Posted on 03/30/2021 8:09:19 AM PDT by real saxophonist
What deems a person mentally ill in a gun background check?
by: Rob Low
Updated: Mar 30, 2021 / 05:06 AM MDT
BOULDER, Colo. (KDVR) — Even if the man accused of killing 10 people at a Boulder King Soopers ends up using a mental illness defense, it’s no surprise a background check didn’t flag Ahmad Alissa as mentally ill when he bought his weapon six days before the mass shooting.
Defense attorneys for Alissa told the judge they need time to learn his history of possible mental illness.
Suspect in Boulder King Soopers shooting appears in court; accused of attempting to murder a 2nd BPD officer
Alissa’s brother told the Daily Beast his brother was paranoid and “very anti-social” describing the shooting as “mental illness,” but the Arvada gun store that sold Alissa his Ruger AR-556 released a statement to FOX31 insisting Alissa passed a background check.
Eileen McCarron with Colorado Ceasefire isn’t surprised Alissa’s name didn’t show up on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, better known as NICS.
“To be prohibited from buying a firearm on reasons of mental health is a high bar,” McCarron said.
Simply being diagnosed as mentally ill doesn’t put anyone on the NICS database maintained by the FBI. Instead a person has to be deemed mentally ill by a Colorado judge and then the State Court Administrator sends that information to the FBI.
Veterans can also be placed on the list if they are receiving disability payments for a mental illness and are under the care of a guardian.
“You have to be adjudicated by a judge and perhaps institutionalized against your will so it’s not like going to a counselor because you’re depressed or having difficulties in your marriage,” McCarron said.
According to FBI stats obtained by the Problem Solvers, Colorado has 107,050 people on the NICS index who can’t legally buy a firearm for reasons of mental illness.
Nationwide, 56,830 people have been denied a gun since Nov. 30, 1998 because they were legally deemed mentally ill.
“There is no mental illness that is associated with a propensity to commit mass murder,” Vincent Atchity said, president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado.
Atchity said there needs to be more research done on who is likely to commit acts of violence but added, Alissa is someone who qualifies based on his misdemeanor conviction for attacking a high school classmate in the classroom.
Suspected King Soopers shooter ‘could snap in the blink of an eye,’ say former teammates
“Was a pretty extreme assault,” Atchity noted, yet only felony assault convictions prevent someone from buying a gun unless the misdemeanor assault was related to domestic violence.
Gun control advocates pushed for a measure in 2019 that would’ve added misdemeanor assault convictions as a reason to deny a gun purchase but the measure never made it out of a legislative committee.
Instead, Colorado lawmakers passed the state’s red flag bill.
That law might’ve helped prevent Alissa from purchasing or possessing a gun but it would’ve required Alissa’s family to file an Extreme Risk Protection Order, known as an ERPO.
“They maybe don’t know about the law or didn’t feel the situation was dire enough or they didn’t want to upset the son further or maybe they have fear of working with the courts or law enforcement,” McCarron said.
They're still saying Alissa instead of Al-Issa.
If the left gets their way, wanting a gun is evidence of mental illness.
Being a Biden/Harris supporting demoKKKrat would be a good start.
Desire to own a gun is reason enough. That is proof you only want to kill minorities instead of simply hating them like normal white people
Liberals want the fact that you want a gun to indicate mental illness.
Mental Illness is a nonsense term anyhow. There is no actual definition of, what it means or what causes it. But it’s a handy catchall term so that shrinks can drug and shock people (torture) for money.
Causation, correct. Correlation, however... that's a sticky ball of wax. Sociopathy and psychopathy are very broad areas of human behavior, but many killers display signs of both.
The problem is that he wasn’t mentally ill, in the sense that he had one of the classic diagnoses. He was just a Muslim radical, inspired by his father (an Islamist who was probably the one theoretically being “watched” by the FBI).
Islam or any cult makes people act crazy because it essentially occupies the space occupied by moral or social controls and lets you do - and justify - anything you want in order to advance the cult.
Yep.
Your voting record
If you identify Bruce Jenner as Bruce Jenner.
You can buy or rent a two ton Assault Vehicle without a Background Check and go run over and kill as many people as you like.
You can Vote, an act that can cause more damage to Society than a Gun ever could without a Background Check.
Murder is against the Law. If you intentionally Murder People you are obviously Mentally Ill, yet it happens all the time.
Cult members live in their own world and their moral and social standards are not those of the larger world. I lived in San Francisco when the Jim Jones mass slaughter occurred. Jim Jones was a politically influential person in San Francisco, because he exploited...urr, I guess I mean, “organized”...the voters in his cult and in the poor black areas.
It was truly horrifying, but anybody who had been around Jim Jones knew that he was crazy, Hitler-style with a messianic complex, and that things wouldn’t end well.
Islam is the same, but just on a larger scale. Of course, we can’t discuss that.
Unfortunately, there are liberals in power who say anyone who wants a gun is crazy or all conservatives are by definition crazy.
It damned well should be. With felony convictions, at least there's a hope of getting one's rights restored after the sentenced debt to society is paid. Good luck getting a judge to dissolve a guardianship and restore your rights after an adjudication of mental incapacity.
Any democrat is mentally ill.
My list: Member of Islamic Cult, BLM, Antifa, communist, socialist, progressive, etc. Maybe even today’s Democrats. Ah, I guess I already said that.
We do need to look at behavior and choices. Members of Islamic Cult, communists, socialists, Antifa, BLM, etc. Groups with documented history and mission of violence.
btt
I am of the opinion that for violent charges (assault in particular) should have the time frame reduced to 1 year. Nonviolent misdemeanors such as fraud or trespass, etc could remain at two years.
The law is written such that one has to be adjudged Mentally ill because that provides a public record. If you are diagnosed as mentally ill, doctor patient privilege usually applies, unless you are determined to be a danger to yourself or others. In addition, to be denied on a NICS check, your status as a prohibited person needs to be reported to the FBI by the relevant mental health agency. Many state mental health agencies are reluctant to report mentally ill people either to avoid stigmatizing the patient or simply due to insufficient resources.
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