This psycho stalker untreated paranoid schizophrenic kept a letter from her office locked up in a safe for THREE YEARS.
Jerry Loughner was obsessed with Gabby Giffords and when she recently married a NASA astronaut, his conspiratorial online ravings about NASA suddenly start to become clear.
This mentally ill male had a crush on Giffords and like all other loser stalkers who can't interest the opposite sex, became ENRAGED with her.
Jerry Giffords was in OBVIOUS need of psychiatric care ---- where was that lousy sheriff all along while Jerry was making death threats which became KNOWN to the sheriff?
How did this extremely ill individual EVER pass an FBI background check which enabled him to purchase the Glock?
Where'd he get the MONEY for that kind of weapon???
The Guardian and Mother Jones are the ones posting sane coverage of this story?
What universe is this?!
“Where’d he get the MONEY for that kind of weapon??? “
What was the weapon?
(For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, Mark David Chapman was the guy who murdered John Lennon back in 1980.)
One interesting thing the prison official mentioned is that high-profile prisoners like Chapman get tons of "fan mail" all the time -- all of it opened and read by the warden's office before it can be passed on to the prisoner.
The interviewer sounded surprised at this, and asked what the letters contained.
The prison guy said (paraphrasing here): "The letters come from people who tell Chapman that they admire him so much for what he did, and how effective he had been at stalking and killing his prey."
The interviewer's eyes were probably bugging out of his head by this time. He told the prison official he found that terribly disturbing.
The prison guy then said (again, paraphrasing here): "Oh, those are the mild ones. The most disturbing letters are the ones that say all of that, then list one or two people -- usually celebrities or political figures -- that the letter's sender has targeted in a similar manner. You'd be shocked if I told you how many of those letters he gets."
That was one of the most fascinating interviews I've ever heard.
No prior arrests or convictions or outstanding warrants. Never committed to a mental institution or judged mentally deficient or incompetent to handle his own affairs. Never failed a drug test that was reported to legal authorities. Never dishonorably discharged from the military. A citizen and in the country legally. Not a fugitive. Never tried to renounce US citizenship. No restraining orders or record of family abuse. Result = he passed the test.
If there was a flaw in the system, it's that rejection by the military, possibly for a failed drug test, apparently doesn't get reported to the FBI system. Beyond that, though, they aren't going to keep track of everybody who's ever acted crazy. There are too many of them, deciding who's crazy can be subjective, and there are a lot of lawyers and civil libertarians who'd mount challenges to such reporting, judging, record-keeping, and denial of rights.
Years ago, though, when Arizona's population was a lot smaller and people knew each other, you could suppose that it would get around that that crazy kid from the college tried to buy a gun and perhaps he wouldn't have been sold one. In a much larger and more impersonal world it's hard to turn away a customer like that. Chances are the vendor doesn't know anything about the prospective customer, and there are always other stores.
The NICS is an on site process used at the point of purchase for a firearm. The FFL Dealer logs into the system and keys in the purchasers information then the system either approves or denys the purchase.
All the info contained by the FBI in the NICS is provided by the participating states and deals primarily with felony crime convictions or domestic assault issues.....There is no info provided to the FBI about an individual's mental health unless such illness was directly related to the felony conviction.
Does this mean the system is flawed? I don't think so, the only individuals who may have had a remote possibility of preventing this tragedy were the kid's family and I don't think they had any control over him since he no longer lived at home.