Cho Seung-hui went through the mandatory background check before buying the guns he used in his rampage. No criminal record, no problem.
Yet…
- He’d been admitted to a mental health care unit within the last eighteen months.
- Teachers and students alike commented on his disturbing behavior.
- Complaints had been made about his behavior.
- A professor had raised concerns about the content of his writing.
But what kind of a background check could have discovered all this?
If if someone has recently received significant mental health care in the same state he’s trying to buy a gun, it’s conceivable that that information could be available. But since there’s no national database of such information, all one would have to do is cross the state line.
Do we want a national database to record that kind of information? I don’t think I do.
Do we want to have background checks that include interviews with former educators? Is that even feasible?
Just what kind of background check can stop someone like this from getting a gun? The only solutions I can think of involve national databases and inquiries into very personal information.
S— like this happening everyday in the US on a smaller scale each time. Allowing people to buy guns should not be an option unless it’s a rifle for hunting…. anything else is a waste of time. The US has the highest crime rate in the world and that’s for a reason.
Good hopeless luck fighting pro-gun lobbies, way too late
Background checks are, by their nature, delving into very personal information.
True, but a person’s criminal record is part of the public record, and so they are not personal in the sense of being private. Therapy sessions are not part of the public record. That’s what I was getting at.