Posted on 12/20/2004, 9:26:38 PM by WilliamWallace1999
DALLAS -- There were serious signs of trouble near the end of Shayla Stewart's short life.
Stewart, 24, was diagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenic. She had assaulted police officers. She had been arrested for attacking a fellow customer at a Denton Wal-Mart where she had a prescription to anti-psychotic medication.
Given all those signs, her parents say, another Wal-Mart just seven miles away should have never sold her the shotgun Stewart used to kill herself in 2003.
Her mother, Lavern Bracy, filed a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit last week in a Denton County district court against the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing giant, saying clerks should have known about her daughter's illness or done more to find out.
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Christi Gallagher declined to comment on the suit, which has reignited a debate over mental health record confidentiality and the efficiency of databases used for background checks when people buy guns.
"We know that if they had ... so much as said 'Why do you want this?' we would not be having this conversation because Shayla would have had a meltdown," said her stepfather, Garrett Bracy.
Federal law prohibits stores from selling guns to people who, like Stewart, have been involuntarily committed to mental institutions or declared by a judge to be mentally ill and a danger to herself or others or incapable of handling her own affairs.
A federal background check is conducted on all gun buyers to weed out those who are prohibited. The form that must be filled out to buy a gun asks about mental health. Stewart, who had been both committed to an institution and declared dangerously mentally ill by a judge, lied on that form, according to her mother's attorney's office.
The background check system has other problems as well. For example, the system approved Stewart's purchase because her name didn't show up in the FBI database. That happened because the database contains no mental health records from Texas and 37 other states.
Texas doesn't submit mental health records because state law deems them confidential, said Paul Mascot, attorney with the Texas Department of State Health Services. Other states have not computerized their record-keeping systems or do not store them in a central location.
Michael Faenza, the president and chief executive of the National Mental Health Association, applauds Texas' stance. He said it would not be fair to violate patients' privacy when there's no data to support claims that mentally ill people are more violent than others.
"The tragedies that families face when people are killed is terrible. And frankly I wish handguns were not so available in this country," he said. "But it's not right, in our minds, to make social policy based on just a few cases."
Garrett Bracy couldn't disagree more.
He and his wife watched his stepdaughter's six-year decline from straight-A high school student to violent and unpredictable stranger.
She was hospitalized five times, twice under court orders. Her longest hospitalization, lasting a month, came in 2002 after her family persuaded a probate judge to declare her dangerously mentally ill because she refused to leave her room or take her medication.
Her parents said they wished Wal-Mart had been more diligent by checking security files and prescription records. But those records are confidential under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, so stores cannot use them when deciding whether to sell a gun.
The suggestion that Wal-Mart should have checked prescription records infuriates Erich Pratt, a spokesman for the Virginia-based group Gun Owners of America. He said stores should not be expected to make judgments about customers based on prescriptions.
"Does that mean mental illness prevents everyone on Prozac from owning a gun? Or women with PMS?" he said.
U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., wants to strengthen the federal background check system by encouraging states to share mental health records. She has introduced legislation that would give states grants to automate and turn over the information.
She drafted the bill after a priest and a parishioner were shot to death by a schizophrenic man in a New York church in 2002. He too shouldn't have been allowed to buy a gun.
"When you see these deaths that could have been prevented it's a shame," McCarthy said.
As Lavern and Garrett Bracy prepare for another Christmas without their daughter, they're urging lawmakers to embrace McCarthy's bill and dealers to conduct their own background checks.
"Lavern went to the store the other day to buy over-the-counter headache sinus medication and they limited the amount of sinus medication she could buy at one time," Garrett Bracy said, his voice trembling with emotion. "But Shayla can walk into a store and buy a gun and they could care less. That's got to change."
Oh, fer Godsake!
Would they sue if Wal-mart had sold her rope to hang her self with?
Walmart didn't shirk its job. The people who personally knew this girl did.
If the girl had bought razors from a local store and slit her wrists, I doubt these jackasses would be suing that store.
Cool! Now my Wal-Mart cashier can be a psychologist too! She'll be able to diagnose my acute suicidal paranoid bipolar schizophrenia and sell me Tic-Tacs at the same time! America! What a country!
This litigation doesn't have a leg to stand on.
So now check out clerks are supposed to be up to speed on the mental stability of the customers?
Give me a break.
Apples and Oranges buddy. Sudafed is a raw ingredient for methamphetemin. Cookers sent mules to every store in town to buy it in bulk and cook it down. Has this jerk BOUGHT a gun lately. Shayla had to lie her ass of to get the gun and the "system" shielded her psych records from public view.
And I suppose if she ahd slit her wrists, they'd be suing Gillette and the store that sold her the razor blades. Sounds like they are trying to capitalise on their daughters suicide. With a little pro-gun control thrown in for extra sympathy from the liberals.
Yep it's Wal-Mart's fault </ sarcasm>
They should be suing the FBI.. That's where the data wasn't at.
Good luck on that, btw.
You got a dead relative, you gotta sue somebody.
Obviously guns kill crazy people. Crazy people don't kill people. It's the gun's fault. And obviously Wal-Mart is an accessory to the crime.
/sarcasm off
WHAT % of the sought settlement is the LAW FIRM contracted to get?
According to his logic, we could.
What these poor grieving parents aren't admitting to themselves (yet) is that if they had told her she couldn't buy the gun, she would have bought a rope, or something to overdose on.
Walmart didn't kill this girl, she killed herself.
Prayers for her grieving family.
Instead of hearing the parents lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the judge should jail the negligent parents for letting the gun be in their home....they knew it was there, or should have known; and they knew their daughter was mentally ill. So it's more the parents' negligence than Wal-Mart's
All of them are at fault. I want my money!!!!
How much damage do trial lawyers do to the American economy each year?
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