A Mass Shooting That Didn’t Happen Today

[Unclenick]

We won't know, for background check purposes, who is mentally ill as long as the HIPAA makes it an individual doctor's call whether or not to involve authorities and the law doesn't require that doctor to also inform the FBI to include that person's name in firearm purchase background checks. Currently, I believe it is only those who have been adjudicated mentally ill who can be found in NICS records for background check purposes, and then only if the local authorities got around to reporting it.

We are learning, very slowly, that reporting by students and readers of teen social media can actually stop the majority of school shootings well in advance. Even those with no criminal history or mental health history often reveal their intentions online or in conversations with schoolmates.

Expecting to stop every single person with no history either criminal or mental from committing occasional horrors is as Utopian an argument as the argument gun laws will stop them all. The Los Vegas shooter is the prime example. Millions of dollars in resources and no prior history issues. Even Senator Feinstein said she didn't think anybody could have stopped that one. A person with millions in resources can always get stolen military or police weapons on the black market. Enough money gets you any object you want, legal or otherwise. There will never be a complete end to these events, regardless of what laws are on the books.

Note that the seeming increase in public shootings is due to the news media having switched from the definition used by the U.S. Congressional Research Service and the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, which is a shooting incident that results in four or more decedents, to the one pushed by the anti-gun groups which counts non-lethal woundings, which is most single-wound handgun shootings, so it suddenly increased the number of sensational newscasts on the subject quite a bit. They were there before, but not nearly so frequently mentioned before this version of the term "mass shooting" came to be applied to them.

[JohnKSa]

Just a caution about inserting politics into this thread. We don't do politics here because people just can't seem to be civil when it comes up.

[American Man]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

Just a caution about inserting politics into this thread. We don't do politics here because people just can't seem to be civil when it comes up.

Roger that... certain questions came up and I got off track.

[44 AMP]

We won't know, for background check purposes, who is mentally ill as long as the HIPAA makes it an individual doctor's call whether or not to involve authorities and the law doesn't require that doctor to also inform the FBI to include that person's name in firearm purchase background checks. Currently, I believe it is only those who have been adjudicated mentally ill who can be found in NICS records for background check purposes, and then only if the local authorities got around to reporting it.

We have a bit of a can of worms here, because a Doctor's opinion does not deprive one of Constitutional rights. Only a court hearing, with full due process does that. So, while a doctor's report that they consider you a danger may start the process, it does not, and SHOULD not put you on the prohibited list, simply on their say so.

This is the claimed reasoning behind the push for "red flag" laws, so that one may be "legally" deprived of your property (and your rights) UNTIL a court hearing.

The HIPPA law further complicates matters.

I hold the opinion that we should not create "red flag" laws with their huge potential for abuse, but that if an individual is deemed a risk, they should be put through the existing system with full due process. If that isn't "fast" enough to make people feel safe, then they should put the money into expanding the existing system so it can handle the workload in a timely enough manner to meet public approval.

In other words, I think its wrong to create more laws and restrict rights because people are too cheap to spend enough money on the existing system to have it work properly.

And that's a big part of the problem, because given the choice, people will almost always choose the cheap way, over the best way...

[USNRet93]

Originally Posted by Aguila Blanca

What "watchlist" do you think he should have been on? How many watchlists do you think the various levels of our government have?

He was (apparently) a prohibited person based on his status as a convicted felon. [Question: WAS he a convicted felon, or were all his convictions for misdemeanors?] That should put him in the NICS system and should have prevented his buying a firearm from an FFL, but that would not prevent him from making a face-to-face buy, either from a legitimate seller or on a street corner late at night. It also would not have prevented him from stealing a firearm.

Asked and answered..he WAS a convicted felon, unless the reporting of it was wrong. He DID have documented mental health issues. It was reported that he bought the SG from a LGS, not off the street. "many' harp on no new laws, we have enough..Clearly the present system failed..again, if the reporting is accurate.

[thallub]

i can't find proof that the perp was convicted of a felony.

The perp was given free passes in three states, NJ, OK, and TX.

1. The perp was charged with felony assault with a dangerous weapon and arson
in Grady county, Oklahoma.

2. In 2012 the perp was declared incompetent to stand trial by an OK judge who ordered him into treatment.

3. In 2013 the perp was ruled competent to stand trial.

4. The Grady county prosecutor dropped the felony charges and allowed the perp to plead to misdemeanors.

[Double Naught Spy]

Richard White was the man who stood up and drew against the shooter. He was the first man shot and was a member of the security team. I certainly commend him for his bravery--drawing while looking at the muzzle of a shotgun took a lot of guts. Unfortunately he had to clear two cover garments to make his draw, and that slowed his draw considerably and perhaps cost him his life. It also appears that he was carrying his gun SOB which may have accounted for why he stood to draw.

You and I had conversed elsewhere that White had a 4 second draw and as you note, that may have cost him his life.

Turns out, Wilson's draw was EVEN SLOWER. In watching the video over and over, White and Wilson are reaching for their guns (elbows cocked) at nearly the same time. This is after White stands up to start his drawn. For what looks like the better part of 2 seconds, Wilson has his hand on his gun, elbow cocked, and NOT drawing. In watching the video several times, it seems that Wilson is having trouble getting the gun from the holster. During that time, White pulls his hand from his holster (with gun?) and is bring his arm up when he is shot, everyone flinches downward in the room, and the gunman shoots the second person (most immediate threat to him), as Wilson manages to clear the holster and then fire on target.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

We have a bit of a can of worms here, because a Doctor's opinion does not deprive one of Constitutional rights. Only a court hearing, with full due process does that. So, while a doctor's report that they consider you a danger may start the process, it does not, and SHOULD not put you on the prohibited list, simply on their say so.

This is the claimed reasoning behind the push for "red flag" laws, so that one may be "legally" deprived of your property (and your rights) UNTIL a court hearing.

The HIPPA law further complicates matters.

I hold the opinion that we should not create "red flag" laws with their huge potential for abuse, but that if an individual is deemed a risk, they should be put through the existing system with full due process. If that isn't "fast" enough to make people feel safe, then they should put the money into expanding the existing system so it can handle the workload in a timely enough manner to meet public approval.

In other words, I think its wrong to create more laws and restrict rights because people are too cheap to spend enough money on the existing system to have it work properly.

And that's a big part of the problem, because given the choice, people will almost always choose the cheap way, over the best way...

Well said.

Too many people favor these unconstitutional red flag laws because they assume they (the red flag laws) will only affect other people, never themselves. They choose to ignore the rampant possibility (make that "probability," if not "certainty") for abuse because they are sure it won't ever bite them in the butt. But our legal system was not supposed to be based on a program of Hoovering up bunches of people, depriving them of fundamental Constitutional rights, and then asking them to prove why their rights should not have been taken away. (And oh, by the way, can I please have my property back, Judge? Pretty please?)

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by USNRet93

Asked and answered..he WAS a convicted felon, unless the reporting of it was wrong. He DID have documented mental health issues. It was reported that he bought the SG from a LGS, not off the street. "many' harp on no new laws, we have enough..Clearly the present system failed..again, if the reporting is accurate.

I have not seen any reports that he was convicted of any felonies. If you know of any credible reports stating such, I would appreciate your posting them.

But -- the prohibited person list at NICS is not a "watch list." There is no program of surveillance for people on the NICS list -- the list just sits there until the person tries to purchase a firearm through an FFL. The NICS list can't possibly prevent a convicted felon from buying a gun on a street corner at oh-dark-thirty, or prevent him from stealing one.

As to his "documented mental health issues" -- the prohibiting factor under federal law is that a person must have been adjudicated (that means a ruling by a judge pursuant to a hearing) as mentally defective. Absent a court hearing with such a ruling, his "documented mental health issues" don't mean anything. Was he ever adjudicated as mentally defective?

[USNRet93]

I have not seen any reports that he was convicted of any felonies. If you know of any credible reports stating such, I would appreciate your posting them.

https://davidharrisjr.com/doug/texas...d-to-stop-him/

The man who opened fire in a Texas church on Sunday, killing two before being shot dead by parishioners, was identified as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, a convicted felon who, under federal law, could not legally own a gun.

Online court records show Kinnunen pleaded guilty to felony aggravated assault and battery in a Grady County, Oklahoma court on August 15, 2013.

Kinnunen pled guilty to felony third-degree arson, also on August 15, 2013, according to court records.

As to his "documented mental health issues" -- the prohibiting factor under federal law is that a person must have been adjudicated (that means a ruling by a judge pursuant to a hearing) as mentally defective. Absent a court hearing with such a ruling, his "documented mental health issues" don't mean anything. Was he ever adjudicated as mentally defective?

In 2012 the perp was declared incompetent to stand trial by an OK judge who ordered him into treatment.

[thallub]

David Harris is wrong: The perp was not convicted of felonies in those cases.

In 2012, a district judge in Oklahoma ruled him mentally incompetent to stand trial and ordered him committed to a psychiatric facility for treatment.

Kinnunen was charged with felony assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after he attacked the owner of a Chickasha, Oklahoma, doughnut shop in 2011, court records state. He was separately charged with arson that year after allegedly starting a fire in a cotton field by tying tampons soaked in lamp oil to the crop.

Earlier on the day of that fire, Kinnunen soaked a football in the accelerant, lit it on fire and threw it back and forth with his son, who was a minor, according to the arrest affidavit. The boy told police he was afraid his father would get mad if he asked to stop.


A forensic psychologist who examined Kinnunen in 2012 for both cases wrote that “Kinnunen currently evidences signs that are consistent with a substantial mental illness and that meet the inpatient criteria of a ‘person requiring treatment.’”

Records show that Kinnunen was found competent to stand trial in February 2013. However, both criminal cases were ultimately reduced to misdemeanors, to which he pleaded guilty.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/minister-...153033552.html

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by thallub

David Harris is wrong: The perp was not convicted of felonies in those cases.

That's what I read, also.

And I'm not able to comment on whether a finding of "not competent to stand trial" (which was later changed to "competent") meets the criteria for being "adjudicated as mentally defective" for purposes of federal firearms prohibition.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Without looking up the actual trial records, that type of finding of incompetence is enough to make you a prohibited person in ANY of the fifty states. However, it has to be reported to NICS by the state judicial system to trigger NICS.

In 2012, there would have been federal grants available specifically for that purpose due to the NRA-supported NICS Improvement Act of 2007. However, as the Sutherland Springs shooting showed, there was still lots of information not being reported. Fix NICS Act - an improvement of the improvement - passed in the 2017-2018 session. So that would have been another opportunity to get those records into the system.

My guess would be that he wasn’t reported during the trial and once he was found competent, he wasn’t reported as having been adjudicated mentally ill - much like the VA Tech shooter wasn’t reported by the state because they didn’t want to make him a prohibited person (which is essentially a lifetime ban now as Congress has funded ATF appeals for decades).

[Dufus]

Governor Greg Abbot awarded the Governor's Medal of Courage to Mr. Jack Wilson in a ceremony in Austin. Then during the ceremony, Gov. Abbot called Mr. Wilson a hero for stopping the shooter, Keith Kinnunen, before the incident became more disastrous than it could have been.