Chuck and Carolyn Engeldinger, parents of recent Minneapolis mass shooter Andrew Engeldinger Interviewed on MPR

Cross posted from Penigma

This is an excellent, but heartbreaking interview:


October is Mental Health Awareness month.

We do NO screening whatsoever for mental illness before a person can buy a firearm, other than in the instance of purchases from a FFL seller checking the NICS data base.

Unfortunately, that data base is painfully incomplete, even in the cases of the names of known, adjudicated mentally ill individuals. It is extremely difficult, and costly, to have an individual adjudicated mentally ill. Many of those who pose the greatest risk to themselves and others, like James Holmes the (alleged) shooter in Aurora, Colorado, like Andrew Engeldinger, in the Minneapolis mass shooting, like Ian Stawicki in Seattle, like Jared Loughner in the Tucson mass shooting, like Neil Prescott in Maryland, have no barriers to buying an unlimited amount of firearms, including assault-style weapons, expanded capacity magazines, massive quantities of ammunition, or body armor to resist intervention by law enforcement.  All of the above were diagnosed and treated for mental illness, all of them were recognized by the people around them as dangerous.

This is by no means an exhaustive list; these were just the first few off the top of my head.

But no one could stop them from exercising their 2nd amendment rights when they planned to shoot people.  Not law enforcement, not their mental health personnel, not law enforcement.

Not only do we not have any screening that prevents dangerously mentally ill people from slaughtering innocent people in large numbers, we don't even test for the most rudimentary necessary qualities to safely and appropriately use a firearm, like the eye test we require to drive a car.

The basic rules of firearm safety require that you be able to see what you shoot at, and that you be aware of what is around and behind what you are aiming at, or you do not shoot.

Not only do we require no minimal testing or screening to own a firearm, we require no check whatsoever to privately transfer a firearm to another person.  You aren't supposed to sell or give a firearms to someone who is deranged, or a drug addict, or convicted of a crime.  But people do it all the time, and beyond that, gun owners are not required to keep their firearms secure from theft or abuse.

We have more than 3 murder suicides a week in this country, involving two or more people, where one of more of those who are killed did not want to die, often women and children.  One could argue that anyone who takes that route out of this world is at least temporarily dangerously mentally ill.  Certainly their judgment is not what we consider normal in function.

We MUST stop allowing access to firearms to override every other consideration.  It is time we stop treating lethal force as an option everyone should have, and recognize the horrific harm done by people with it, not just in homicides and suicides, or injuries, but in accidents, in intimidation in domestic violence, and other circumstances.

Civilized countries do not condone everyone having lethal weapons. It is not necessary, it is not appropriate, and it is not the case - as pro-gunners claim - that we have to accept criminals having firearms EITHER.  In other countries, firearms are not common in their crime incidents; they are the exception, not the rule. 

We shouldn't condone or allow such widespread lethal force and violence either.  There are better alternatives. But we need to begin with our gun culture, which argues against any impediment, even if it means unlimited access for the dangerously mentally ill to lethal weapons to engage in mass killings.

We have a choice, and it is time we exercised a better one than the one we have now.

I will post the second part of the interview tomorrow.  My heart aches for these parents, and for the family and friends of all those who were the victims of Andrew Engeldinger.  This should have been an avoidable tragedy.

For those readers who may not be able to easily access the recording, here is an edited transcript of the MPR News interview:

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Many lives changed the afternoon of Sept. 27 at a small but growing Minneapolis business called Accent Signage Systems.
An employee, Andrew Engeldinger, had just lost his job, and he responded by opening fire, killing six people and wounding others. He took his own life with the weapon as well.
"It is hard. We have lost our son. And we know that all these other families are suffering due to his actions and that's very hard," said Carolyn Engeldinger, who, along with her husband Chuck, spoke with MPR News.
The Engeldingers said their son had shown signs of mental illness for years.
"The person he became bore no resemblance to the son we knew and raised," she said. "He was never violent, just a normal little kid who brought us a lot of joy."
Below is an edited transcript of Cathy Wurzer's interview with the Engeldingers. The second part of the interview airs Wednesday.

The Aurora, Colorado Shooter and Shall Issue Regulation

Cross posted from Penigma

It has now come to light that the college psychiatrist who had been treating the (alleged) shooter in the Aurora, Colorado theater showing the latest Batman movie had alerted law enforcement that James Holmes presented a danger to others weeks before the shooting.

Under 'may issue' practice, law enforcement can be more responsive to known dangers presented by the mentally ill acquiring firearms, and deny them permits.  Under 'may issue' regulation, denial of permits can be challenged, and law enforcement then has to demonstrate that they had a reasonable and justifiable basis for the denial.  There has not been a problem with may issue regulation abuse of authority in denying permits to individuals who are stalkers, domestic abusers, criminals, drug users, or who have known patterns of behavior that are violent as part of mental illness.  Under shall issue, law enforcement cannot prevent dangerous mentally ill individuals or other known violent individuals who have made threats to others from acquiring weapons.  Under 'shall issue' the requirement is a court proceeding, which is far less common and which can take a very long time to occur, and where the level of danger required for a decision is much more demanding and difficult to prove.

In the case of Jared Loughner for example, his college required him to withdraw, and not return unless he had obtained a psychiatric clearance that he was not a threat to himself or others.  Loughner withdrew rather than submit to a psychiatric examination.  Law enforcement had been made aware of the threat presented by Loughner, including sending not one, but two law enforcement officers to deliver the letter from the college to Loughner and his parents.  However, law enforcement could not prohibit Loughner from firearm ownership despite their knowledge of his presenting a danger to himself and others.

And of course, the NRA has made it a priority that the large capacity magazines favored by most mass shooters cannot be prohibited either.

Between January 8, 2011 when Jared Loughner shot and killed 6 unarmed, innocent people, and wounded another 13 in Tucson, Arizona and the shooting in Aurora, Colorado (allegedly) by James Holmes in July 2012, there were 60 mass shootings. Many of those involved assault style weapons, expanded capacity magazines, accumulations of arsenals of weapons, body armor, and large quantities of ammunition, and individuals known to law enforcement to present a danger to others who law enforcement was unable to prevent legal acquisition of the weapons used in the mass shootings.

Both ordinary citizens and law enforcement are often the victims in those mass shootings by the dangerously mentally ill, as in the case of the shootings on New Years day 2012 where Benjamin Colton Barnes in Washington state shot multiple people at a party, and then subsequently shot and killed a park ranger and injured three others.  Barnes had been the subject of a restraining order, which included notifying the court that he was dangerously violent and had shown signs of PTSD.  Barnes had a personal arsenal of weapons, including multiple military assault-style weapons, large quantities of hand guns, ballistic protection. 

Law enforcement under shall issue permitting is unable to prevent that acquisition.

In May 2012, Ian Stawicki, who had a long history of mental illness, and who was known to law enforcement to be dangerously violent, shot and killed five people in Seattle, Washington, and shot but only injured another, before committing suicide.  Stawicki had accumulated, legally, six hand guns prior to the shooting, including a high ammunition capacity pistol he used in the shootings.

An article below describes the frustration of those who know dangerously mentally ill people, but are unable to get them treatment when they resist that treatment as part of their illness.  It also describes how law enforcement is often aware weeks, months or even years in advance of mass shootings of the deterioration of the mental states of these people. 

It is ridiculous that law enforcement has their hands tied by NRA-pushed laws from preventing these obviously dangerous people from acquiring firearms legally - often the most lethal possible firearms, like assault rifles or high powered semi-automatic handguns with large capacity magazines that allow them to shoot a lot of people before stopping to reload.

from MyNorthwest.com (97.3 FM) on Stawicki and other dangerously mentally ill people; the title is as true of law enforcement as it is of the families of the mentally ill.:

Families of mentally ill forced to deal with 'ticking time bombs'

For Ian Stawicki, years of mental illness ended when he took his own life on a quiet sidewalk in West Seattle. He had just carried out a shooting rampage that left five dead and one in critical condition.

Over the years he had become increasingly violent and prone to fits of rage, according to family members who saw the warning signs but felt there was nothing they could do. A police report from 2008 seems to signal the start of his deteriorating mental state.According to the documents, Stawicki had given his girlfriend a bloody nose and destroyed most of her personal possessions.

"The victim thought that sometime in December the suspect suddenly changed his personality," the police report states. "Although the suspect always 'had a temper,' he began breaking the victim's belonging when he flew into his rages. This behavior frightened the victim and she resolved to call 911 if it continued."

But while those closest to Stawicki knew he was in desperate need of help, he refused to accept it.

"I know it can feel for people as if there is no help out there, and they have tried things and they haven't worked," said Karin Rogers with Sound Mental Health in Seattle. "And that is very frustrating and very scary."

Rogers said families often struggle for years to get through to loved ones, often to no avail.

Julia, who wished to have her last name withheld, has a sister who has struggled with mental illness since the two were children. She understands all too well what the family of Ian Stawicki must have gone through.

"I wonder how many of us thought, 'Yeah. Yeah, that would be my loved one,'" she said of Wednesday's massacre at the hands of Stawicki. "I can't even imagine how difficult it must be for them [...] They're not the only family."

Julia's sister has lived with bipolar disorder for years, she said. While the family was hesitant to accept that she had a mental illness, it became clear when she threatened to kill strangers.

"As much as I knew she had problems, I didn't realize they were that extreme," Julia said of her sister.

While the family convinced her to agree to a 72-hour psychiatric hold, the stay did nothing to improve her mental state. Julia's sister refused further help and refused to take medication.

"We can't make her do anything," she said. "Our resources are exhausted. We don't know what else to do."

It is all Julia can do now to protect herself and her family. She does not allow her sister to keep guns in her home, out of fear that she is capable of murder.

"If she was armed, we would all be gone," Julia said. She called her sister a "ticking time bomb."

It is the same way the family of Ian Stawicki must have felt. His younger brother, Andrew Stawicki, told The Seattle Times he could see the bloodshed coming.

"It's no surprise to me this happened," he told the newspaper. "We could see this coming. Nothing good is going to come with that much anger inside of you."

His father, Walter Stawicki, told The Times on Thursday he regrets the family didn't do more to intervene, even if it meant lying to get him committed.

These mass shootings don't come as 'a surprise', although the pro-gun crowd likes to feign both alarm and astonishment.  People know there are problems with dangerously mentally ill people in advance, often including law enforcement.  However there is usually nothing they are able to do legally about that knowledge.  That includes law enforcement being unable to prevent the dangerously mentally ill from legally acquiring firearms, under shall issue - people like Stawicki, Barnes, Loughner, and Holmes.

Shall issue is deficient and badly defective; pro-gun advocates look at these mass shootings, have it called to their attention the purchases of weapons and other gear were legal, and they try to blame everyone but the legislation they push through for shall issue.  They try to blame the mental health care system, which their right wing politics hamstring with inadequate funding.  They try to blame law enforcement, as they attack their public unions, and whom they hamstring with shall issue, putting law enforcement in direct danger when they have to confront these armed people as a result of these mass shootings.  They blame everyone else, but the real blame falls on the pro-2nd Amendment gun advocates for the shall issue rather than the may issue regulation.  They make it possible for the legal acquisition of these firearms by the dangerously mentally ill and others. 

Blame the NRA and blame ALEC, and blame the right wing politicians they buy and conservatives who blindly support them and vote for them.  Follow the money when looking to assign blame and responsibility; every time shootings like this occur, gun sales and ammo sales go up. That profits the gun manufacturers, and gun retailers like WalMart. They broke a system that worked, 'may issue', and replaced it with one that was more dangerous, but more profitable for them as a special interest.

Now it turns out that the psychiatrist at the college in Colorado had also alerted law enforcement that there was a very real danger to others and himself from James Holmes, prior to the period of time during which he legally purchased the ballistic protection, assault style rifle, expanded capacity magazine, Glock hand guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, gas mask and other equipment used in the attack and in rigging his apartment to explode.

From the HuffPo and Reuters:

Lynne Fenton, James Holmes' Psychiatrist, Contacted Police Allegedly Before Aurora Shooting

James Holmes' psychiatrist contacted police before the Aurora shooting, according to ABC News report

The psychiatrist treating James Holmes told a University of Colorado police officer that she was worried about her patient weeks before he allegedly killed 12 people in an Aurora movie theater.

The allegation that Dr. Lynne Fenton warned authorities about Holmes' potential to harm others -- reported by ABC News -- is the second time she told others he was possibly dangerous.

Fenton, a member of the university's threat assessment team, reportedly told other committee members that Holmes, a Ph.D neuroscience student potentially jeopardized campus safety.

Though ABC's anonymous sources said Fenton took her concerns to the university officer "several weeks before" the July 20 rampage that wounded 58 others, it's unknown how the cop handled the tip.

Fenton talked with several members of the Behavioral Evaluation and Threat Assessment team, too, but the full committee never launched an investigation into Holmes because the 24-year-old dropped out of the doctoral program about six weeks before the attack.

Doctors in Colorado can break confidentiality rules with patients if they become aware of imminent risks to others, Reuters reported.

read the rest of the article here

When events follow a pattern, over and over, and when one group or one special interest area of business benefits over and over after these mass shootings, and when they make it possible for these events to happen the way they do, it cannot be considered a coincidence or accidental that we have these mass shootings occurring so often.  It happens for a reason, and that reason is profit. That ignorant and easily manipulated conservative voters are deluded into helping this happen is the shame and failure of their political ideology.  This is not a bi-partisan phenomenon. It is a conservative-authored problem.





Dear Gun Carriers (Open and Concealed): Here is Why We Do NOT Believe You When You Insist You Are Safe It is because you aren't.

Cross posted from Penigma:

Yosemite Sam walks into the Wal Mart Men's Room....or at least, something very like the gun carriers doing so....

Not too long ago I wrote about the correlation between a state being red and the number of Wal Marts it had, along with the pattern of people having far lower levels of education, and being obese. In short, it tracks perfectly with the NRA tendency for their gun nuts to be old, white, flabby and crabby, conservative and not well educated.
And along with their obsessions with carrying guns at Wal Marts is the reported incidences of stupid accidents -- like guys shooting toilets out from under their own asses in men's rooms because their gun fell out while they were relieving themselves, and discharged.  The gun carriers span the spectrum from open carry to legal concealed carry to illegal carry, and a wider variety of demographics than the NRA members -- and they are all dangerous, they all put others at risk without a legitimate reason to carry.
There was another shooting at a Wal Mart this week in Dallas, there was one last month in Elizabeth, North Carolina. :

George Reichle  was seated in the men’s room stall next to Felty June 29 when to the surprise of them both, Felty’s .38-caliber pistol discharged a single round through the stall door and into the bathroom ceiling. Reichle wasn’t hurt, but the near-miss has angered him enough to publicly criticize Walmart for its reckless policy of allowing Felty and other customers to bring concealed weapons into the store.

Of course, changing the policy won’t be easy. Commonsense almost always loses out when it’s up against the often insane way gun rights are worshipped in this country. Simply suggesting that someone leave a dangerous weapon at home or in their car before entering a crowded store is considered by Second Amendment zealots to be tantamount to government storm troopers breaking into your house and confiscating your guns.

Sadly, many concealed weapon permit holders apparently are not above seeing the occasional customer shot to death if it means protecting their right to walk Walmart’s aisles with their handguns hidden at the ready. There are in fact dozens of websites where gun owners are constantly on the look out for any breach of their right to bear arms in Walmart stores, and there’s even one site that asked members how many of them performed their first “concealed carry walk” at Walmart. According to the poll, 18 of 43 respondents said they “proudly” did.

If you do a google search of gun discharges, Wal Mart, there is a shocking number. Here's another one, the most recent -- but then the week isn't over yet. There's time for another one any minute, given WallyWorld's are open 24 hours, and welcome people carrying guns.  And it is not like WalMart is the only place that gun guys put people in danger.
Next time a gun nut wonders why we don't believe they are safe, this is why - this and all the other incidents like it; this and all the other incidents where someone gets shot, intentionally or accidentally.

From CBS Dallas;

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A woman and two young children were wounded on Monday night after a gun accidentally discharged inside of a Walmart store in northeast Dallas. The incident happened at about 9:20 p.m. in the 9300 block of Forest Lane.

According to police, a man identified as 23-year-old Todd Canady — who does have a concealed handgun license — went into the Walmart store to purchase groceries. But he had trouble pulling out his wallet at the check-out line. He accidentally dropped and fired his pistol instead. The bullet first grazed Canady in the back of his leg before ricocheting off of the ground.

Debris struck two children and a woman’s ankle as they were standing in line. They were not seriously hurt.

Todd Canady (credit: Dallas County Sheriff’s Department)

Canady left the store and then fled when police tried to question him about the incident. He was later arrested and will face a felony charge of injury to a child, as well as misdemeanor charges of assault and evading arrest. The pistol has been taken in as evidence as an investigation continues.

Utter Failure in Gun Loon Reasoning

I have to wonder if Laci wasn't on to something, when he mentioned the neurological damage associated with lead toxicity.

Just now when FWM tried to insist that by having someone else - an FFL, or maybe a LEO, as an alternative to doing the kind of check oneself that employers do for criminal records - should such a check be required would change a private sale into ...........something else.

He didn't specify what kind of sale OTHER than a private sale that would be, but the implication I took from it was that if an FFL did a check, then it was the FFL's sale.

That is ludicrous.  It's like listening to the 'reasoning' such as it was of the classic ventriloquist act done by the dummy Mortimer Snerd and the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (father of Candace Bergen). 

If a mechanic checks over a vehicle before a private sale, the transaction does not suddenly become a sale by the mechanic.   If a private owner sells a piece of real estate to a private party, as distinct from buying a foreclosed property from a bank or other institution, it is a private sale, regardless of having to go through the hoops for a mortgage or other financing, ditto arranging insurance, regardless of having to deal with title searches, or a lawyer drawing up a sales contract, or having a housing inspection, or registering a deed either.

The owner of the property in any and all of the above cases is still the owner, privately selling to the buyer.  Other individuals providing services on which the sale is contingent does not change who owns or  sells, or who buys. NOTHING whatsoever in a contingency service changes a private sale into some other form of transaction. Sometimes it appears there are a limited number of wrote responses that gun nuts learn, instead of actually thinking.  I can only imagine from the frequency with which your side relies on blindly repeating things without critically thinking if they are correct or not, that you must stand around in a clot, nodding, while mumbling 'un-Huh, un-Huh, un-Hun' in each other's general direction, each one of you afraid to let on to the others that the lot of you are actually clueless.    Like Mortimer Snerd, who was known to have a 'unique' sort of logic, the results are entertaining but not reliable. THAT is what Laci and I mean when we are critical of your thought processes; you DON'T APPEAR TO HAVE ANY, other than the sock puppet repetition of what someone else on the gun nut side told you was true, or valid.  When your premise falls down in a shambles, you just stand there gob smacked, with no idea how to respond. Stupidity is a terrible thing on its own; stupidity armed with lethal force and nothing other than emotions rather than reason guiding its use is worse.  I can't wait for the next argument where one of you offers to climb up to the top of the metaphorical balloon, to push it back down.

   

Rachel Maddow on Fast and Furiously Ridiculous

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For Laci

I would like to encourage our readers, especially those who comment, to be very careful that they are not 'sock puppets', people who do not in fact hold any original ideas, but who mouth the words that others provide to them, and who hold ideas that are full of holes and fluff.

For example, I thoroughly doubt that our commenter read up on democide (to the extremely limited extent he has read at all) but rather it would appear he was directed to these ideas by the voices in his head that derive from the gun nut echo chamber of pseudo scholarship. 

Where legitimate ideas and concepts exist, they are twisted and contorted like a rubber Rubik's cubes until the original legitimate concept has had this done to it, trying to hammer it to fit the pro-gunner's preconceptions. so they can cherry pick a small piece out of the debris context to support a failed argument:

how to solve a rubik's cube in 6 seconds

OR, their understanding of the concept someone minimally smarter told them supported their argument is so poor, so distorted, so surreal and intellectually dishonest that it resembles this image more than an actual three dimensional object Rubik's cube:

A word to readers and commenters; it is not sufficient to have read a book once, or part of a book, or to have come across a single web site on the interwebs.  To understand information and concepts, you need a solid existing intellectual structure that is a solid framework to which it can be added.  That pre-existing framework is clearly lacking along with the required building blocks of logic and critical thinking.  A crumbling hole filled "rube's cube" of ignorance (as distinct from the brilliant Rubik's cube) is insufficient.

After watching his clip of Sam and the Truth Snake, but especially in response to his previous post on sock puppets, I'm tempted to add these images as little design feature widgets on this blog.

Don't feed the Sock Puppets