President of the NRA at today's conference (Washington Post)

Today, the president of the National Rifle Association of America, Wayne LaPierre, made his organization's highly-anticipated statement regarding the shooting at Newtown, Connecticut. Anyone who was hoping for anything less than usual b.s. about how the school system needs more guns should probably stop reading right here. Also, the NRA wants us to note, that it is our culture's glorification of Splatterdays (what?), Mortal Kombat and Natural Born Killers--specifically--that causes mass shootings, not military-style assault weapons that we can buy online.

From Mr. LaPierre's statement:

And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like “Bullet Storm,” “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Combat,” and “Splatterhouse.”

And here’s one, it’s called “Kindergarten Killers.” It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research staff can find it, and all of yours couldn’t? Or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it? Add another hurricane, add another natural disaster. I mean we have blood-soaked films out there, like “American Psycho,” “Natural Born Killers.” They’re aired like propaganda loops on Splatterdays and every single day.

That would be a very good point, Mr. LaPierre, and if you were anyone other than the guy telling us that everyone needs a semiautomatic machine gun with 20 magazines, we might listen. Unfortunately, Kindergarten Killers has not prompted anyone to go on a rampage, since, as you say, no one has ever seen that film outside of your office. Also, Patrick Batemen didn't really use guns, and Natural Born Killers came out 18 years ago. I'd also advise you to Google "Mortal Kombat death statics" and compare it to "gun death statistics." It's quite enlightening.

Not to worry though, because it looks like the travesty at Newtown has only caused an increase in gun sales. Thanks, Kindergarten Killers.

“What a wonder is a gun!
What a versatile invention!
First of all, when you’ve a gun—
Everybody pays attention.”

—Stephen Sondheim, Assassins

Last year I had the opportunity to review Candice Millard’s excellent history of the Garfield assassination, Destiny of the Republic. President Garfield’s killer, Charles J. Guiteau, has generally been characterized as “a disgruntled office-seeker,” but as Millard makes clear, he was barking mad. His own family was terrified of him and had been for years, but it proved impossible to find him any effective mental health care.

Finding a cheap handgun in the nation’s capital, on the other hand, proved very easy. One murdered president later, attention was paid.

That was 131 years ago. Little has changed. Getting effective, affordable mental health care is nearly as difficult for many Americans as it was in Garfield’s time, while guns are more ubiquitous and deadly than ever.

Nor will the situation change any time soon, regardless of the terrible tragedy at Newtown. A popular sentiment has arisen that this time it will be different, that at long last we can “start a conversation” about gun violence in the United States.

But gun owners and manufacturers, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and most of the Republican party have already had that conversation. Their conclusion was that they like guns, all sorts of guns, with as few restrictions on their purchase or lethality as possible.

Republican legislators have had their conversation. They’ve spent the last couple years passing legislation that allows individuals to carry guns on trains and in national parks, in our schools and our churches, and in our bars—thereby accelerating an arms race of fear and paranoia.

Republican congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas has had this conversation. He’s been on television fervently wishing that the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School had had her own automatic weapon, locked and loaded and ready to blow the head off the bad guy.

Fox commentator Mike Huckabee’s had this conversation. He concluded that “we have systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools become a place of carnage?”

The town of Newtown’s had this conversation. Some residents tried to regulate the growing tendency of their neighbors to fire automatic weapons at propane tanks and targets loaded with Tannerite—a mixture of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder—until they blew up, resulting in shocks large enough to shake nearby houses.

Newtown’s saner citizens wanted to at least ensure that these homemade target ranges were moved away from other people’s homes, but something called the National Shooting Sports Foundation insisted that there was a greater danger of people being injured in swimming accidents, and that “No safety concerns exist.” As one local woman put it, “Teach your kids to hunt, you will never have to hunt your kids.”

“If you’re good old boys like we are, they are exciting,” one Scott Ostrosky said of his personal blowin’-up-things-real-good range. Mr. Ostrosky insisted, “Guns are why we’re free in this country, and people lose sight of that when tragedies like this happen. A gun didn’t kill all those children, a disturbed man killed all those children.”

And most pertinently, the family of Adam Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, had that conversation. The late Nancy Lanza, his mother and first victim, was reportedly a gun obsessive who kept some three or four or five rapid-
firing weapons in her house and enjoyed taking her boys to the shooting range. She told a friend that “she liked the single-mindedness of shooting.”

Nancy Lanza was also waiting for the end of the world, as a survival fetishist who belonged to the “Doomsday Preppers” movement, and, according to her former sister-in-law Marsha Lanza, had turned her home “into a fortress,” where she was stockpiling not only guns but food. It is perhaps ironic that in preparing for doomsday, Nancy helped hasten it not only for her neighbors but for herself.Her outlook may have accounted for Adam Lanza’s possession of ammunition that, according to the chief medical examiner of Connecticut, was “designed in such a fashion [that] the energy is deposited in the tissue so the bullet stays in”—and does as much damage as possible.

Not that Marsha Lanza finds anything particularly wrong with this: “Just pray for peace. Do I think gun laws need to be changed? No. It’s the person that does the killing, not the gun.”

So far, the Lanza family has been much more reticent about Adam Lanza’s mental illness, unwilling or unable to say that they knew anything was wrong with him. Marsha Lanza did recall that Nancy “had issues with [the local] school[s],” and ended up at least partially home-schooling her son.

“If he had needed consulting, she would have gotten it,” added Marsha. “Nancy wasn’t one to deny reality.”

But friends and neighbors have reported a son who rarely seemed to go outside, and a home that was almost never opened to others. The media has reported in its own ignorance that Adam had Asperger’s syndrome—about as relevant to what happened last Friday as a corn is to a case of lung cancer.

So go on and have your conversation with these individuals. They are people who believe that a schoolteacher, taken by surprise, can always outdraw a practiced shooter, and that nothing bad will come from keeping her loaded automatics around a school full of young children.

They worship an almighty, all-merciful, omnipresent God—who will withdraw His grace from said school if the exact right incantation isn’t chanted in it every morning. They think guns don’t kill people, swimming kills people, and that guns aren’t responsible for mass murder, but that they are responsible for our freedom, and can save us from the zombies and the black helicopters come the post-apocalypse. They believe it is their constitutional right to set off deadly explosives until their neighbors’ homes spin on their foundations. They think they know better than teachers how to educate their children, and they don’t see how their children’s state of mind is anybody else’s business, even after they’ve committed atrocities.

They are people devoid of logic or maturity, who want what they want when they want it. They are supremely afraid of almost everything and everyone around them—and supremely confident of their invincibility as long as they have their finger on a trigger.

There are tens of millions of them, and they elected a majority of the House of Representatives and our state governments. They won’t be swayed, no matter how many tears President Obama sheds, nor how many eloquent eulogies he delivers. They won’t care if you hold a big march in Washington, or sign lots of Internet petitions. They will block whatever bill the president or Sen. Dianne Feinstein or Rep. Carolyn McCarthy proposes, and they will do their damnedest to end the political careers of anyone who supports such legislation.

They don’t want to have a conversation. They just want to shout slogans at you and wave their guns in your face until you go away. And they will keep doing that until all of us who consider ourselves “liberal” or “progressive,” or simply “opposed to having our neighbors blow up propane tanks in their backyards” form a political organization every bit as well-organized and tireless and determined as theirs, and vote their representatives out of office.

editorial@observer.com

Illustration by Ed Johnson.

Friday was a day of horror, Saturday a day of shock and Sunday a day of mourning. President Barack Obama hewed to that script when he showed up in Newtown and gave a stem-winder about God and our duty to our children without uttering the word ‘gun’ or stating exactly how he plans to lead us out of this national emergency.

The conventional wisdom said Sunday wasn’t the day, nor Newtown the venue, for policy. I disagree, but I get it. Now, having given his sermon, Mr. Obama should not wait one more day to explain his earthly plan.

That plan should start with the appointment of a Gun Czar. A red state, red-meat Republican with hunting cred, a gun lover who isn’t a gun nut, who can start the serious work that our nation, with 300 million guns in private hands, needs to begin right now.

The Gun Czar should gather a bipartisan room full of the concerned and powerful, from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to pro-gun moderates like New York’s Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and even the NRA, and together map out a national strategy to stop these regular community bloodlettings.

The Gun Czar will have his or her hands full dealing with the traditional entitlement of the gun lobby, but must forge on and ignore those who claim it is a joke to try to take on National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre. The conditions are right today to send him the way of Grover Norquist.

The challenges to be faced are political, societal and psychological, and regulatory, and they must be addressed separately and directly.

The political moment is now. Timing is everything in Washington, and there is not a minute to waste. The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School is so horrific that even Rupert Murdoch has been begging Mr. Obama to show some leadership on assault weapons. The gallery of dead children has temporarily wiped the smirk off the faces of the NRA lobbyists and sapped the gloat from the weapons dealers.

President Obama should address the nation this week, from the Oval Office, not from a pulpit in Newtown.

His Justice Department has already studied the regulatory part of this conversation, but has so far only whispered about it. According to The New York Times, the Justice Department commissioned a study last year on how to rein in the violence, starting with a stronger background-check system. It recommended things like synching Social Security databases of people receiving mental health disability benefits with the FBI’s gun background check, and increasing to $100 million federal grants to states that share private information with the FBI. The study also suggested that private gun sellers be required to obtain background checks on buyers.

Simple, rational ideas—not even prying the machine guns out of any gun-lover’s cold, dead hands, just trying to make sure they don’t wind up in the hands of maniacs. Who could object? Yet the study was shelved, a piece of election-year cynicism that must weigh heavily on the minds of those who made that decision.

Mr. Obama’s reluctance to say that Second Amendment rights must stop at the doors of our malls and schools is the simpering inverse of the evil Rovian calculus that destroyed the art of compromise for so many years. It is just as shameful and regressive.

There was exactly one single mention of guns in the presidential election debates. During the second debate, Mr. Obama said, “What I’m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapon ban introduced.”

President Clinton introduced that ban in 1994, but it expired in 2004, and Congressional Republicans refused to renew it. The conventional wisdom on it is that it didn’t work anyway. And the gun lobby used the fact that it had ever even existed to sell more guns.

And sell they did!

Here is where we come to the social-psychological public health part of the challenge. Daunting, maybe insurmountable, but we have no other option than to try.

Nancy Lanza, the laughing, blond suburban mom whose gun collection enabled the Sandy Hook massacre, participated in a national gun ownership surge that, curiously, dates to Mr. Obama’s first election. In the year of the 2008 election, the numbers of American who applied for weapons background checks jumped by more than 1.5 million. In the single month before the last election, in October 2012, the number of Americans applying for background checks, leaped by more than 18 percent.

One reason for the surge is the gun lobby has whipped up its followers to believe President Obama intends to take away their guns. That didn’t happen in his first administration, but with this crowd, paranoia is never far from the surface.

In my humble opinion, there is another, uglier reason why Mr. Obama’s elections have coincided with gun-buying sprees among white Americans, but I leave a discussion of that to another time and place.

Mrs. Lanza is no longer with us to explain what provoked her to start stockpiling weapons in 2009, but one relative and one friend cited fear and insecurity. “She prepared for the worst,” her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza told The Chicago Sun-Times.

The worst happened, and she was most certainly not prepared.

Mrs. Lanza liked board games and craft beer and shooting, but also seems to have been afflicted with a need to arm herself to the teeth. When and how the bug hit her, we don’t know. Reports say she started buying guns after her divorce in 2009. She stocked up on so-called tactical weapons. Cop weapons. A Glock. A Sig Sauer. A semiautomatic rifle called an AR-15, the gun of choice for mass killers of late.

These weapons are not intended for bagging deer and squirrels. There’s only one target for a facsimile of a machine gun, and it walks on two legs.

Soon she was taking her guns and her two sons, one of whom she knew to be mentally ill, to the firing range, donning the goggles, taking aim at paper targets on human figures, living the Rambo fantasy.

The shooting ranges up in Connecticut, which welcomed Mrs. Lanza and her child-murderer-in-training, are scurrying for cover now, refusing to talk to reporters, pretending they never saw the smiling blonde and her twisted kid blasting away.

Collecting and shooting these guns, she joined millions of Americans who are not hunters, who live in a nation defended by the greatest killing machine ever invented by mankind, who are mostly well-housed and -fed, and who yet feel so personally threatened that they stock their homes with weapons of the sort found on remote bases in Afghanistan.

At some point, gun ownership in America tipped from being an outdoor hobby for men and the occasional woman who like to hunt deer and blow away skeet, to a pastime as black as the costumes young male maniacs don before they enter malls, schools and theaters.

The growing popularity of tactical weapons is such that within 100 miles of New York, we now encounter giant billboards on highways advertising shops that sell to civilians weapons that by rights and rationality belong only in the hands of trained soldiers and law enforcement personnel—if that.

Not 10 miles from our house in upstate New York, a new tactical weapons shop opened this year, advertising itself on the highway as “Not Your Father’s Gunshop.” The owner, John Kielbasa, an emigrant from New York City, recently told CNN that Mr. Obama’s election was “good for my business,” and bragged that the morning after the election a man walked in and bought two AK-47s.

A half hour away from Mr. Kielbasa’s establishment, on a back road that leads to the local Walmart, another giant billboard advertises yet another shop selling tactical weapons.

These billboards—nestled among roadside ads for real estate and insurance, barely an hour’s drive from New York City—are signs of dark times, to be sure.

Has it gotten as dark as it will get?

The gun control backlashes in the wake of attacks by Jared Loughner and James Holmes and their analogues over the last decade achieved nothing. But now there's hope for real change.

The 2012 election is over and 20 first-grade children are dead, shot multiple times with a gun and bullets that no civilian in America needs in his or her home.

A Gun Czar won’t bring back those children and their teachers, no more than any man or woman or government policy can bring back to life the dead in Aurora or Tucson, or restore the bright, shining abilities of Gabby Giffords, forced by a bullet to the brain to resign rather than represent the people of the great state of Arizona, who so desperately need a leader to help them out of their open-carry Death Cult madness.

A Gun Czar can’t cure the American gun sickness. But like any public health campaign, airing the problem with strong leadership makes people think about and recognize it, and slowly, over time, change their habits.

Think smoking, think AIDS, think obesity.

We can do this.

Please Mr. President: Try.

editorial@observer.com

During the 9 o'clock hour on Friday morning, at least one black-clad male entered Sandy Hook Elementary, a K through 4 school in Newtown, Connecticut. Police believe he was armed with two semi-automatic handguns. He opened fire on students and faculty and, according to reports coming from major media outlets already at the scene, the shooter killed at least 27, including 18 children.

Reuters and WABC reported that the shooter was 24, carrying up to four weapons and wearing a bulletproof vest.

An Associated Press report in the Hartford Courant states that "one entire classroom was unaccounted for" as authorities attempted to determine who had survived the shooting.

The school is home to grades K through 4, with students no older than ten years of age.

Local media published photos of crying children locked hand-in-hand being led away from the school by uniformed officers and teachers with panicked expressions. In an interview with a Connecticut TV station, one of the children described how upon hearing the gunfire, students "went into a total panic." In another interview with the teen brother of a Sandy Hook student, the young man spoke of his sister hearing gunshots over the school's public announcement system.

Newtown, population 27,000, is a small, picturesque town located in western Connecticut, about 90 minutes north of New York City. In 2005, it was a contender for one of CNNMoney's "Best Places to Live" in the United States.

The gunman was reportedly dead at the scene, but early afternoon reports via CNN and MSNBC indicated another man was under arrest in connection with the massacre.

CBS News reported that a second body was found in the gunman's home.

This is a developing story, updates will be added to this post as needed.

Update, 2:12 p.m. CNN reports that the deceased gunman was named Ryan Lanza, of Newtown and also Hoboken, New Jersey. NBC indicates the dead body found in his home may be one of his parents.

Update, 2:20 p.m.  Moments after his name was reported Ryan Lanza's apparent Facebook profile was being widely shared over social media, including via Slate's Twitter feed.

Update, 2:29 p.m. Here is video that appears to be of the alleged shooter, Ryan Lanza, discussing The Daily Show while a student at Quinnipiac. Mr. Lanza also appears to have been quoted in a Quinnipiac student newspaper article from 2006 about love and relationships. "I prefer relationships," he said. "That’s just how I roll.”

Update, 2:35 p.m. Reports are now flying on Twitter that the Facebook profile that was widely circulated is not of the alleged shooter, Ryan Lanza. Slate has retracted their report, as has BuzzFeed. A supposed Facebook friend of Mr. Lanza's, Andrew Fletcher, posted a screenshot on Twitter showing Mr. Lanza updating his profile saying, "Everyone shut the fuck up it wasn't me."

"I had to unfriend Ryan because I was getting a ton of friend requests," tweeted Mr. Fletcher. "I won't be able to provide any further information."

There is no confirmation either way if the Facebook profile is fake or not, but Facebook users are still sharing the profile at an alarming rate.

Update, 2:47 p.m. President Obama is giving a statement at 3:15 p.m., according to New York Mag.

Update, 2:59 p.m. This story previously included a screenshoot of a Facebook profile at one point thought to be Mr. Lanza's, along with a YouTube video and a link to a newspaper article matching the personal specifics of the profile holder. These have been removed pending further investigation.

Update, 3:49 p.m. The New York Post is reporting that the shooter was actually Adam Lanza, age 20:

Adam Lanza, 20, shot his mother dead and targeted her kindergarten class at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., sources sais. Sources also told The Post that Lanza's mother was a teacher at the school and he "had a dispute with her."

Additional reports from several media outlets indicate at least two of Lanza's friends may be missing. Reuters reports that Connecticut police have identified only one shooter.

The reason why eventually became apparent to the perp after he was arrested by the midtown north grand-larceny unit at 2:45 p.m. The team was visiting the upscale department store hoping to spot pickpockets when they observed the defendant stealing merchandise. And when they asked to see some ID, the identification he produced was fake.

So the police gave him a complimentary ride to the 19th Precinct for arrest processing and then tossed him into a holding cell. It was at that point that the suspect, a 32-year-old male who spoke mostly Spanish, offered the police officer $700 in exchange for his freedom.

The policeman removed the prisoner from the cell and took him to the bathroom, where the suspect repeated the offer. It was probably at that moment that the crook should have withdrawn the bribe, or perhaps should have suggested that the NYPD put it toward upgrading the stationhouse’s comfort facilities, which frankly leave something to be desired.

Instead, the policeman returned the suspect to the holding cell and contacted the midtown north investigations unit. At 7:15 p.m., more than four hours after the initial arrest—and enough time for even the most naïve thief to surmise that something fishy might be brewing—officers from the investigations unit arrived at the 19th Precinct, educated the police officer on the finer points of “bribery and entrapment,” and equipped him with a mini-cassette recorder.

Then they dispatched him to engage the prisoner in conversation yet again and get the bribe offer on tape. The crook was once again removed from the holding cell and taken to a secure location within the stationhouse, where he courteously repeated his $700 offer.

Once the cops checked the tape and made sure the bribe offer was crisp and clear, they informed the perp that he was no longer charged with shoplifting alone, but with the more serious charge of bribery.

Magic Fingers

Rich people are usually pretty cagey about hiding the family jewels when the help is around; after all, why unnecessarily tempt them with a diamond-studded Rolex or a tennis bracelet that exceeds their annual salary?

But masseuses seem to fall into a special category. Perhaps it’s because it takes a certain amount of trust to let them see you without your clothes on. Once that barrier has been broken, maybe it leads you to let your guard down in other ways.

At least it apparently did with an 880 Fifth Avenue resident on Nov. 19. The victim, a 74-year-old woman, told the police that she’d placed her ring in her personal bathroom “that only she uses.” Well, actually only her and her masseuse, who decided to visit her private bathroom at around 9 a.m.

After the masseuse left, the lady decided to take a shower, and it was at this point that she realized her ring was missing. She said she’s been trying to contact the masseuse, who isn’t answering her phone. And probably for good reason: It would take a lot of massages—deep, therapeutic, herbal, erotic or otherwise—to accrue the capital to purchase such a bauble herself, described only as “white stone.” The victim placed its value at $260,000.

Crooks in Candyland

One of the warning signs that you’ve been pickpocketed is when a perfect stranger bangs into you when contact could easily have been avoided. The problem is that there are some stores that are so popular—especially during the holidays—that it’s impossible to distinguish the crooks from the merely clumsy or aggressive shoppers who invade your personal space.

One of those locations would have to be the perennially popular Dylan’s Candy Bar, at the southeast corner of Third Avenue and 60th Street. The jostling at Dylan’s isn’t normally a criminal enterprise, but rather a shopping strategy as customers virtually trample each other for penny candy that costs as much as controlled substances, $29 T-shirts and humble milk-chocolate Hanukkah dreidels that sell for $12.

A 45-year-old Newtown, Mass., woman informed the police that she visited Dylan’s on the day after Thanksgiving, removing her wallet from her purse at 4:20 p.m. to make a purchase. Following her purchase, she put the wallet back in the purse and closed it.

But while having a conversation with fellow family members (which may have been her first mistake, the chaos of Dylan’s hardly making polite conversation possible), she felt herself jostled by strangers in a manner that suggested they were after something more valuable than Wonka Bars.

And then, as she moved toward the exit, she noticed that her purse was open and her wallet missing. The $150 wallet contained $30 in cash, a car-park card, a Massachusetts driver’s license, her Social Security card and her medical license.

The reason why eventually became apparent to the perp after he was arrested by the midtown north grand-larceny unit at 2:45 p.m. The team was visiting the upscale department store hoping to spot pickpockets when they observed the defendant stealing merchandise. And when they asked to see some ID, the identification he produced was fake.

So the police gave him a complimentary ride to the 19th Precinct for arrest processing and then tossed him into a holding cell. It was at that point that the suspect, a 32-year-old male who spoke mostly Spanish, offered the police officer $700 in exchange for his freedom.

The policeman removed the prisoner from the cell and took him to the bathroom, where the suspect repeated the offer. It was probably at that moment that the crook should have withdrawn the bribe, or perhaps should have suggested that the NYPD put it toward upgrading the stationhouse’s comfort facilities, which frankly leave something to be desired.

Instead, the policeman returned the suspect to the holding cell and contacted the midtown north investigations unit. At 7:15 p.m., more than four hours after the initial arrest—and enough time for even the most naïve thief to surmise that something fishy might be brewing—officers from the investigations unit arrived at the 19th Precinct, educated the police officer on the finer points of “bribery and entrapment,” and equipped him with a mini-cassette recorder.

Then they dispatched him to engage the prisoner in conversation yet again and get the bribe offer on tape. The crook was once again removed from the holding cell and taken to a secure location within the stationhouse, where he courteously repeated his $700 offer.

Once the cops checked the tape and made sure the bribe offer was crisp and clear, they informed the perp that he was no longer charged with shoplifting alone, but with the more serious charge of bribery.

Magic Fingers

Rich people are usually pretty cagey about hiding the family jewels when the help is around; after all, why unnecessarily tempt them with a diamond-studded Rolex or a tennis bracelet that exceeds their annual salary?

But masseuses seem to fall into a special category. Perhaps it’s because it takes a certain amount of trust to let them see you without your clothes on. Once that barrier has been broken, maybe it leads you to let your guard down in other ways.

At least it apparently did with an 880 Fifth Avenue resident on Nov. 19. The victim, a 74-year-old woman, told the police that she’d placed her ring in her personal bathroom “that only she uses.” Well, actually only her and her masseuse, who decided to visit her private bathroom at around 9 a.m.

After the masseuse left, the lady decided to take a shower, and it was at this point that she realized her ring was missing. She said she’s been trying to contact the masseuse, who isn’t answering her phone. And probably for good reason: It would take a lot of massages—deep, therapeutic, herbal, erotic or otherwise—to accrue the capital to purchase such a bauble herself, described only as “white stone.” The victim placed its value at $260,000.

Crooks in Candyland

One of the warning signs that you’ve been pickpocketed is when a perfect stranger bangs into you when contact could easily have been avoided. The problem is that there are some stores that are so popular—especially during the holidays—that it’s impossible to distinguish the crooks from the merely clumsy or aggressive shoppers who invade your personal space.

One of those locations would have to be the perennially popular Dylan’s Candy Bar, at the southeast corner of Third Avenue and 60th Street. The jostling at Dylan’s isn’t normally a criminal enterprise, but rather a shopping strategy as customers virtually trample each other for penny candy that costs as much as controlled substances, $29 T-shirts and humble milk-chocolate Hanukkah dreidels that sell for $12.

A 45-year-old Newtown, Mass., woman informed the police that she visited Dylan’s on the day after Thanksgiving, removing her wallet from her purse at 4:20 p.m. to make a purchase. Following her purchase, she put the wallet back in the purse and closed it.

But while having a conversation with fellow family members (which may have been her first mistake, the chaos of Dylan’s hardly making polite conversation possible), she felt herself jostled by strangers in a manner that suggested they were after something more valuable than Wonka Bars.

And then, as she moved toward the exit, she noticed that her purse was open and her wallet missing. The $150 wallet contained $30 in cash, a car-park card, a Massachusetts driver’s license, her Social Security card and her medical license.