The Virginia shooter and background checks
After shocking murders such as the one in Virginia yesterday, there are the predictable calls for more and/or better gun control, particularly regarding background checks. In the case of Flanagan, he purchased his gun legally and apparently passed a background check:
On August 26 Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) spokesman Thomas Faison confirmed that Virginia gunman Vester Lee Flanagan bought his gun “weeks ago” and that “he apparently passed a background check” to get the gun.
The gun was a Glock 19 9mm.
Let’s take a look at the questions asked for legal firearm purchase in the state of Virginia. You can see that they fall into several general categories: being under active misdemeanor or felony arrest warrant, being under indictment or conviction for a felony, having had a conviction of misdemeanor punishable by more than 2 years in prison (even if not given a prison sentence), having undergone involuntary psychiatric commitment or been ordered to involuntary mental health counseling, being an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance, being under a restraining order for domestic violence, having been convicted of the misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, having been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces, being an illegal alien, plus a couple of other miscellaneous categories having to do with being judged mentally incompetent.
As far as we know, none of them applied to Flanagan. So he could have answered truthfully and purchased a gun legally, despite the fact that there was a veritable mountain of evidence that he was, as he himself described in his farewell manifesto, a “human powder keg… just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”
In fact, Flanagan had gone “BOOM!” (at least verbally) many, many times. Much of his history is detailed here, and it involved threats at work in addition to appalling incompetence, He was ordered by his bosses to undergo some sort of counseling, described this way:
After getting ‘very angry’ and storming off while filming another July 2012 report Flanagan was warned he would be fired unless he sought help from the company health advocate.
‘This is a mandatory referral requiring your compliance,’ Dennison told Flanagan. ‘Failure to comply will result in termination of employment.’
After continuing to argue with colleagues and averaging just 2.9 out of 5 in his June 2012 performance review, Flanagan was fired in February 2013 due to his ‘unsatisfactory job performance and inability to work as a team member.’
It is unclear whether that comes under number 12 in the Virginia background check laws, which reads as follows:
Have you ever been involuntarily admitted to a facility or involuntarily ordered to outpatient mental health treatment?
I believe that it depends on who is doing the involuntary “ordering,” and that a work-related order would not disqualify anyone and does not apply. In addition, I don’t think a work-related order enters the public records, and therefore would be unverifiable anyway (please correct me if I’m wrong there).
Flanagan’s threats and bad behavior ultimately came to the attention of the police:
Yet Flanagan was fired in February 2013 due to “unsatisfactory job performance and inability to work as a team member”, according to his notice of termination.
His last day at work was recorded in exhaustive detail in another series of memos. Flanagan met with Dennison and another boss in his office. There Flanagan was informed he would be terminated. When he was presented with the severance package, Flanagan reportedly became angry and called it “bullshit”.
A second memo detailing his termination records Flanagan as yelling: “I’m not leaving, you’re going to have to call the f###ing police [sic],” Flanagan reportedly said, according to the memo. “Call the police. I’m not leaving. I’m going to make a stink and it’s going to be in the headlines.”
Flanagan then stormed out of the room and slammed the door, at which point Dennison decided to call the police.
When police arrived to escort him out of the building, Flanagan refused. The officers approached Flanagan and tried to remove the desk phone from his hand, repeatedly asking him to leave.
Flanagan then threw a hat and a small wooden cross at Dennison, reportedly saying: “You need this.”
As police escorted him out of the newsroom, he told an officer, according to the memo: “ You know what they did? They had a watermelon back there for a week and basically called me a n—– [sic].”
The memos were filed to a court in Roanoke, Virginia, as part of a civil lawsuit filed by Flanagan against the station in March 2014. He alleged racial and sexual discrimination, which the station denied. The case was dismissed later that year.
It occurs to me that the station (or individuals there) might have tried to get a protective order (known in many jurisdictions as a restraining order) against Flanagan—not that it would have stopped him from killing anyone (and by the way, none of this would have stopped him from getting a firearm illegally). But it might have stopped him, or someone who likewise was an obvious “human powder keg,” from getting a firearm legally—if, that is, if Virginia law did not limit its restrictions of legal gun purchases to those under restraining order for domestic violence.
If you read numbers 7 and 8 of the Virginia law, for example, they very specifically limit the scope of the law to restraining orders described this way:
7. Is there an outstanding protective or restraining order against you from any court that involves your spouse, a former spouse, an individual with whom you share a child in common, or someone you cohabited with as an intimate partner?
8. Is there an outstanding protective or restraining order against you from any court that involves stalking, sexual battery, alleged abuse or acts of violence against a family or household member?
Protective/restraining orders are not only issued for threats to domestic or former domestic partners, however. They can be gotten (and as far as I know this is true in most areas) by unrelated people who have been threatened. The problem with restraining orders in these non-domestic cases would be twofold, however. The first problem is that, as with cases involving domestic partners, there is always the possibility of a false accusation resulting in a restraining order without merit, requested in order to thwart or harass the person being accused. The second problem is that the system for a firearm purchase background check must also involve some effective and efficient mechanism to check against the court record of outstanding restraining orders that have been issued, or it rests on the truthful disclosure by the accused. I don’t know how that verification system works in Virginia or other states, but I do know that it should not be on the honor system.
There seems to be no logical reason for the Virgina law about restraining orders precluding a person from purchasing a gun to be restricted to domestic orders only (although there may be a political and/or historic reason). Nor is there any evidence that, in the case of Flanagan, the TV station or any person there ever sought a restraining order against him, although in his case the police themselves had witnessed his threats and angry behavior. Did the police write these off as a momentary lapse, an immediate and passing reaction to his firing? But that sort of behavior by Flanagan was part of the cause of his firing, not the result—a fact which seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle of his own lawsuits and multiple allegations of racial discrimination.
Even had the station or someone at the station successfully obtained a restraining order against Flanagan, however, without a law in the gun check rules covering non-domestic restraining orders it wouldn’t have mattered and would not have kept him from obtaining a weapon legally. I’m not for Draconian gun control in the least, but this does seem to be a loophole that could and should be closed It seems that someone with such a clear, repetitive, and well-witnessed (including official police witnesses) record of gratuitous threats of violence should not have been able to obtain a weapon legally.
One problem facing companies now is that Human Resources will only confirm dates of employment and salary levels. To pass along recommendations or lack of them could invite lawsuits.
I eventually moved to hiring temp to perm – let the temp agency do all of the screening. I was also able to just call up the agency and tell them to send another clerical person if the first one didn’t work out.
Such marginally stable people are not obvious enough for legal action — probably under any scheme short of totalitarianism.
What’s particularly striking is that he acted after such a L O N G delay.
As for his targets: they would figure to be the MOST liberal voices in the newsroom… and the gals most frightened by his truly odd outbursts.
Inchoate rage is something that rational people ( especially the college crowd ) just don’t encounter.
So they can’t gauge when they are dealing with true mortal risk.
It’s ill reported, but I must assume that this murderer was unemployed — and probably unemployable after his ejection from the newsroom… under police escort, no less.
That tale had to have spread simply everywhere.
blert:
But what about if they have current restraining orders against them? That’s my suggestion—just adding non-domestic restraining orders to the list.
I don’t think it would have stopped him because there wasn’t a restraining order against him, but I still think it’s a good idea.
And of course it doesn’t stop illegal gun purchase or theft.
Laws aren’t the solution. If they were, there would be no murders by any method. Heck, if law was functional, couldn’t they just outlaw obesity?
The facts are simple. People have to be responsible for their own safety, because the law honestly cannot secure that. And, even so, some people will murder other people and there is no law you can write that will prevent that. When a founder suggested that the tree of liberty needed to be watered (with blood mind you), it wasn’t always just in the “good” or “right” way… but in that people who are free will choose poorly, will murder, and will die.
Do you want freedom? Can you handle the responsibility? Can you deal with the consequences. Go ahead, lawyer up, law it all down, and see where that gets you. Common sense laws seem to make sense until you are mandated to do nothing else by them. I would rather have everyone armed then only the few, by a long shot. If any of those three had chosen to be armed the end might have been different. If all of them had been armed and practiced, the end would very much have been different. Choices, consequences.
Doom:
There’s no question that laws are not THE solution. No question.
But I think it’s reasonable to believe that laws could prevent some small number of murders—if the laws are sensible and are enforced. I see no reason why non-domestic restraining orders should not be included in the Virginia law, for example.
there is always the possibility of a false accusation resulting in a restraining order without merit, requested in order to thwart or harass the person being accused.
I’m pretty sure you’ve already answered your own question about why they aren’t used.
Such events represent the dark side of human nature which is beyond human regulation. As noted above, laws are not THE solution because all events can not be predicted and, no matter how stringent the law, someone will always find a loophole or fall through the cracks.
A perfect utopia can not be created with imperfect people, and especially because such tragic events will always occur, it is time once again for many on the left to be reminded that “Utopia” literally means “not a place” [“ou not + té³p (os) a place”].
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/utopia?s=t ]
I can’t help wondering what the unintended consequences of expanding the restraining order section to cover what you suggest would be. Other than perhaps denying the ability to purchase to those falsely under such an order?
leelu:
There is a procedure people have to go through to get restraining orders issued. In this case, there were police witnesses to the serious threats, although of course that’s not always present.
If you look at the requirements in Virginia to get a non-domestic restraining order, they’re not that simple or easy to prove. Now, I don’t know how well it works in actuality, and how many orders are issued without sufficient proof of dangerousness, but that’s a problem of drafting and of application of the law by the court. If the standards are made high enough, and they are enforced properly, then there’s no reason not to included non-domestic restraining orders under the gun ban.
In addition, any objection one can mount to non-domestic restraining orders being included could also be mounted for domestic restraining orders. So if the latter is included in the gun ban, I don’t see why the former shouldn’t be, in order to be consistent. Nor do I see that people under domestic restraining orders should be allowed to legally purchase guns.
I am nearly certain, however, that (as with most laws) there would be unforeseen and unintended negative consequences. There is no way to avoid that. I’m not sure what they would be, other than the aforementioned problem with false requests for restraining orders.
The bottom line is that violence cannot be prevented, and that we need to be able to own guns. After that, we need to strive for sensible and consistent common sense laws to restrict them to people who are not flagrantly out to get other people, and/or flagrantly unbalanced, knowing that it will hardly prevent all violence, even at the hands of such people, and knowing that illegal guns are also relatively easy to get.
It’s like Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter at Virginia tech. His behavior scared people and everybody knew he was mentally disturbed but there was nothing that could be done about him until he hurt himself or somebody else.
Neo,
“If the standards are made high enough, and they are enforced properly, then there’s no reason not to included non-domestic restraining orders under the gun ban.”
Logical in theory, but in practice this requires a trust in government that it will operate sensibly and “do the right thing.” I lost that trust a long time ago.
Secondly, with regard to restraining orders, I appreciate your distinction between domestic and non-domestic, but it has been made clear that restraining orders have become an attorney’s tactical tool (oftentimes used in divorce to provide the wife with negotiating leverage).
The system has abused its authority and, back to my first point, this can all be summed up by Ronald Reagan’s nine most frightening words (“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”).
These tragic events happen and some problems we must just learn to live with.
That’s the excuse people make, Ray. Just as they did with Hasan at Ft. Hood.
Serfs and animals in a herd like to make that excuse all the time, because nobody ordered them to do anything, they were helpless. Obviously.
I believe in California any restraining order will prevent a gun purchase, and even the retention of guns owned even prior to the restraining order.
In the end, no legal system will EVER prevent criminals from acquiring firearms and using them to break the law. (This ought to be axiomatic. Breaking laws is what criminals do.)
If we favor a suspenders-and-belt system, then we will try to prevent the criminally dangerous — or the potentially criminally dangerous, which is problematic indeed — from acquiring firearms legally. But some will make use of loopholes, and some will simply go outside the law. That’s when we need the other side, which is to stop the murderous use of firearms when it happens — which, more often than not, is at the hands of an armed private citizen who happens to be on hand at the time.
The thing that most strikes me about this horrific double murder is something that Rush L. has been warning against — the Left’s strategy of constantly whipping up their “client” groups into a lather of rage against Caucasians, heterosexuals, males leads some unhinged people to go off their nut and kill.
Some of the blood of these two victims is on the Leftmedia’s hands. They should be condemned in the strongest terms for incitement to violence and whipping up interracial hatred.
The fact that this murderer was black, homosexual, and an Obama fan (had been reprimanded for wearing an “Obama” pin on the air when doing a political piece) means that he’d been drinking their toxins from three different spouts: those meant for gays, for blacks, and for the Lefty followers overall.
And of course there’s the Eternal Hypocrisy of the Left: they claim that just the sight of an Army of Northern Virginia flag led Dylan Roof to flip out and kill those church folks in Charleston, but all the real incitements by the Left for their followers to hate?
Crickets.
Last point (sorry for the treble post): Leftist theory holds that only white people are capable of racism. Therefore any nonwhite racists are automatically exonerated of any guilt for their own hatred and stereotyping.
Perfect setup for inciting those who are on the edge of violence to just go ahead and jump.
I find it interesting that this fine alumnus of San Francisco State seemed to specifically hunt for jobs in the South: Alabama, Tallahassee, Roanoke, some other southern city… I think he’s been hunting for “discrimination” for a very long time….
Unless the act of murder alone qualified, Mr Flanagan was in need of counseling, but not IMHO mentally ill. He was, however, a hard core racist whose antipathies were no doubt further inflamed by the divisive huckstering of the Obama regime and Black Lives Matter.
Why isn t there some type of security for remote TV work ? That camera looks very heavy the guy has his back to anyone from behind him, the interviewer is pre occupied. There need s to be *situational awareness*. This crime could have been done by a kook who was a *romantic stalker* of the young woman. Why isn t there a security guard travelling with a remote crew ? He could hang back & set up perimeter & folks aren’t permitted in the area. He dosen t even have to be a perm TV station emp they could get security as a contract person from an agency.
He dosent need to be armed, I think bear sized pepper spray would do the trick !
As far as the perps SF origins poster Liberty Wolf in the other thread has info on the situation there, Oakland, Black panthers, ethnic studies, etc that entire cry baby race grievence industry ! For sure blood on the hands of hate mongers.
And the young woman’s father chimes in for more
*gun control* on Megyn Kelly last night !
No temper control or putting VALUE on life but gun control !
The journalist family is like an aristocracy. They marry within and tie up the cords of power that way. There was a story about the national media being the exact same way. The producers are married to the on air personas. The on air personas are married to the editors.
Things like JournoList must seem just like a family email service to them.
Now of course being 24, the female fatal casualty was only 18 six years. So she has had little time to contribute to any Leftist or journalist causes. That doesn’t mean her family is on the level, however.
Generally the older the journalist, the more money and leverage they have for personal bodyguards. This one was too fresh for that, I suppose.
But journalists generally have no security consciousness. So if they don’t hire a guard that follows them along, they’re about as soft a target as a school yard or kindergarten.
There is a thread that runs through all the shootings of the last few years – mental illness. We have a lot of disturbed/mentally ill people walking around and most of them are not getting the help they need to not be a threat to themselves or others.
I’m not a mental health professional, so I have no great insights into how to improve the situation. Laws against guns have gone as far as they can. In fact, there is more gun violence in states and cities with strict gun laws. Forcing people with mental illness into treatment seems problematic, but it appears that no one is even looking at that aspect of the problem. Maybe we should.
neo-neocon Says:
August 27th, 2015 at 1:43 pm
I’m on the same page with you…
BUT.
How long will such a non-familiar restraining order ever last ?
In the proximate case, this murderer would seem to have simply out lasted any ordinary term of restraint.
For no court is going to give such a sanction for ever on end.
What’s so ODD about this perp is that he was ejected so long ago — and still stayed on his ‘hobby horse’ about Liberal women ‘dissing’ him.
%%%
In my own life I’ve only run into a handful of truly deranged individuals.
One was a Black gal who falsely accused me of rape… not even date rape… just unprovoked rape. This is a psychic shocker than no-one can foresee, for she and I didn’t even have harsh words before. No provocation… — no nothing.
Just: Bam !
The other was a felon who’d made it to Federal prison for pistol-whipping a railroad locomotive engineer in the face until he was in need of plastic surgery. Yes, it was a train robbery. (!)
He was heisting the locomotive crew of a freight train for pocket cash ! — As a minor — was tried as an adult.
He should be behind bars for the rest of his life — as he is plainly a career criminal — with a violent temper that is shocking to behold.
He will — out of the blue — jump into arguments that have absolutely nothing to do with him… and not just with words.
When it comes to violence, this boy is a ‘tool user.’ Knife, screwdriver, rock, pistol — what ever comes to hand — he’s reaching for it.
He’s also such a backstabbing fink that even the fellas that he regards as pals — absolutely insisted on him being fired// laid off… as they, personally, would never work with him again.
(It was the finking to the boss, each and every day, over every little tidbit. Somehow this guiding light couldn’t figure out that his reports to the boss would be promptly detected — and hugely resented.)
It was universally true that every sane person around him soon came to distance themselves… with the exception of criminals.
As long as this psychopath is loose, America needs to build more prison space.
Our ‘system’ simply does not respond properly to those chronically prone to extreme violence. For I was in the same position as those in that news room: to know that the guy is a time bomb — and there’s not a legal thing you can do about it.
In the old west, fellows like this dufus would simply be gunned down. Then no questions would be asked… if even a crime report was drafted.
The fellow is simply a mad dog.
I suspect that not one person in 10,000 is as disturbed as this life-long criminal. ( How comes up short on the friendship scale, too. He’s such a rat that he can’t possibly have any long term relationship. )
As you might imagine, having screwed over everybody he’s ever met at one point or another, he can’t figure it out — and blames the outer world for his troubles.
How this fellow was ever let out of Federal prison — I will never understand.
Pray that you never meet his twin.
For I was in the same position as those in that news room: to know that the guy is a time bomb – and there’s not a legal thing you can do about it.
There are plenty of legal things people can do about it, but it concerns changing themselves, not using the law to slap somebody else around.
mental illness. We have a lot of disturbed/mentally ill people walking around and most of them
Yea, it’s called being a Democrat.
blert: “In the old west, fellows like this dufus would simply be gunned down. Then no questions would be asked… if even a crime report was drafted.
The fellow is simply a mad dog.”
I believe that is the history of the Texas saying, “Some people just need killing.”
My retired cop neighbor refers to this type of unreformable career criminal as a dirt bag – a problem for everyone until the trash is taken out….permanently. Human nature is a challenge to a society that desires law and order. Especially when the progs want to treat all dirt bags as upstanding citizens who are reformable and cops as dirt bags.
It is not the police’s job to take out the trash. It is the citizen’s job, those who pay for the police, who fund the police, who train the police, who provide the police manpower and authority. Without it, LEOs are merely thugs using terrorist attacks to gain an Authority, like in Tunisia.
What the Left does is to put dirt bags in charge of the cops, then all the cops quit and are replaced by people you idealistically think are our Blue Shield protectors somehow.