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I've wondered this for a very long time.  Can your genes make you kill? Scientists are actually mapping Adam Lanza's genes to find out, according to smartplanet.com.  Remember him?  He's hard to forget.  He's the mass murderer of 20 Connecticut first-graders and six of their teachers and administrators two years ago.   The Web site notes that no one has ever sequenced a mass murderer’s genes. "And the plan to do so, by University of Connecticut geneticists, is being conducted quietly and far from the media spotlight. The University won't comment on its research, other than to admit that they indeed undertook it. It's not clear whether they have concluded their research, but the scientists most likely looked for mutations linked to mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, autism or Asperger’s—a diagnosis psychiatrists had given Lanza years before his rampage. Neither the researchers nor the medical examiner’s office have said what they plan to do with t...

I guess we shouldn't be surprised (horrified is more like it), but gun violence in movies has tripled since 1985, the year the rating was introduced. According to newswise.com, "The most popular PG-13 movies of 2011 and 2012 showed significantly more gun violence than R-rated movies of the same time period, a new study reveals." Could we be any more depressed?  I read yesterday that a gun rights advocate who wrote a (very mild) piece for Guns and Ammo about how maybe we should consider regulating guns just a little, was immediately fired from the magazine and vilified and threatened by his peers, while his editor wrote a meek apology for publishing the story, and was himself fired. Meanwhile, the killings in real life continue, with (you're not going to believe this) 16 mass killings since Newtown, where 20 first graders and six adults were gunned down last December.  (I so dread the anniversary coming up, especially because the vile NRA has promised to hold...

Now that more information about Adam Lanza and the Newtown massacre are about to hit the airwaves, how much do we really need to know? Make that, want to know. That he fired 155 bullets in less than five minutes, according to NBC News?  That he fired 154 of those bullets from his assault rifle and just one (to kill himself) from a handgun? And big surprise, that he had a certificate from, or was a member of, the National Rifle Association?  All these facts came out today at a press conference held by the chief prosecutor investigating the slaughter. So, does this make any of us feel better?  We sort of knew the main outline from all the newscasts.  This is just shedding a little more light (if there is any light to Adam Lanza).  We also learned just last week that he had a seven-foot spreadsheet of all the mass killings of recent years. But does this help us make any more sense of this horrific crime?  Not for me.  We always knew this kid w...

At first I was furious.  PBS opens its special on rampage killers with a source placing possible blame on distant mothers.  Then the series broadened its investigation into mass murderers who were bullied as kids, didn't fit in, yet who, poignantly, longed to be accepted. And to be known. What I found truly disturbing were the mug shots of young killers.  Their eyes were all like Adam Lanza's, bizarrely wide-open and staring. According to the show, the majority of young rampage killers kill themselves. But not before, as in some cases, like Columbine, recording their profound depression and wish to die.  Are these kids we can save?  No one knows.  But the brains of people who are depressed do show physical differences, Miles O'Brien reported in the PBS special.  Researchers use a test that asks participants to identify colors on the screen when they don't match the words.  For example, the word "red" may appear in bl...