LEWISTON, ME—In the hours following a violent rampage in Maine in which a lone attacker killed at least 16 individuals and injured numerous others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Wednesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from …
The passive voice in the second sentence is very telling. Who should have flagged him? Who should have taken steps to restrict his access to guns? Who had access to that information in order to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and take action? Our society and government doesn’t have a proactive mechanism to so. It is explicitly not the duty of the police. Our system is reactive; some private citizen could have petitioned a court of law, but who has the time, money, and interest to do it?
Yeah that’s the problem with our current system. My nephew has spent time in juvenile facilities for bringing weapons to school. He’s been in trouble for SWATing people and also for stalking a girl. He’s struggled with homelessness after burning bridges with every family member he has, mostly due to him not taking his medication to help with his mental health. He’s been known to sell or trade his medication for drugs.
At one point, he mentioned that he was thinking about getting a gun. In my mind, he hits every red flag I can think of for a person who should NOT be allowed to have a gun. So I looked into what it would take for me to get him flagged or put on some sort of “do not sell to” list. You’d think with his history, that’d be a fairly straightforward process right?
Nope. It’s damn near impossible. I have to go to court and swear an affidavit that says he’s an immediate risk to committing harm. Then I have to continue to do so once every few months, indefinitely. People always ask, “Why didn’t someone prevent this from happening?” The answer is really simple. Since owning a gun is a constitutional right, the systems in place to prevent someone from having a gun are extremely difficult to successfully navigate. I wish that just once, the family of a mass shooter was interviewed afterwards and told the media as such. Maybe that would make a difference? I doubt it.
That’s the problem I have with red flag laws. They simply shortcut the due process when really that system itself can and should be improved.
My worry is that false positives will lead to innocent people having rights taken. I know many are lucky enough to not give a shit about guns but what if it was any other right? Press, religion, etc. If people are getting constitutional rights taken I don’t want it to be on a whim, especially if that shit is permanant. Even if it gets walked back it can cause a lot of harm, like false “me too” accusations from a few years ago.
Good points, and I think there were many people along the way who could have flagged him and made sure he was monitored, especially since the guy had spent six weeks in a mental facility, and was living in a compound of gun hoarders, and had family who knew he was going through mental problems.
It sounds like the whole community knew, given the reports that everybody in town knew to avoid the guy. It’s just our society and legal system makes it everybody’s responsibility to deal with it, and near-impossible to actually do anything useful, which in practice means it’s nobody’s responsibility. Kind of like climate change, or car crashes.
I mean, there are states that will deny someone a firearms license if they have been to a mental facility within a certain period of time. Even after that amount of time is up, you have to take a psych eval before being able to reapply for the license. So, the way I see it, what I’m saying isn’t too far off from being implemented.
Yeah, it’s not impossible, nor necessarily all that difficult. States just need to make it somebody’s job, and set up a system that funnels them the information about troubled people, and gives them the resources and authority to act on it.
I guess it’s easier to legislate guns away.