AZ Shooter is/was a Prohibited Possessor

[dustoff31]

On two counts. He is obviously crazy and he is drug user. More to the point he was known to the local authorities to be both, yet he was never reported to the NICS center.

Had that been done he would have failed the NICS check and wouldn't have been able to buy the gun. Yes, he could have gotten one somewhere else, but that's beside the point.

I don't want this to turn into an LE bashfest, plenty of officials were aware of this clown and did nothing. The fact is, they all failed. And so the NICS system failed. And so 6 are dead, 11 are wounded.

When the anti's cry for more gun laws, we often counter by saying all we need to do is enforce our current guns laws. Once again we are proven correct.

What do you think?

[paul0660]

With the system you desire, I would run out of dimes to drop in an hour.

This one slipped through the cracks. I don't see a way to avoid that.

[zoglog]

Same thing happened in the Vtech shooting.

It's the same policy that this government needs to learn. INTELLIGENCE IS KING.
Most notably all the stupid TSA rules and wasted tax dollars.

[wildhawker]

The system which would have stopped this man's purchase would also infringe on millions on non-prohibited purchasers' rights.

At this time, and I qualify this as a judgement based on facts known at present, it looks like this was a mentally insane person who had not been adjudicated as such.

[GrizzlyGuy]

Based on the facts thus far reported, I see no failures by law enforcement or government in general. If anything, there may have been a failure by his parents, relatives and friends to try and get him medical attention for his medical condition.

These things are going to happen in a free society: that's the price you pay for liberty. I don't mean to sound callous, but the right answer is to mourn, grieve, get over it, and move on.

[dfletcher]

I do wonder if the sheriff made his "this vitriol must stop" speech to deflect criticism of his department's previous interaction with the shooter. If what I've read is accurate they handled many calls from concerned citizens.

[greybeard]

The system which would have stopped this man's purchase would also infringe on millions on non-prohibited purchasers' rights.

At this time, and I qualify this as a judgement based on facts known at present, it looks like this was a mentally insane person who had not been adjudicated as such.

Ditto

[nick]

Per Rachel Maddow and her "expert" (ex-NYC deputy sheriff - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yor...eriff's_Office now working for ATF), it was the "extra high capacity" mag's fault, not the shooter's. After all, even the police officers don't carry those 30/32-bullet mags, so why would a civilian need it?

Caught that piece while getting some water from the kitchen here in the office. Someone had MSNBC on. Since I don't watch TV all that much, I'm not used to just how much misinformation is spewed in 5 min (there was much more misinformation there, too much to bother to list).

[dustoff31]

Just to clarify my position, I'm not advocating randomly dropping dimes on people.

The police and his school knew he nuts. The school kicked him out because they were afraid of him. The sheriff admits that he had made "a number" of death threats. Why wasn't he 5150'd?

He had at least one drug arrest which was plead down to possession of paraphenalia.

When I say the system failed, I mean the overall system.

[BigDogatPlay]

... it looks like this was a mentally insane person who had not been adjudicated as such.

Agreed 100%. While he might have, or perhaps even should have, fallen into the mental health system at some point, the fact is that he did not. Given everything we've seen so far, which is really very little, he's a miss... like a lot of other people you may pass on the street in a given day.

These things are going to happen in a free society: that's the price you pay for liberty. I don't mean to sound callous, but the right answer is to mourn, grieve, get over it, and move on.

+1...

[paul0660]

Good points, Dustoff. I need more info.

[Citadelonline]

Given everything we've seen so far, which is really very little, he's a miss... like a lot of other people you may pass on the street in a given day.

From what I'm hearing he was unlike a lot of other people you might pass on the street. This guys behavior was (reportedly) so far off-center, students in a college class were scared to be in the same room with him.

Regardless of our opinions on the matter, there is no law against acting or even being crazy, as long as no laws are broken. It's conceivable he may have been evaluated for 5150 but didn't meet the criteria for a psychiatric detention. It's also possible for a mentally deranged person to fake their way through an exam.
But he allegedly passed a firearms background check, so the most likely scenario is that this individual slipped through the proverbial crack.
Whatever the case, you can't lock someone up for something they didn't do.

but the right answer is to mourn, grieve, get over it, and move on.

Add "and legislate guns and ammunition out of existence" and you may be on to something. Of course I'm exaggerating, but anti gun politicians are already talking about "fast tracking" anti gun laws and the left are elevating the anti gun rhetoric.

Arizona may well be on its way to a hi cap mag ban, and the fact that a U.S. Congress person was one of the victims of this tragedy, I believe we're going to see a bill or bills banning (again) hi cap mags on a federal level.

I don't want to sound insensitive about this horribly tragic event that took the lives of 6 people including a 9 year old child and the misery his cowardly actions have caused, but with the grievous wounding of a United States Congress person and the murder of a federal judge, I believe any chances we had to overturn AB962 have vanished.

[BigFatGuy]

I read in another article he has a relative who worked for the same county as the sheriff, so it was (I'm sure) professional quid-pro-quo that they not arrest this kid before today.

[1JimMarch]

http://thechollajumps.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-is-a-product-of-sheriff-dupniks-office/

by James Kelley

Jared Loughner is a product of Sheriff Dupnik’s office

Jim again, I won't quote the whole article as there's a lot of editorial and speculation, but the "meat" of it is short:

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation.

I checked around and found partial confirmation from Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0824904120110109

Dupnik said there had been earlier contact between Loughner and law enforcement after he had made death threats, although they had not been against Giffords.

If the death threats were ignored due to nepotism, that's huge and turns this whole sick thing around...esp. since Dupnik has taken the lead in the "blame the right" game.

[KracknCorn]

There are crazy people in the world and that's just a fact. Sometimes you can predict it and sometimes you can't. The sad realistic truth is, there's really nothing you can do about it. Sh*t happens. You just have to deal with them when they actually do something. The feeling of helplessness and that we should have done something is where we lose our freedoms most of the times. People will always try to figure out a way to prevent things like this from happening and this is where the irrational gun laws come into play. Statistically, the chance of getting shot in a mass shooting by a crazed person is probably 1/100000000.