Virginia Tech mass murderer Seung-Hui Cho was mentally deranged. But he had no problem buying his two weapons of mass destruction from a Roanoke, VA gun dealer and the combination of a Green Bay, WI web site and Blacksburg, VA pawnbroker. This got me thinking that there ought to be a law against selling guns to people in his mental condition.
It turns out there is. In this case, the law was simply not enforced. That's Newsweek's revelation. It found that the same 1968 federal gun law that blocks convicted criminals from buying firearms (passed after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy) also prohibits gun purchases by those who have a history of mental illness.
On Cho's gun application -- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Form 4473 -- he was asked: "Have you ever been adjudicated mentally defective or ... committed to a mental institution?" Cho answered "no."
Of course this was a lie. After complaints to Virginia Tech campus police made by two female schoolmates and calls from friends saying he was suicidal, Cho was voluntarily but briefly admitted to Carilion Saint Albans, where a local psychiatric hospital doctor reported that Cho was "depressed" but "denies suicidal ideations" and did not "acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder."
I'm no psychiatrist but I think the anonymous one at Carilion Saint Albans should lose his license. Meanwhile, for the purposes of the 1968 law, the definition of "mentally defective" applies to anybody who has been determined by a "court, board, commission or other lawful authority" to have been a "danger to himself or others." By that standard, Cho got his gun illegally.
Why wasn't the law enforced? The gun dealer did not know about Cho's mental defect because it wasn't recorded in the police database the dealer is required to check before selling the gun. This made me think that there ought to be an electronic link between mental health records and the police databases that get checked in the gun application process. Such a link might have stopped Cho from getting his guns.
Fortunately, this is not an original idea. But the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) relies on states to submit mental health records. Surprisingly, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is fine with this. Newsweek's anonymous NRA source said it has "no problem as long as one is adjudicated mentally incompetent [in denying gun purchases] and we have no problem with mental health records being part of the NICS."
If this quote accurately reflects the NRA's position, it's a good thing because no change in gun laws can be made in the U.S. without NRA support. What's the source of the NRA's power? Campaign money. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, pro-gun lobbyists contributed $962,525 to candidates in last November's midterm elections, roughly 20 times the $49,090 spent by groups advocating gun control. For Republican candidates the pro-gun to gun-control contributions were in a 166:1 ratio; for Democrats the ratio was 3:1.
And make no mistake -- were it not for the political power of the NRA and the economic interests of its members -- it might be much harder for people like Cho to get guns. After all Cho's two guns -- the Glock 19 and the Walther P-22 handgun were made by Glock GmBH, a privately held Austrian company with 60% of the U.S. police department market and Walther GmBH, a German manufacturer, whose U.S. subsidiary Walther America, distributes guns in the U.S. through a joint venture with Smith & Wesson Holding (NASDAQ: SWHC), respectively. In addition, last month Cho bought gun clips on eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) and 200 bullets from a nearby store owned by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT).
Moreover, the way Cho purchased his guns covered a broader set of economic interests. He purchased his Glock 19 at a Roanoke, VA Firearms store whose owner, John Markell, said: "It was a very unremarkable sale. He was a nice, clean-cut college kid."
Meanwhile, Cho bought his Walther 22 online from a Green Bay, WI dealer. But under Virginia law, the gun had to be sent to a licensed firearm dealer in Virginia. That store was then required to perform a background check before allowing the buyer to pick up the weapon. In Cho's case, the store was a Blacksburg, VA pawn shop, JND Pawnbrokers.
For both gun purchases, it may be that the retailers involved were not aware of Cho's mental condition. Could it be that the problem is with the medical community? The NRA source says, "The problem is not with the gun community. The problem is with the medical community" that has traditionally opposed making such records available on privacy grounds."
If this is true, I think it's worth giving up a bit of mental health records privacy to keep guns out of the hands of mass murdering wackos. On the other hand, if the NRA is using the medical community as a PR shield, I think politicians should muster the courage to put the public interest ahead of the NRA's.
What do you think?
Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in eBay, Smith & Wesson, or Wal-Mart.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-23-2007 @ 10:32AM
r hammer said...
The NRA needs to do more to prevent guns in the hands of people who will use the to kill people. They need to get responsible for what they support.
4-24-2007 @ 1:30PM
marjorie gischler said...
the gun purchase and the subsiquent deaths is NOT ACCEPTIBLE!! above all freedoms we are "constitutionally granted" the right granted by life itself is to walk around a school without getting killed!! We are getting too wrapped up in "rights" to buy guns to privacy and so on , surely there is a way to ensure our "right" to "safety" on the campus's.
4-23-2007 @ 10:37AM
Byron Spain said...
The next time a drunk runs down an innocent person why don't you rant about how cars kill people. Next time someone falls off a ladder, rant about how ladders kill people. Start a data base for everything that can potentially hurt a person. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
4-23-2007 @ 10:48AM
Dimitar Vesselinov said...
How long before Minority Report?
"The Minority Report is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick first published in 1956. It is about a future society where murders are prevented through the efforts of 'precogs,' three mutants who can see the future. It was made into a popular film in 2002."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report
Minority Report - Trailer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tb1XC2bUMj8&mode=related&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gn2sLUJ-eLk
4-23-2007 @ 10:51AM
Landon Thompson said...
Although I do admit that it is easy to manipulate gun control laws, gun laws in this particular case meant absolutely nothing. This kid was on a mission that no gun law, university, or law enforcement agency was going to be able to stop. Even if we had stricter gun control laws, he would have found a way to get a gun even if it took him buying from a crack head on the street. The only issue here is that this kid was crazy, and you can blame him and him only. How would anyone around him ever expect that he would walk into a class and kill 32 students? I have been around weird people before, and I have thought they were capable of doing some crazy stuff, but never would I expect this. You expect kids like that to jump off a building, not commit the larges mass murder in US history.
4-23-2007 @ 11:20AM
carl moore said...
The NRA are US folks who beleive in the right to bear arms is in our best intrest. We are not the nuts you want the people to beleive. Find me one of these killers who belong to the NRA. Not one hum.
I am thinging maybe nuts who shoot and kill people need some group to protect them. Oh sorry there is already such a group the liberials in congress will protect the rights of the killers over the citizens
4-23-2007 @ 11:50AM
Brian said...
The car and ladder and gun analogy is faulty. The primary purpose of a car is transportation. The primary purpose of a ladder is access to something out of reach. The primary purpose of a gun is to put a high velocity projectile through an object. Like a person. While I suppose almost any object COULD be used to kill people, that isnt their primary purpose. If guns werent so easy to obtain fewer people would be dead.
4-23-2007 @ 12:54PM
Bobby Cordell said...
Let's just say that as the antigunners suggest Mr. Cho couldn't get his gun. Weapon of choice a bomb maybe? A car into a large crowd? A 5 gal. can of gas placed where few could escape a building? How many lives would have been lost possibly?
4-24-2007 @ 1:30PM
jessie said...
They usually have to do a bakcround check on the person who wants to buy a gun etc.., Right...Why the he** did they not do that before they even let him into that store.. Although he could have just bought it from a drug dealer or a friend.., that person should have known that they could have gotten into deep doo-doo if they would of why do u think he didnt have any friends...Well lets see so he didnt have to feel cared for or have to think about the innocent people he killed all because they were rich
4-23-2007 @ 3:52PM
Steven said...
Cho was not deemed mentally defective nor had he been committed to a mental institution. To quote from Mr. Cohan, "Cho was voluntarily but briefly admitted to Carilion Saint Albans, where a local psychiatric hospital doctor reported that Cho was "depressed" but "denies suicidal ideations" and did not "acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder." That is not a committment but a "voluntary" visit to be evaluated. He went not entirely of his own free will of course but the medical report quoted states that he was merely depressed. It does not even state that he was suffering from depression. Also it is stated that, "for the purposes of the 1968 law, the definition of "mentally defective" applies to anybody who has been determined by a "court, board, commission or other lawful authority" to have been a "danger to himself or others." None of this applies. No court, board, comission or other lawful authority determined that Cho was a danger to anyone.
The rest of the commentary is conjecture and opinion and without knowing the background of Mr. Cohan or Mr. Cohan citing references for his opinion not to be taken as anything but one mans opinion.
The fact is that the constitution gives us the right to keep and bear arms. State constitutions also reinforce that right and some in much stronger language. The main argument seems to be that the days of us needing to be armed and protect ourselves are long past. Gone with the American Revolution. If this is the best form of government that will ever be in the history of man, if this government is guaranteed to never become corrupt and take away more of our rights, if this government will forever protect us and keep us living in the Garden of Eden that we now live in, protect us at all times from harm then I say yes. We may not need to bear arms. Of course when I step back to reality I see that that is not the case and that perfect government does not and will not ever exist I know that we do need our personal protection.
4-23-2007 @ 3:03PM
Angela said...
If Guns kill people ... can i blame misspelled words on my pencil?
"The NRA needs to do more to prevent guns in the hands of people who will use the to kill people"
And how do you suggest they do that? Should they ask the person if they are going to use the gun illegaly? Can the person lie? .... this is just ridiculous. Hell why dont they "chip" us all and then they will know where we are at, what we are doing, and where we've been ....
People need to take responsibility for their own actions and quit trying to blame others or "things" for their actions. No doubt if my child got shot (or was the shooter) i would be hurt ... but to blame the gun or the person who sold the gun to the individual is wrong. As stated above, this guy was on a mission and would have found any way possible to do what he did. He coulda walked in with a book a matches and started the library on fire ..... wanna ban matches now? Or start a database of who's likely to hurt someone with the use of matches? ....
"shakes head and walks out mumbling" ... lol ... the stupidity in America is dic-scusting!
Gun's dont kill people .....
4-23-2007 @ 5:50PM
Darby said...
Go to New Orleans,if you are high enough to reach the counter,they will sell anything,MONEY noone cares anymore.