Extremely disturbed individual passes background check and buys arsenal of guns despite past murder

[Bjorn Against]

Murderous 'monster' acquires an arsenal
Article by: PAUL MCENROE and GLENN HOWATT , Star Tribune staff writers Updated: January 20, 2013 - 7:33 AM

They knew the Delano house far too well. It was where Christian Philip Oberender, then 14 years old, had murdered his mother in a shotgun ambush in the family rec room in 1995.

Now, 18 years later, Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson was sending his deputies back to the home where Oberender still lives. Just two days earlier, Olson had scanned the day's shift reports and froze when he tripped over Oberender's name. A scan of a Facebook page then showed firearms spread out like a child's trophies on a bed inside the home, along with notes about the Newtown, Conn., gunman who shot 20 children to death.

snip

Even more disturbing was the letter Oberender had written recently to his late mother, Mary: "I am so homicide,'' it said in broken sentences. "I think about killing all the time. The monster want out. He only been out one time and someone die.''

snip

Even though Oberender killed his mother with a firearm, even though he was committed to the state hospital in St. Peter as mentally ill and dangerous more than a decade ago, he was able to obtain a permit to purchase firearms last May. That piece of paper gave Oberender, now 32, the ability to walk into any licensed Minnesota retailer and buy any assault weapon or pistol on the rack.

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/187610601.html?clmob=y&c=n&refer=y

This is one of the "responsible gun owners" that is able to obtain a permit thanks to the NRA standing in the way of any effective gun legislation.

[pipoman]

1. Sounds like he had a juvenile conviction

and/or the state failed to report his conviction to NICS.

[Bjorn Against]

3. Whatever happened it shows the current background check system is not adequate

[B2G]

4. The majority of these 'loopholes' are of our own making

By not enforcing current laws.

Yet some want to create even more laws...even though we don't enforce the ones we have already.

[Bjorn Against]

6. The current laws do not even require purchasers to provide their Social Security Numbers

If this guy had to provide that he would have never passed the background check. The current law can not be enforced if we don't even have a proper system in place to enforce it, the law needs to be changed to allow a background check system that actually works.

[B2G]

10. So let's shore up the laws we already have

Rather than passing a flurry of new ones that won't be enforced either.

That's all I'm saying.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

25. What we need are a hundred new laws to not enforce. Only that will fix the problem! n/t

[B2G]

2. And if officials had enforced the laws already on the books

he would never have received a permit in the first place.

[Bjorn Against]

5. If the laws on the book were better this probably would not have slipped through

Last edited Sun Jan 20, 2013, 12:20 PM - Edit history (1)

If you read the article it says some of the limitations to the system, you have to submit fingerprints and a Social Security Number to become a teacher in this state but you don't have to do so to buy guns. Under current law police only have seven days to object to a permit application, if it takes more than seven days the applicant is automatically granted a permit.

The problem is not that the current laws were not enforced, the problem is the current laws make it far too easy for people to slip through the cracks.

[B2G]

7. From your link:

"How did Christian Oberender succeed in obtaining a gun permit?

The answer lies in a combination of deceit on his part, failures in the state court system, and haphazard data collection by state agencies, according to interviews with law enforcement officials."

[Bjorn Against]

13. Yes the link does say that, all those things could be fixed with a better system in place

The current background check laws are too weak, we need new laws that actually have teeth.

[B2G]

16. Too weak or not enforced in the first place?

I'm of the opinion it's a combination of both.

If laws are to be enforced, *someone* has to enforce them. Do we have adequate resources to enforce the ones we already have? Time and again, we hear that 'someone slipped through the cracks', someone should never acquired a permit in the first place, that a background check 'should have caught this'.

Is anyone even asking that question?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. The Presidents executive actions will address this without the need for what you advocate for

I do support the concept of a voluntary Firearms Owner ID (FOID). Get it ahead of time and there would be no waiting period since the check would already be done.

The SSN limitation is actually imbedded in Federal law for many things.

[Doctor_J]

18. Yep. No one ever is willing to say this to the gun culture

The problem is not "too many laws", it's that the laws are written by the NRA, in a fashion meant to have more loopholes than the tax code.

[blm]

8. Guns don't kill people, gun owners kill people.

Gun sellers don't kill people, gun buyers kill people.

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. The NRA and gun nut assholes should stop preventing the relevant agencies from doing their jobs

That means they should stop engineering it such that BATF has no head and fewer agents than it did 35 years ago. They should stop making it difficult for states to keep databases and enforce existing laws. I'm all for STRICT enforcement of current laws, so long as the gun nut assholes who preach that as a mantra actually ALLOW and enable the laws to be enforced, rather than stifling them at every opportunity. Why don't we have an actual, sitting BATF head? Why? Anyone who preaches "Enforce existing laws" needs to be able to answer this question clearly and honestly.

[freshwest]

24. One of the latest screeds by the NRA was about taxes. They are part of the starve the beast crowd

in order to fund enforcement of the laws in place now, leading to lack of manpower. The more chaos, the more people feel in need of their product. A sick, cynical way of doing business and destroying a nation.

[Recursion]

11. Nobody knows what to do with juvenile criminals in any sense; this isn't just about guns

Does a crime committed at 14 count against somebody for the rest of their life, or not? We never seem to know what to say about that.

[Kolesar]

15. That told us nothing...eom

[HereSince1628]

20. I think it did tell us something, a reminder that

society is ambivalent on how to deal with juvenile offenders.

I'm surprised that isn't obvious to you.

[Eleanors38]

22. Oh, it did. Note liberals often decry harsh penalties/sentences for the under aged criminal...

Where do you stand on this?

[Bjorn Against]

26. I think it is perfectly reasonable to restrict someone who murdered with guns from owning guns

Even if they murder someone as a minor they should lose their gun rights permanently. I have mixed feelings on how long the sentence should be for minors who murder, but there are no mixed feelings when it comes to gun ownership. If you murder you should never be able to touch a gun again. Period. That is not a harsh penalty or a longer sentence, it is a common sense public safety measure. People don't need guns, guns do not make people safer and those of us who don't own guns are less likely to be killed as a result of gun violence than those who do.

[Eleanors38]

36. I agree. Merely pointing out how we got to this state.

[aikoaiko]

12. Everyone agrees that NICS needs to be improved in terms of

information flow and prosecution of the prohibited who knowing attempt to obtain a firearm through an FFL.

Heck even the NRA agrees with that.

[Doctor_J]

17. Yet another example of "too many laws"

- The NRA

[HereSince1628]

19. NICS has serious gaps, more for felons and addicts than the mentally ill. All need fixing

I'm wondering how the police become aware of the guy's facebook page?

I read the article and scanned through it a second time but somehow missed that.

Was it his shooting buddy that reported this?

[farminator3000]

21. this one gave me goosebumps, raised hair on neck, nausea, holy f'in f thats f'ed up

Last week, investigators also learned that Oberender's juvenile record -- where the murder of his mother is recorded -- had not been attached to his criminal history at the BCA. Carver investigators are still puzzled over that.

In a statement, BCA spokesperson Jill Oliveira said, "There were no data submitted to the BCA about this individual; without it there can be no record."

Loopholes

The state's criminal background system appears to contain another loophole for violent felons and persons found mentally ill and dangerous who want to escape scrutiny. Under state law, a person's juvenile record is deleted from the BCA's database when the individual turns 28 unless a judge says otherwise, Oliveira said. As a result, a person with a violent juvenile record -- like Oberender -- might still qualify to buy a gun if there were no felonies on his adult record.

State law requires the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) to provide local law enforcement agencies with records of people who have been committed to institutional care for mental illness, if the applicant gives consent. But in general, the BCA said, a court order for civil commitment is classified as private data and is not available to the BCA.

"There is no way that BCA can have DHS's commitment data,'' Oliveira said in a statement. In addition, about half of those committed by a court are directed to community providers, not state facilities, thus leaving it to the courts, not DHS, to ensure that the records are sent.

It's unclear whether Oberender's mental health history was ever entered into any background check database.

[Eleanors38]

23. Good post. Note my #22 above. Do we liberals want to go there?

[farminator3000]

35. of course we do

you can't really call drunk driving laws 'conservative'

[annabanana]

27. So everyone in this thread is ready to fully fund and staff the ATF to

a level that it will be ABLE to enforce the laws on the books, right?

[Bjorn Against]

28. I certainly am in support of providing funding to enforce gun laws

You do make a great point however, everyone who says the existing laws need to be enforced needs to be willing to provide funding to enforce them. Every time an NRA type goes on about enforcing the existing laws they should be asked if they support increased funding for the ATF.

[Duckhunter935]

29. Yes

[WinkyDink]

30. He needs to be re-committed.

[slackmaster]

31. The system would have stopped him if it was running properly

That was a cluster fuck.

[Lurks Often]

32. This is a failure at multiple levels in MN

Last edited Sun Jan 20, 2013, 02:55 PM - Edit history (1)

, not a the Federal level.

Regarding your comment about providing a SSN, Oberender should have been required to provide a driver's license or some other form of government issued photo id to purchase any of the firearms he acquired.

There are plenty of state and Federal laws on the books that prevent criminals and those involuntarily committed from purchasing guns. In this case the state of MN failed it's citizens.

[dkf]

33. We are very good at writing an unending number of laws, very bad at enforcing them.

You can't tell me this is the only situation where we have seen complete incompetence in enforcement. And the irony is all the record keeping gaps are at some government entity whether it is at the state or federal level.

Plain old competence is missing and it puts us in danger.

[dkf]

34. Is this sort of thing fixable?

"I think about killing all the time,'' Oberender wrote. "Why god do I feel like this? The monster want to hurt people. Guns are too fast. The monster want it to be slow and painful. There is so much pain in my heart and soul. Me want other to feel it."

[Bjorn Against]

39. I have a brother with schizophrenia and there are treatments that are effective

My brother was at one time a very scary person, but now that the doctors found a medication that works for him he is one of the most loving and accepting people you will ever meet. There is no cure for schizophrenia so if he were ever to go off his medication things could get scary again.

I don't know the medical history of the person in the article, but it is very likely his mental illness has not been properly treated since he was released. If he did receive proper treatment he could very likely live a better life and pose no threat to anyone.

Even so however I would never want him owning guns, he may be safe if he is medicated but no medication will cure his illness so if he were ever to go off his meds he would need to be prevented from getting a gun.

[farminator3000]

37. Tracking Spengler's handgun proves tricky

The handgun found next to William Spengler Jr. after he fatally shot two firefighters on Christmas Eve was manufactured by Smith & Wesson and sold in 1973 to a firearms dealer in Tennessee.

Later, that dealer shut down. Its records, apparently destroyed, are nowhere to be found.

Through what they describe as a stroke of luck, federal agents have located someone else who once had possession of the .38-caliber revolver. Now, they are trying to determine how the gun moved from there to Spengler.

The investigation continues, largely because it would be a crime if someone gave or sold the gun to Spengler. Spengler, a felon who served 17 years in prison for bludgeoning his grandmother to death with a hammer, could not legally own a firearm.

“We’re committed to finding out how exactly those guns got to him,” said Scott Heagney, who heads the Rochester region office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF.

-skip-

In an era of rampant technology, federal agents find themselves hamstrung by limitations on gun registration information. Their investigative techniques harken to a past era, when they sometimes have to sift through thousands of paper records in search of information about a particular firearm.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20130120/NEWS01/301200015/1002/RSS01

[Ruby the Liberal]

38. Well this isn't chilling or anything.

Even more disturbing was the letter Oberender had written recently to his late mother, Mary: "I am so homicide,'' it said in broken sentences. "I think about killing all the time. The monster want out. He only been out one time and someone die.''