On Keeping Guns away from Felons and "Nut Cases"
Murderous 'monster' acquires an arsenal
Excerpt:
They knew the Delano house far too well. It was where Christian Philip Oberender, then 14 years old, had murdered his mother in a shotgun ambush in the family rec room in 1995.
Now, 18 years later, Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson was sending his deputies back to the home where Oberender still lives. Just two days earlier, Olson had scanned the day's shift reports and froze when he tripped over Oberender's name. A scan of a Facebook page then showed firearms spread out like a child's trophies on a bed inside the home, along with notes about the Newtown, Conn., gunman who shot 20 children to death.
What Olson's deputies found in the home was chilling: 13 guns, including semi-automatic rifles, an AK-47, a Tommy gun, assorted shotguns and handguns, including a .50-caliber Desert Eagle.
Even more disturbing was the letter Oberender had written recently to his late mother, Mary: "I am so homicide,'' it said in broken sentences. "I think about killing all the time. The monster want out. He only been out one time and someone die.''
Today, Oberender sits in a Carver County jail cell on a charge of being a felon in possession of firearms. And Olson, who investigated the 1995 murder as a young detective, finds his investigators at the center of a case that exposes the dangerous loopholes in the nation's gun laws and Minnesota's system of criminal background checks.
Even though Oberender killed his mother with a firearm, even though he was committed to the state hospital in St. Peter as mentally ill and dangerous more than a decade ago, he was able to obtain a permit to purchase firearms last May. That piece of paper gave Oberender, now 32, the ability to walk into any licensed Minnesota retailer and buy any assault weapon or pistol on the rack.
Dozens of other Minnesotans judged by a court to be mentally ill have also found that designation no barrier to obtaining deadly weapons.Comments:
- I'm ok with gun background checks. (I've been through that myself!)
- I'm ok with fingerprinting and adding that ....
- And I am OK with linking in the SS # if that information is kept secure (to prevent ID theft)
- Felons should not have guns. NEVER!
- This kid .. who murdered his Mother! ... should never have been permitted to acquire guns
More: William Bratton: The Real Cures for Gun Violence
ReplyDeleteMr. Bratton predicts that "the most successful focus is going to be on the licensing and background checks. Because that's the heart of the problem—who gets access to the guns?" he says. "Clearly a large number of people who shouldn't have firearms actually apply through the process and obtain firearms." He also argues that Congress ought to confirm a permanent director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for the first time since 2006.
But the gun reform that truly gets Mr. Bratton fired up is one you don't hear much about these days. It is what he calls "certainty of punishment," or stricter gun-crime sentences.
"People are out on the streets who should be in jail. Jail is appropriate for anyone who uses a gun in the commission of an act of violence. Some cities have a deplorable lack of attention to this issue," he says, citing Philadelphia.
In Chicago, where the murder rate rose 16% last year, "to try to put someone in jail for gun-related activity you really have to go the extra mile," he says. "If there's one crime for which there has to be a certainty of punishment, it is gun violence." He ticks off other places where help is needed: "Oakland, Chicago, D.C., Baltimore—all have gangs whose members have no capacity for caring about life and respect for life. Someone like that? Put 'em in jail. Get 'em off the streets. Keep people safe."
NBC news on the above case: 'The monster want out': Mentally ill killer amassed huge arsenal, police say
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