"IF CURRENT LAWS HAD BEEN FOLLOWED, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO WAFFLE HOUSE SHOOTING" - Amy Swearer / @AmySwearer / April 23, 2018 / https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/04/23/if-current-laws-had-been-followed-there-would-have-been-no-waffle-house-shooting
Police tape surrounds the Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee, where a shooter killed four individuals before being stopped by a bystander. (Photo: Jim Brown/Image of Sport/Newscom)
On Monday afternoon, Tennessee law enforcement officers captured a 29-year-old Illinois man suspected of opening fire on diners at a Nashville Waffle House, despite the man having had his firearms seized on multiple occasions in the last two years. Four people died and several others were wounded by the shooter—who wore nothing but a green jacket—before a customer, also 29, heroically wrestled the firearm away and threw it over a counter. The attacker fled the scene naked and evaded police for over 24 hours before the suspect was apprehended.
As often happens in the aftermath of highly publicized shooting incidents, blame has already been placed on the lack of “common-sense gun control.” But, once again, this blame is misplaced—had already-existing laws been properly followed and enforced, this individual would not have had access to a firearm.
What We Know About the Suspect - The Waffle House suspect has a long history of mental health issues, including recent run-ins with law enforcement and an observational stay in a psychiatric unit. The timeline of concerning events, as most recently reported by major media outlets, is outlined below: ...
The accused man’s father told police that he had previously taken three rifles and a handgun away from his son and locked them up over concerns regarding his mental health. The father returned the firearms to his son because the father wanted to move out of state. Officers told the father that he should consider locking up the firearms again until the suspect received mental health treatment, and the father said he would.
Can the Father Be Held Criminally Liable? - It’s possible that the father can be held criminally liable for returning the firearms to his son, depending on the specific circumstances of when and where he returned them, and which state laws are being considered.
Stricter Gun Laws Wouldn’t Have Prevented This - Like the vast majority of mass public shooters with mental health problems, the man in custody appears to have inexplicably managed to avoid a criminal or mental health history that would have disqualified him from possessing a firearm under federal law.
This incident certainly raises concerns about records-sharing between states. Illinois revoked the suspect’s state firearms license, meaning he was prohibited from possessing a firearm in the state of Illinois. This doesn’t, however, mean that other states like Tennessee had access to any information indicating that the suspect presented a heightened risk of danger such that he needed to remain disarmed.
Moreover, millions of relevant disqualifying histories are likely missing from the FBI’s background check system because states can’t be compelled to submit them, and too often fail to do so. But realistically, even perfect records-sharing would only have prevented the Waffle House suspect from purchasing new firearms—which requires a background check—or from receiving firearms from a private citizen who follows the law and doesn’t transfer firearms to dangerous or disqualified individuals. It would not have prevented the accused man’s father from recklessly, and perhaps illegally, giving the guns back to his son without informing police.
Nor would prohibitions on “assault weapons”—a made up term that has no bearing on a gun’s lethality—have stopped this incident. California has long banned so-called “assault weapons,” but according to the Mother Jones mass public shooting database, California has experienced far more mass public shootings since 2000 than any other state. Last month’s shooting at a veteran’s home in Yountville was the state’s 10th mass public shooting event in the last 18 years, compared to just four in Texas and two in Tennessee.
Meanwhile, Monday afternoon in Toronto, nine people were killed and another 16 were wounded in a deliberate mass public attack. The deadly weapon was not an AR-15, or a handgun with a “high-capacity magazine.” That attacker needed only a van to cause double the carnage seen in Nashville. [Do we now need "van-control?]
Laws have the power to disarm law-abiding citizens who would obey those laws. They have no power to prevent an irresponsible parent from re-arming his son with the very guns he agreed to keep inaccessible, and from failing to inform law enforcement that an individual proven to be a danger to himself or others now has firearms.
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
Amy Swearer is a visiting legal fellow at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
On Monday afternoon, Tennessee law enforcement officers captured a 29-year-old Illinois man suspected of opening fire on diners at a Nashville Waffle House, despite the man having had his firearms seized on multiple occasions in the last two years. Four people died and several others were wounded by the shooter—who wore nothing but a green jacket—before a customer, also 29, heroically wrestled the firearm away and threw it over a counter. The attacker fled the scene naked and evaded police for over 24 hours before the suspect was apprehended.
As often happens in the aftermath of highly publicized shooting incidents, blame has already been placed on the lack of “common-sense gun control.” But, once again, this blame is misplaced—had already-existing laws been properly followed and enforced, this individual would not have had access to a firearm.
What We Know About the Suspect - The Waffle House suspect has a long history of mental health issues, including recent run-ins with law enforcement and an observational stay in a psychiatric unit. The timeline of concerning events, as most recently reported by major media outlets, is outlined below: ...
The accused man’s father told police that he had previously taken three rifles and a handgun away from his son and locked them up over concerns regarding his mental health. The father returned the firearms to his son because the father wanted to move out of state. Officers told the father that he should consider locking up the firearms again until the suspect received mental health treatment, and the father said he would.
Can the Father Be Held Criminally Liable? - It’s possible that the father can be held criminally liable for returning the firearms to his son, depending on the specific circumstances of when and where he returned them, and which state laws are being considered.
Stricter Gun Laws Wouldn’t Have Prevented This - Like the vast majority of mass public shooters with mental health problems, the man in custody appears to have inexplicably managed to avoid a criminal or mental health history that would have disqualified him from possessing a firearm under federal law.
This incident certainly raises concerns about records-sharing between states. Illinois revoked the suspect’s state firearms license, meaning he was prohibited from possessing a firearm in the state of Illinois. This doesn’t, however, mean that other states like Tennessee had access to any information indicating that the suspect presented a heightened risk of danger such that he needed to remain disarmed.
Moreover, millions of relevant disqualifying histories are likely missing from the FBI’s background check system because states can’t be compelled to submit them, and too often fail to do so. But realistically, even perfect records-sharing would only have prevented the Waffle House suspect from purchasing new firearms—which requires a background check—or from receiving firearms from a private citizen who follows the law and doesn’t transfer firearms to dangerous or disqualified individuals. It would not have prevented the accused man’s father from recklessly, and perhaps illegally, giving the guns back to his son without informing police.
Nor would prohibitions on “assault weapons”—a made up term that has no bearing on a gun’s lethality—have stopped this incident. California has long banned so-called “assault weapons,” but according to the Mother Jones mass public shooting database, California has experienced far more mass public shootings since 2000 than any other state. Last month’s shooting at a veteran’s home in Yountville was the state’s 10th mass public shooting event in the last 18 years, compared to just four in Texas and two in Tennessee.
Meanwhile, Monday afternoon in Toronto, nine people were killed and another 16 were wounded in a deliberate mass public attack. The deadly weapon was not an AR-15, or a handgun with a “high-capacity magazine.” That attacker needed only a van to cause double the carnage seen in Nashville. [Do we now need "van-control?]
Laws have the power to disarm law-abiding citizens who would obey those laws. They have no power to prevent an irresponsible parent from re-arming his son with the very guns he agreed to keep inaccessible, and from failing to inform law enforcement that an individual proven to be a danger to himself or others now has firearms.
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
Amy Swearer is a visiting legal fellow at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
To me, it seems that the gist of this article is that stricter gun control laws would not have prevented the Waffle House shooting. Several other factors, such as interstate records sharing, murder by means other than guns, and the provision of guns to the ineligible by the eligible, could have also caused the tragedy anyway. It seems that laws serve two functions: to define how society should be and what the consequences are for violating such laws. Some believe that no one should have guns because no one should murder others (in the ideal world). Others believe that people should have guns to protect themselves against inevitable lawbreakers. To the former, I ask: "If someone should somehow circumvent the law and obtain a firearm and use it unlawfully, how will innocents protect themselves?" To the latter, I ask: "If gun control is not so strict and more people get guns, will more bad guys get guns than good guys or vice versa?" Food for thought.
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