2 police confrontations for stalking and the NRA made sure VT murderer could still get a gun

[Proud2BAmurkin]

Ain't it great?

[Lerkfish]

1. I'm not a gun nut, but even I can see that matters little

anyone can go to a "gun and knife show" or a flea market and get a gun. Drug dealers have guns, and they aren't gotten legally.
Sadly, if a person wished to go beserk there are a myriad of ways to obtain the means to do so, including swords and machetes.

and I'm someone who is PRO gun control, I just realize that there are ways around even the most stringent gun control laws. sadly.

[Mojorabbit]

2. This one I will blame

on a combo of lack of law enforcement, and lack of medical care. Too many cracks in our society to fall through.
This kid needed help, his actions were screaming for it and nothing was done. It is too easy though to create perfect scenarios in hindsight.

[hlthe2b]

7. It is being reported that he was hospitalized for possible

suicidal intent and did receive some mental health counseling... It is not clear to what extent, but I'm not sure I'd say he received no attempts at help. Clearly too little too late... But, had he not been a student (and thus able to access health care), I'm not sure he'd even have gotten that.

[global1]

3. I Keep Hearing That Cho Purchased These Guns Legally......

is that supposed to make me feel good?

I also keep hearing gun lobbyists touting that 'if' people had guns to protect themselves there wouldn't have been a massacre - that somebody would have taken out Cho.

What scares me is - if they win their way - that conceivably I could be in a shopping mall, or a sporting event or even a college campus - and if there happens to be a deranged shooter - there would also be a bunch of other people pulling out guns and shooting.

One would hope that they would be shooting at the deranged shooter - but in the heat of chaos - perhaps some of these gun toters would be shooting at other gun toters - because they don't really know who the shooter is - but they just see a person with a gun.

Kind of a civilian version of 'friendly-fire'.

Haven't police even made that mistake?

I don't want to be put in such a situation where gun battles can break out - because we have a bunch of gun zealots - concealing and carrying a gun - so they could play 'rambo'.

[hlthe2b]

9. some would have you believe so...(feel good the sale was "legal"

We certainly have our share of hard core NRA types here that will allow NO DISCUSSION of anything approaching regulation of gun sales.

I'm depressed, just thinking about it... The VT and similar tragedies are bad enough, but thinking nothing will likely be done about it, even worse.

[karlrschneider]

15. Since concealed-carry was allowed here there have been no as in ZERO

people killed by anyone legally carrying one. But there have been a few murders -stopped- by them.
But don't let facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

[beevul]

22. Not again...sigh...

This is so oft repeated, that I got tired of typing it out, and saved part of this response to text.


""

The above is a graphical representation of how concealed carry has spread in the last 2 decades.

The mass "shoot-outs" everyone predicted whilst arguing against concealed carry, have not happened.


Over the last 20 or so years, they HAVE gotten thier way. I understand that scares you, but ask yourself if your fears are truly justified based on evidence.

[Recursion]

30. The point is to make you think about what it would take to make the purchase illegal

Would you want every encounter you had with mental health professionals recorded in a searchable database that any yokel with a gun store can look at?

[cullen2382]

4. didn't he get his gun in a shop?

I know the virginia's gun laws are lax but don't they do a background check? Do stalking charges or restraining orders show up on those? If not, that is a huge flaw in the system.

[aikoaiko]

6. Yes, if anyone had asked for a restaining order, he would have gotten dinged.

But apparently too many people were concerned with denying him an education at VT.

[benEzra]

10. He passed a Federal and state background check

because he was not hit with a restraining order or anything, and had apparently never been prosecuted/convicted for anything.

[newyawker99]

12. Hi cullen2382!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[cullen2382]

28. Thank you

Thank you very much

[The empressof all]

20. If he was hospitalized as a result of stalking behavior

Charges with the police may never have been processed as the issue was resolved through involuntary detention (hospitalization). I don't know if those records are cross linked in VA. Involuntary Detention records could be kept within the mental health system as they don't necessarily all require police intervention.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

36. Restraining order should show up.

Charges or stalking won't show up, only convictions.

Just as mental exams won't show up, only legal commitments.

[villager]

5. Maybe we could have "I'm the NRA" slogans emblazoned over pictures of each body

n/t

[tridim]

11. Yes, the NRA needs to admit some responsibility here

It's mostly their fault that someone like Cho wasn't tagged.

Of course they won't admit any responsibility because they still lobby for less stringent background checks. What good is "safety training" if the law allows any psychotic to buy a gun, no questions asked? Their silence is deafening, it's almost like they're pulling a BushCo type move (big surprise there), just don't talk about it and it'll go away.

I say throw the book at them. Place the blame squarely and firmly, and then fix the background check problems with or without their help.

[beevul]

23. How exactly is this the fault of the nra?

I dont belong to them (bought a used vehicle that happened to have a sticker in the window) and I DID stay at a holiday in express once, but seriously. How is this thier fault? You say they still lobby for less stringent background checks. Do you have a cite for that? I'd be interested to read up.

[villager]

26. the exact same way that inaction on climate change is (partially) the responbility

...of oil company lobbying groups....

[Recursion]

32. I'm starting to think the NRA is to the left what the "gay agenda" is to the right

ie, a vague and unconsidered amalgamation of a whole bunch of unconscious fears and insecurities, and a scapegoat whenever anything bad happens in society.

In interest of disclosure, I do belong to the NRA (and ACLU, and NAACP, and NOW)

[villager]

33. I'm starting to think the NRA is a specific group, with a specific, verifiable agenda

and track record...

[Recursion]

34. A specific, verifiable agenda and track record which have nothing to do...

...with opposing any measures that would have actually prevented a catastrophe like Monday.

[villager]

35. or rather, everything to do with it, since they exert pressure on what otherwise be

checks and balances in the availability of weapons designed only to kill large numbers of human beings in short periods of time...

[Recursion]

39. These were not assault weapons

These were probably the most common and ordinary weapons you'll find Americans owning. The weapons still aren't the problem; the shooters are.

[villager]

40. I rest your case: these kinds of 9mm weapons are readily available

Their only purpose is to kill humans, as efficiently as possible.

You see no problem -- whatsoever -- with their ready availability.

[Recursion]

42. You are wrong that I "see no problem"

If I could snap my fingers or vote for a law and actually remove all guns from the face of the earth, I would. I can't, and you can't. Given that guns will exist I don't want the only people who have them to be the government and criminals.

[villager]

43. ergo, you want their easy availability to continue as is....

n/t

[karlrschneider]

16. A small percentage of gun owners are NRA members.

...

[Recursion]

31. I'm not sure how the NRA is relevant here. Can you explain?

What is something the NRA has lobbied against that would have prevented this?

[jmg257]

8. Explain please. What would have kept him from getting one? nt

[Eric J in MN]

13. If it were illegal to buy a gun for a certain number of years after...

...having been a patient at a mental hospital, then he couldn't have legally bought one.

[Capn Sunshine]

14. well, it would havebeen a LOT harder with a waiting period and background check

which W VA does not have. If a little more effort was required to get a gun, this wackjob might have set off a few more alarm bells.

[beevul]

24. Um...

He passed a FEDERAL background check.

And according to reports, he bought the gun 30-ish days before the massacre.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

38. With this guy's planning effort, a 10-day wait

would have been just one more milestone on his plan. He'd have calculated it in. He was not dumb, just a sociopath.

He did go through a background check.

[slackmaster]

17. Too bad neither stalking victim pressed charges or got a restraining order

Either one could have prevented the gun purchases.

Or maybe VT could have done something about the alleged dorm room fire incident.

Or maybe Cho's parents could have had him committed.

But it's so much easier to just blame everything on the big evil NRA. The intellectually lazy way is always easy.

[Bluedogvoter]

25. My thoughts as well, but..

All signs indicated this guy should never have been able to get a gun.

The law was followed, no doubt there, but he was so obviously dangerously unstable that some type of solution needs to be looked at for cases such as this.

I own a gun and I am against gun control measures, but I'd be willing to listen to any ideas on how to keep guns out of the hands of unstable people.

[Capn Sunshine]

18. Plus the guy was in a mental ward for observation

that would DQ you from buying cetain prescription drugs, but not guns in W Va.

[LSK]

19. yes yes yes, how would anyone approach this problem

I just dont have any idea:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x682329

:sarcasm:

[beevul]

21. How exactly...

Did the NRA do that?

[goddess40]

27. This guy wasn't a citizen - why doesn't that get brought up

he was granted resident alien status so he doesn't and shouldn't have the same rights as citizens.

[Recursion]

29. That's an interesting point

I'm one of the "gun-huggers" on the board but I do agree that the Constitution does not neccessarily protect a resident alien's right to bear arms.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

37. Yes, in a way it is great

and it has nothing to do with the NRA.

The FBI doesn't hear about police confrontations. Only convictions. Would you want every police encounter recorded in an national database? Every visit to a shrink or other medical entity?

[ComerPerro]

41. and thank God for that, right? The most important story of this entire VT mess

is that Cho's Second Amendment rights were protected. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

[donco6]

44. Yes, a great victory for America.

I sure feel more secure knowing the 2nd Amendment is applicable to psycho stalkers.

[windbreeze]

45. Would it be too much to ask....

that we blame the individual who committed the crime? It seems we want to blame everyone from the NRA, to the legislatures, to the laws, to the guns themselves, to the doctors, to the police, to the mental health experts, who did not find his problems, or even the family(who most likely found themselves at their wit's end, trying to cope with him)....and at the same time, we throw all this sympathy to the human being who made the conscious decision to commit murder and mayhem, who planned, and pre-meditated murdering numbers of people...even to the point of sending a video of himself armed to the teeth, to a national news outlet, AFTER he had killed two...and BEFORE he killed the rest of them...well, I guess...it IS, after all, the gun's fault..damn!! why the hell can't we just blame the guy who did it??????...

I know a kid right now, who's 10...I have known him, since the day he was born...and I can just about guarantee you 100%...that he IS going to kill someone...most likely by the time he is 16 or so...and he has had all kinds of help...but he loves guns...knives...and violence..blood and guts...you name it...the family can only keep so much of this shit away from him, and get him so much help...but there is something about this child, that IS just wrong...so now when he does kill someone...who's fault is it going to be??? the NRA?, his family, the doctors? or the medication he's on.....who or what exactly is going to be to blame???? oh..I forgot....the gun...it will be the gun's fault.... I call bullshit...and I say, some people cannot be helped...and what they do cannot be stopped, short of finding a way to lock them away from society, or finding a way to neutralize them before they can actually plan and execute what they really want to do...and that is kill others, just for the hell or the sheer pleasure of it...and believe it or not people...whether or not we choose to face it....there are those kinds, in our society...and every day, a certain number of them nationwide, live out their dreams, at someone else's expense...
wb

[-..__...]

46. Ah, yes... blame the big, bad NRA.

:eyes:

I have it on insider information that Charlton Heston himself personally bought the handguns and ammo for Cho and gave them to him as a gift.

If the evil NRA is to blame... why are they supporting this legislation...

Background Checks/ NICS
H.R. 297, the “NICS Improvement Act of 2007”


This bill, cosponsored by Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) and others, would improve availability of criminal history and other records for conducting background checks on firearm buyers. It also addresses concerns over past implementation actions by the FBI, prohibits the FBI from charging a “user fee” for background checks on gun buyers, and directs the General Accounting Office to audit and report to the Congress on past expenditures for NICS record improvements.

Many of the problems encountered in recent legislative debates over gun control—especially the 1999 debate on gun show regulation—center on the inadequacy of NICS records. Inaccurate or incomplete records delay firearm purchases and result in wrongful denials of law-abiding buyers.

(Snip....)

The core of the bill is a requirement that federal agencies and states provide all relevant records to the FBI for use in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). This would generally include records of convicted felons, fugitives from justice, persons convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence, and persons subject to domestic restraining orders, as well as federal records of illegal aliens. It also requires removal of records that are incorrect, or irrelevant to determining a person’s eligibility to receive a firearm.

The bill also requires transmittal of records of those people defined under federal law and regulations as having been adjudicated mentally defective or committed to a mental institution. Under current federal law, the requirement does not apply to records of voluntary commitments or commitments for observation, and the bill makes clear that all information is subject to applicable privacy rules. The Attorney General is directed to work with state agencies and the mental health community to develop additional protocols for privacy of records.

(Snip...)

FWIW... similar legislation was proposed in a previous legislative session. Wanna take a guess who killed it (no... it wasn't the NRA)?

[BreweryYardRat]

47. The NRA are dumbasses, but you can't blame them here.

Blame the girls who didn't press charges on that scum for stalking. Confrontations do not equal convictions.