Rules should have barred weapon purchase

Source: AP

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 5 minutes ago



McLEAN, Va. - A judge's ruling on Cho Seung-Hui's mental health should have barred him from purchasing the handguns he used in the Virginia Tech massacre, according to federal regulations. But it was unclear Thursday whether anybody had an obligation to inform federal authorities about Cho's mental status because of loopholes in the law that governs background checks.

Cho purchased two handguns in February and March, and was subject to federal and state background checks both times. The checks turned up no problems, despite a judge's ruling in December 2005 that Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness."

"On the face of it, he should have been blocked under federal law," said Denis Henigan, legal director of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070420/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_shooting_weapons

---

Well NRA? Let's enforce the rules, right? Guess what, no money to put the system in place...gee I wonder why? SFB!

I want to know why the college authorities did nothing to warn or protect the students and faculty during the two hours between the two shooting incidents.
The man had time to go out and mail his manifesto, and come back and shoot dozens of people who had no idea that there was a reason to be afraid - that there had already been 2 murders on the campus!!!!

Something is not right. Their quick assumption that this was a domestic thing...despite the willingness of the shooter to take Ryan Clark's life as well...they jumped to too many damn conclusions. Just how many 'domestic' incidents are there on college campuses? I just wonder, because I can't bring to mind a single one now that I am thinking about it. It always seems to be serial killers or shooters associated with campus deaths, not domestics. Most of the domestics I hear about are established families, not students. I am not trying to make generalizations, just wondering. How many domestics involve non-related third parties being killed? Probably few, that this happened clearly shows a pathology that doesn't really fit what they apparently wanted it to fit. I'm reall peeved about this, and it will surprise me if there are not lawsuits because of it.

And then the mental health thing...what good is having that law if someone who had been deemed a threat by a judge is allowed to buy a gun because of a loophole. I am not going to offer my opinion on how to fix this because ten people will pop up and tell me how wrong I am, but certainly this tragedy was preventable in at least 27 different ways.

/

i had a stalker and the administration wanted to get me out of school rather than do anything about the stalker, i suspect this is the usual case, campuses lie about the amount of crime that happens on campus (girlfriend bashing, stalking, and acquaintance rape)

example -- a man was strangled and left to rot in his dorm room at university of new orleans a few months back, any sign of the crime being investigated much less solved? not that i know of

and i suspect this is pretty much the standard for colleges, they did nothing about this kid stalking girls, when he did kill, they were anxious to down play it and write it off -standard operating procedure at all colleges everywhere as far as i know

if i had to guess, i would guess most cases don't end this way, MOST cases of stalking end w. the girl being forced out of the school because of lack of action by administration -- just my theory since obviously there would be no records kept but i can't help believing this to be the case

the school planned to spin this as a "domestic" issue that would not impact anyone else after the dorm attack but this kid's degree of pathology meant that their "spin" cost a lot of people their lives

It was not a judge that issued the detention order it was the Magistrate in Christiansburg. A magistrates detention order does not meet the threshold for reporting to the NIBC or Virginia State Police.

Cho was under the gun sales radar

QUOTE
The next day Cho was evaluated more fully by a psychiatrist, and met with a special justice. According to court records, the psychiatrist also declared the future gunman mentally ill but determined that Cho "did not present an imminent threat" to himself and others, and did not require hospitalization.

On that basis, the justice issued a certificate saying that Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself" but ordered him to receive outpatient treatment instead of hospitalization.

A temporary detention alone does not qualify as an "involuntary hospitalization," state officials said.

Dr. James Reinhard, Virginia commissioner for mental health, said that a temporary detention order was meant primarily to permit a patient to be evaluated and should not be considered a final determination of a person's mental state.
UNQUOTE

<snip>
What's the difference between a judge and a magistrate?

Paid judicial office-holders like judges must be fully qualified barristers or solicitors for a minimum time period (at present, seven years since qualifying).

In the case of the magistracy, no academic qualifications are needed, and all necessary training is given on appointment. There is continuous training for both judges and magistrates throughtout the time they serve the justice system.

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/faqs/faqs_magistrates.htm

So, that suggests a diference in credentials, but I don't know if that distinction exists here in the U.S.

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON, April 20 — Under federal law, the Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho should have been prohibited from buying a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a state official and several legal experts said Friday.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective,” as well as those who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, from buying a gun.

The special justice’s order in late 2005 that directed Mr. Cho to seek outpatient treatment and declared him to be mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself fits the federal criteria and should have immediately disqualified him, said Richard J. Bonnie, chairman of the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Commission on Mental Health Law Reform.

A spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also said that if Mr. Cho had been found mentally defective by a court, he should have been denied the right to purchase a gun.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/21guns.html

Those kinds of holes need to be plugged--if you'll pardon the expression.

:headbang:
rocknation

Q: Why have laws that are not enforced?

A: For show.

I have been saying the same thing for YEARS.

This article is a must-read for anyone even slightly interested in the issue.

...Representative Carolyn McCarthy, Democrat of New York, has been pushing a bill to require states to automate their criminal history records so computer databases used to conduct background checks on gun buyers are more complete.

The bill would also require states to submit their mental health records to their background check systems and give them money to allow them to do so.

According to gun control advocates, the mental health information currently submitted to the national check system is often spotty and incomplete, something Ms. McCarthy’s bill is designed to address.

Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and a former member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, is co-sponsoring the bill, which has twice passed the House only to stall in the Senate. Congressional aides say Mr. Dingell is negotiating with pro-gun groups to come up with language acceptable to them....

K&R :kick:

at a gun show since virgina has no background checks on gun show purchases...

...which should have made the full background checks and either did not or simply ignored what came up, or in this case perhaps nothing about his mental condition appeared.

All because the court's ruling of Cho being a threat was ignored by a psychiatrist who treated him as an outpatient instead of hospitalizing him. The mental health care system in this country sucks.

He got one anyway>>>>>

and he did so by ineffective "background checks."

According to what I heard on the radio (so it may be incorrect), the "background check" consisted of filling out a form
where he had to check whether he had ever been hospitalized for mental illness. Surprise, he lied, and they gave him
the gun.

Buyers answer questions about their criminal history on the BATF Form 4, but their backgrounds are also checked through the NICS database, which contains information on all their criminal convictions and is supposed to contain information about whether they have been adjudicated mentally ill. There's no way the BATF would just accept a buyer's self-assessment at face value.

In this case, information about Cho's adjudicated mental illness should have shown up on the background check, but didn't. From what I've heard, this may not have been in violation of the background check policy, since Cho was not involuntarily committed but instead assigned to outpatient treatment at a psychiatric facility. I'm waiting for the whole story on his interactions with the legal system to come out before deciding what laws need to be changed.

....have enemies too" so who would be more deserving of owning a gun than a total nut case convinced that everyone is after them. Such people are bound to be right some of the time. :sarcasm:

<snip>
After two female Virginia Tech students complained about Mr. Cho’s behavior in 2005, he was sent to a psychiatric unit for evaluation and then ordered to undergo outpatient treatment, which would not qualify as an involuntary commitment under Virginia law, Mr. Bonnie said.

“What they did was use the terms that fit Virginia law,” he said. “They weren’t thinking about the federal. I suspect nobody even knew about these federal regulations.”

But Christopher Slobogin, a law professor at the University of Florida who is an expert on mental health, said that under his reading of Virginia law, outpatient treatment could qualify as involuntary commitment, meaning Virginia law should have barred Mr. Cho from buying a weapon as well. Mr. Bonnie said he and the state’s attorney general disagreed with that interpretation.

Mr. Slobogin added that the federal statute “on the plain face of the language, it would definitely apply to Cho.”
<end>

This just shows how defiant and belligerent NRA members, lobbyists and state representative supporters are of the laws of the land. God damn, the school and state authorities had this shooter nailed back in 2005, but let him not only go free but even enabled him to acquire the weapons he used without so much as the full back ground check required by federal law.

Fixing that needs to be the number one priority. The "gun show loophole" is misleading. There is no "gun show loophole", it is a private sales loophole. I regularly see handguns being offered for sale in the local papers and traders magazines. There should be some kind of way for people selling unwanted handguns to do a background check on their buyer. Either force them to transfer them through an FFL or allow them to perform the background check themselves.

...sueing Virginia Tech, the state of Virginia, the gun shop which sold the weapons and the NRA for misrepresenting the requirements of federal law on background checking for endangerment to public health and safety.

I also see grounds for Cho's parents to sue the same parties for allowing and enabling their mentally ill son to legally acquire such weapons on the same grounds plus neglecting their fiduciary responsibilities about knowledge and enforcement of federal laws on background checks.

Now, I'd like to see a team of the best lawyers in the country take this issue all the way up to the Supreme Court if necessary by seeking no less than $100 million for each of the 32 victims and $100 million for Cho's involvement plus a comparable number for the victims who were wounded and hospitalized and traumatized by these event.

For the gross negligence in this case $4.7 billion in damages would certainly get the proper national attention t his issue deserves!

The FFL dealer did the required check. It came back clean. There is no cause of action against the seller, manufacturer, or the NRA.

Assuming the prior adjudication should have been reported (there seems to be some doubt on that) there *may* be a cause of action against Virginia, but sovereign immunity may come into play.

VT maybe vunerable, but as a state institution may have immunity as well

The gun shop owner followed the rules and had NO way of knowing if the buyer was sane or not. The NRA, as much as people dislike them, are a lobbying organization. It is the politicians that write the law and the bureaucrats that administer it.
One thing is for sure, I wouldn't want to be the psychiatrist who said the shooter "wasn't a danger to others"...............

“A State's failure to protect an individual against private violence generally does not constitute a violation of the Due Process Clause, because the Clause imposes no duty on the State to provide members of the general public with adequate protective services.”

....on fire arms, because in August 2006 a complete study and report was issued making all state agencies aware of the Federal requirements.

<snip>
The 2006 Blueprints for Change:
Criminal Justice Policy Issues in Virginia documents are:
• Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) with the Juvenile Justice System •
• Domestic Violence, Protective Orders, and Firearms • Drug Enforcement Status in Virginia •
• Enhancing Virginia’s Campus Security and Safety • Mental Health Issues in Jails and Detention Centers •
• Regional Crime Information Sharing Networks •For additional information on theses documents, please visit the
Department of Criminal Justice Services website at: www.dcjs.virginia.gov/blueprints

<deep snip to p.5>
Offender/Respondent Notification

As a condition for receiving VAWA grant funds, states must certify that their courts notify convicted domestic
violence offenders and respondents to protective orders of the federal firearms prohibitions, as well as any state or local prohibitions.

All protective orders issued in Virginia bear a statement regarding the state firearms prohibitions. Full protective orders issued in Virginia also include a statement regarding the federal firearms prohibitions. At this time there is no procedure for informing a person convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence of the federal firearms prohibitions.

It is the practice in some localities for the judge to verbally advise respondents/offenders of the firearms restrictions at the end of the hearing or trial. It is also the practice in a few localities to have court service personnel or victim advocates advise both the petitioner/victim and the respondent/offender of the provisions,
prohibitions, and procedures initiated as a result of their cases. Some victim advocates and civil attorneys also encourage the inclusion of the seizure of firearms as a separate provision in the protective order petition.

An obstacle encountered in this area is the reluctance of law enforcement, magistrates, and judges, particularly
in rural regions of the state, to confiscate guns. Some judges will issue “no contact” orders rather than issue a protective order because of the attached firearms provisions.

<MORE>


http://www.dcjs.virginia.gov/blueprints/dvguns.pdf