A story about the shootings at Northern Illinois University on the local news.

[terrya]

So tell me again why the fuck is it so goddamned easy for someone who is emotionally or mentally unstable to get a gun?

[dogman]

1. Because the NRA has so many emotionally or mentally unstable members.

[tuckessee]

16. How many NRA members have committed mass shootings? n/t

[Critters2]

2. Because the gun crazies' interpretation of the 2nd Amendment

is more important than the safety of students in Oceanography 104.

[jody]

3. Because as I understand it, he had not been adjudicated as mentally ill. Do you want every one with

some mental illness to be on a government list?

[bbinacan]

4. Excellent point. n/t

[Critters2]

6. "Adjudicated" don't enter into it. Illinois state law says

that anyone who is treated in an inpatient psych facility forfeits his/her right to purchase firearms.
I can't own a gun for this reason. I voluntarily sought inpatient treatment for depression years ago. I was told then, and patients are still told, that by doing so I was permanently forfeiting my right to purchase guns; and that my information would be sent to both state and federal authorities.

So, I'm already on a government list. In spite of the fact that my illness never made me a threat to others. It's the law here, but someone decided not to follow it.

That, combined with the general ease with which guns are available in this country cost 6 people their lives.

[jody]

7. Ill law says it's a crime if "(4) He has been a patient in a mental hospital within the past 5 years

and has any firearms or firearm ammunition in his possession;"

See (720 ILCS 5/24-3.1) Sec. 24-3.1. Unlawful possession of firearms and firearm ammunition.

Do you know for a fact the person was a patient in a mental hospital within the past five years?

The law I quoted was federal that requires adjudication to a mental institution.

ON EDIT ADD:
According to MSNBC, "Kazmierczak had a state police-issued FOID, a firearms owners identification card, which is required in Illinois to own a gun, authorities said. Such cards are rarely issued to those with recent mental health problems."

Apparently K had not been in a mental institution in the past five years.

[IsItJustMe]

11. Wrong!!! I have read up on the Illinois state law since this shooting and it states that if you

have been hospitalized for a mental condition in the last five years you are unable to own a gun.

http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/6-181.pdf

[IsItJustMe]

9. You have to watch those people that have a compulsive/obsessive disorder who wash their hands all th...

time or check their car door four or five times to make sure it is locked. God forbid, if they ever get a gun.

:sarcasm:

[spoony]

13. Indeed!

In fact, to be on the safe side, we'd better disqualify anyone who's ever felt emotion. You know how that type can be!

[bluerum]

5. It seems like background checks as they are implemented today are a weak link.

IMO they are a hand waving concessions (in states where they are even implemented) made by people who don't want to piss off the NRA and the gun totin' public.

The question remains, what WOULD be an effective measure?

A FOID may be revoked and seized if the holder made a false statement on the application, is no longer eligible, or whose mental condition poses a clear and present danger to self, others, or community. A written notice must be given with the grounds for denial or revocation and seizure.

He made false statements. Who is supposed to follow up on this stuff? This law is practically un-enforceable.

On edit: provided excerpt from IL. State gun law.

[KharmaTrain]

8. I've Posted About This Problem Previously

...as usual no one pays attention. LOL

I served on a jury involving straw gun purchases in Illinois. I was and still am for greater gun control, but the laws are so porous in this state (and I'm sure in many others) that what the shooter did was very, very legal.

As long as you have a valid FOID card, you can walk into a gun store, show the card and purchase one gun at a time with no questions asked. As long as the FOID card checks out, the store owner doesn't need to notify anyone of the purchase. All the dealer need do is just file the paperwork and that's it. If he were to sell TWO guns or a second gun at that specific store to that specific person, then he'd have to notify the ATF. So he could have gone to various gun shops, purchased an arsenal and it could have easily gone unnoticed.

Also, losing a FOID card is an expos-facto law...how does one know the person has lied or is unfit until AFTER something bad happens? In this sad case, there were few warning signs and I suspect we'll never know what caused him to snap.

[bluerum]

12. I am with you kharmatrain. The law itself seems to be a strawman - a place holder

until we can think of something that works, or people get pissed off enough to DEMAND something that works.

[EFerrari]

10. Because mental illness is not treated as real in this country.

If mental illness were real, these peripheral issues would get more careful attention.

[LSK]

14. because emotionally or mentally unstable militias have the right to bear arms

[davsand]

15. Even IF somebody warned them there isn't much they can do.

Terry, I will tell you from personal experience, that if you try to warn about this kind of stuff in advance there isn't much the authorities can or will do.

I spent the last three years in a workplace that I felt was unsafe because of one man's instability. Multiple people saw the problem and lodged complaints but there was nothing that could be done because the man had not directly broken any laws YET.

He was telling people he was "gonna get them" he was erratic and abusive and more than once there was property vandalized (I had a work knife broken off in my car tire at my house and one of my office mates had a cement block thrown thru his patio window. That same week our fleet car was vandalized twice in a 48 hour period.) We ultimately were going to work with plain clothes deputies in attendance.

Yeah, it was THAT bad.

At the time, I had a conversation with the State's Attorney. She made the observation that if everyone who had been called "dangerous" was arrested there would probably be quite a few empty offices every day. At the time it pissed me off, but in retrospect I think she's right. I don't especially WANT to live anyplace that controls its citizens' lives based on the say-so of somebody else.

While I think our nation has a very real issue with how we view (idolize, really) guns and violence, I also think that gun ownership will be with us forever. I'm not sure what the solution really is, but there was more than one time when I was living in fear 24/7 that I wonder if I would have carried a gun had it been legal to do so.

I think I might have.

Do you feel that treatment for any sort of mental illness should automatically eliminate someone from buying a gun? I understand the visceral response to it, but how should we decide the guidelines? Does taking Xanax for anxiety render people unsafe for gun ownership? How about Wellbutrin/Zyban to stop smoking? Where do we draw those lines?

Keep safe.


Laura

[EFerrari]

17. That's exactly why imho the way to prevent or reduce these incidents

is via a health care frame, not a gun control frame.

This kid didn't just take a minor tranq for anxiety. He was hospitalized for over a year. That's as rare as chicken's teeth nowadays unless you are dealing with severe mental illness.

Who was tracking him? Where was his "team" -- family, doctors, school counselor? His grad school advisor seems to have been clueless. How was that possible?!

Whatever he had going on was not going to be "cured" but managed for the rest of his life. A group of people knew that. :shrug:

[davsand]

18. What is so tragic is that the kid was in Social Work.

You'd THINK those guys would get it if anyone would--ya know?

I agree that it is a mental health issue, but I am honestly left scratching my head with what to do. Frequently there is a very real resistance to any sort of mental health treatment for the people who need it most. Involuntary commitment is a pretty tough legal bar to clear (which is not a bad thing exactly--I'd hate to be declared crazy just cause I pissed in the wrong guys' Wheaties...) but voluntary compliance is not always gonna happen.

I do not now the answer, I really don't.

Seems like we all (Americans as a whole--not just DUers) talk about this stuff AFTER this kind of tragedy then we just kind of go back to our blissful ignorance. Something I have been wondering about of late is the amount of really ugly stuff going on EVERY day--to the point it is not even a big deal most of the times. Seems like we have all become desensitized to it somehow. We only wake up when it is SO very ugly it can't be denied any longer. I'm not some fundy, nor am I anyone that is prone to fear vague apocalyptic events--but it makes me wonder just how screwed up we really have become that this stuff is so common.



Laura

[EFerrari]

19. Part of it is simply money and the way we allocate resources.

I bet most communities see police services as a top priority and mental health care funding as a down list,luxury item. So what happens is the police wind up being the front line of mental health "care" in most communities.

The good news is that law enforcement, as a profession, seems to get it. The biggest community mental health advances in the last few years have come out of that sector -- not, as we might expect, from the medical community or from social work. They are learning how to network across bureaucracies, how to share information, how to respond to mental health calls.

I agree about become inured to unmet needs. Some of the most numbed out people I've run into are shrinks. It's just self defense, in a way. A daily negotiation between surviving the cacophony of want and attempting to be effective .in any way possible.

[marions ghost]

20. A society is insane

if it continually allows mentally unstable people to buy guns.

How many more of these incidents before we realize that?