haystack,” said Jeffrey Swanson, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. “You can’t just go out and lock up all the socially awkward young men in the world.”