Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Too Crazy For A Gun

Kaine Closes Va. Gun Sale Loophole – washingtonpost.com
Appearing alongside Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R), Kaine (D) said the order will help prevent people like Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, from legally obtaining firearms. Cho, who killed 32 people and himself, was able to purchase his guns even though a court had found him to be dangerously mentally ill.

Not exactly.

A court found that there was enough evidence that Cho might be a danger to himself or others that they ordered him to be involuntarily committed to a mental health facility so trained psychologists and/or psychiatrists could examine him and make the determination as to whether he was dangerously ill. As it happens, the doctors who examined in Cho in 2005 found that, at that time, he was not a danger to himself or others.

Maybe I’m too much of a stickler for details (NOT), but I think it’s worthwhile for people who report the news to actually report it accurately. The day a court can find someone to be mentally ill is the day we’re all in danger of being exported to a gulag somewhere in Siberia.

(But, hey… with the Bush administration in charge, that day may be coming more quickly that we’d ever have dreamed.)

Cho,23, was declared mentally ill in December 2005 after being evaluated at the New River Community Services in Blacksburg, causing some to argue he should have been covered under the law even if he received outpatient services.

This is idiotic. People aren’t “declared mentally ill” in the way this writer implies. In Cho’s case, it was the opinion of the doctors who examined him that he was mentally ill but it didn’t appear to them at that time that he was a danger to himself or others.

While I like the idea of fewer people buying weapons, I can’t imagine that Kaine’s new law will go very far.

How are they going to define “mentally ill” and “facility”? Are people who’ve been ordered into alcohol or drug treatment going to be prohibited from buying guns? I sure as hell hope so because FAR more homicides are committed by people who are drunk or have drug problems than by people, like Cho, who are severely mentally ill.