Fineman: Gun Control? Don't hold your breath.

I hit that point in post #13. His right to own/buy a firearm was legally denied him. It didn't do any good. What measure would change that? If all guns were outlawed to all people he could still have gotten one. He could also have killed a lot of unarmed people with something other than a gun. Maybe a machete or a kukri? If a gurkha warrior can run down a trench full of Chinese soldiers with rifles lopping their heads off (and they have) then a nutball like this could too.

It makes more sense to me to remove the violently insane from society than to try to remove all inanimate objects from society. He could have gotten a job in a restaurant and stolen a cleaver and some butcher knives. He could have built a big bomb with fertilizer and kerosene or household cleaning products. He could have taken a car or truck and run down dozens when they were gathered outside for a rally. Where does the danger really lie in the object or the person? This ain't rocket science. If common sense makes no headway in your debate I think it's safe to conclude that the people you're talking to have chosen to ignore reason.

Wait...you said he had been deemed a danger to himself and others but Belasarius in #16 said the opposite.

And if he was not allowed to buy a gun how did he get one?

You see, their point is the system did not work.

Remember..I am playing devils advocate here.

Let me clarify and extend on TigersEye's points here:

1. Not to pick nits, but the statute's acronym is 'HIPAA' ("HEALTH INSURANCE PORTABILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 1996").

2. HIPAA is a thing from the Clinton Administration.

3. Liberals were furious that HIPAA's privacy policy didn't go far enough when the Patriot Act actually provided a clause where the government spooks could examine someone's medical records for national security reasons. I can find lots of web pages demonstrating this liberal outrage by Googling 'HIPAA Outrage'.

4. Conservatives were angry about HIPAA because we expected that it would prevent businesses from declining to hire a food service worker with Hepatitis or schoolteachers with AIDS or airline pilots with epilepsy, or whatever. Liberals celebrated that and thought it didn't go far enough.

5. I am pretty sure that there is at least one thread in the FR archives from around 1998 or so where we were talking about HIPAA and remarked that 'Just wait until some whackjob who should be denied a handgun under the Brady Bill gets one anyway because of medical confidentiality laws'.

5. My sentiments exactly, TigersEye: Up yours, Fineman, you four-eyed nerdface.

Not that any of it is really funny but ... ROTFLOL

Thanks, KGR Kid, for clarifying my poorly made point and straightening out my acronymic derangement. I think I associate HIPAA with hippo because it is such an overweight, ungainly, ugly and useless as a hippo on dry land POS piece of legislation.

I recall going to an osteopath a few years ago to get my back cracked but before he could even ask me how I felt I had to fill out the HIPAA forms. Seemed like 36 pages of BS, supposedly to protect me but with every line I read I felt like I was signing more and more of my rights away. But thank God no one will ever know I have neck pain! /s

Belasarius said the judge did not check the box saying he was a danger to others. I believe Belasarius is better informed on that than I am.

And if he was not allowed to buy a gun how did he get one?

By law, I believe, he was prohibited from buying a gun because of the court order to get psychiatric help and because the box "danger to himself" was checked. He got a gun because this information was never put into the FBI database so the NICS (National Instant Check System) did not have his name in it when the gun dealer ran his name. My understanding is that was due to HIPAA preventing the psychiatrist/psychologist that examined him and prescribed an antidepressant to him from giving his name to the FBI.

My understanding at this point could be wrong but he definitely broke the law. He broke another by not disclosing it himself on the form that the gun dealer would have required him to fill out.

Your debating partners are right; the system didn't work. That was due to liberal instituted privacy laws not lack of law regulating the sale of firearms.

Take them off of the gun laws aspect of this. Ask them where the compassion was for this guy who obviously needed big time help for many years. Before he made others suffer with him he suffered in a very dark world of his own for a long time. His high school was aware of it and VA Tech administrators were even more aware of it.

Lots of NEA liberal types just passed him off to the next teacher/administrator in line. VA Tech admin just dumps him in a dorm with three other guys who don't get word one about him. All they know is he's a senior so he's been there for three years.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.