Posted on 08/30/2019 1:35:45 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Victims Of The Charleston Church Mass Shooting Can Sue Over Background Check Failures That Let The Shooter Buy A Gun, A Court Ruled
Survivors and family members of victims of the July 2015 mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, can sue the federal government over failures in the national background check system that allowed the shooter to buy a gun, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
A lower court judge previously had dismissed the case, finding the government was immune from the claims raised by the Charleston survivors and victims' families. The US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit concluded that judge was wrong, and revived the case Friday.
Survivors and family members of victims of mass shootings in the United States have routinely faced obstacles in trying to sue actors they believe are responsible besides the shooter, including state and local agencies involved in vetting gun purchases or responding to shootings, gun makers and dealers, and social media platforms that host hate speech.
The 4th Circuit's decision — which the government could still challenge — reopens one potential avenue for survivors and victims' families to take the federal government to court over its role in running a national background check system meant to stop individuals from getting guns who aren't allowed under state or federal law.
SNIP
I’m okay with that.
Good reason to get rid of the background check.
Since good guys far outnumber the bad guys, we’re better off if everyone is armed anyway.
The deep state must be destroyed.
But Californians can’t sue for not defending Prop 8
The deep state must be destroyed.
I think we might be able to sue individuals who through gross negligence violate the established rules.
...the Federal Tort Claims Act that makes exceptions to sovereign immunity, that is, it lists situations in which you can in fact sue the government for negligently causing you damage.
Dr. Clarissa Cole on After Hours AM April 17, 2019Off hand I'd say knowing hiring a sociopath and giving him a gun, just might also count as gross negligence...(Start at 78:31)
Dr. Cole: He had an epiphany; he was going to become a cop!
Eric Olsen: Ha ha ha what??? Uh, so, wait a minute, he was told by a former employer, if you ever, you better never get a job where you have influence over others, an authority position, or I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you. So wouldn’t becoming a cop kinda give him the ultimate authority over people?
Dr. Cole: Well, you know, lucky for all these other people, he kept moving from county to county so they weren’t really, uh, yeah, it is the ultimate authority he was just moving around so people wouldn’t know what he was doing, and I think getting out of the teaching profession they didn’t know what he was going to do.
He eventually applied to the Broward County Police Unit; he was rejected, though, because he failed the psychological test.
Eric Olsen: Oh that’s it he’s out of the career. No career for him He’s obviously unstable…
Dr. Cole: One, you know what? One would think so, and I actually used to perform these psych tests, and oh, do I have stories! You would think that it would even, it’s supposed to, let me tell you how it’s supposed to work, it’s supposed to prevent you from getting a job as a police officer or a prison guard.
Eric Olsen: Sure.
Dr. Cole: Does that always occur?
Eric Olsen: I would hope that it does.
Dr. Cole: No, no, no, I would say 50% of the time.
Eric Olsen: What?
Dr. Cole: It’s supposed to be a be a requirement, a REQUIREMENT, if you don’t pass, if you are not psychologically fit, you are not supposed to become a police officer or a prison guard. Does that actually preclude you from becoming a police officer even as long ago as what, 2005? No, I was doing them in 2005. Half of the people I rejected still became a cop.
Eric Olsen: How does that happen? How do they get around this?
Dr. Cole: Oh God there so many ways
Eric Olsen: Is it a buddy, a dad?
Dr. Cole: My son, he’s the son of my buddy, his dad a cop, he has to be a cop, he’s going to work in this county and we’re really understaffed, we need people, we know he failed, but it’s OK. The amount of excuses I heard to employ people.
And that’s the thing, just so the general public is aware, it’s difficult to fail, it’s difficult to fail one of these psychological…
Eric Olsen: What would cause one…
Dr. Cole: It’s not like the bar is so darned high that no one could pass, it’s nothing LIKE that, this test is just to find out is this person basically psychologically stable, are they non-sadistic, do they not have criminal or punishing tendencies or narcissistic tendencies themselves. Basically you’re trying to weed out anybody that has a like God complex; I’m judge, jury, and executioner. You want to get those people out of there. You’re trying to get people out of there that are just psychiatrically so unstable that they can’t control their emotions so, maybe some sort of bipolar thing going on or somebody that absolutely clearly has a personality disorder, like narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder. They are not
Eric Olsen: Checks and balances. Checks and balances to protect the general public from somebody that would not do well in that position.
Dr. Cole: And I was very, yeah, I was extremely, forgiving on these psychological tests even when somebody would sort of hit sort of some of those marks on the tests we would give, I would ask in interviews I would ask a ton of questions just to be very, very sure that this person was indeed failing the psychological exam, and I did not fail that many people, but the people I failed, please believe me that it was for extremely good reasons, extremely good reasons, and half of them became cops anyway.
Eric Olsen: So when they‘d leave would they go to a different state and do it?
Dr. Cole: Hah no, they would get hired by different a county, like a couple minutes over usually. Somebody knew them and “Now let’s pick them up.” “No, no, no, he has really strong sadistic tendencies and fantasies of rape and murder, you really shouldn’t hire him” and they would. And that’s exactly, I hope it’s different that was like I said, this was in 2005, it scared the heck out of me and I said I would never have a career doing that I don’t want to know that those people are becoming officers.
Eric Olsen: Tell me it’s in the minority, though, that this happens.
Dr. Cole: It’s in the minority that people fail, the majority of people passed. But those that do fail, like I said it’s for very good reason, but half of them. Half of them got picked up. So no, it’s not a minority a full 50% got hired.
Eric Olsen: That is truly a scary number out there that 50% of...
Dr. Cole: It’s a small sample, a small sample that was in a place that was economically depressed and needed officers…
(End at 83:29)
A failure to communicate.
By analogy, can those injured by illegal aliens use this as precedent to sue sanctuary cities that haven’t cooperated with ICE, and instead returned criminals to the streets?
In one way I’m OK with this, but OTOH I can see that its also a potential extra burden on taxpayers.
Here’s what the FBI director [Comey] says happened.
On April 11, Roof tried to buy a handgun at a store in West Columbia, S.C. And under normal procedure, that paperwork was assigned to an examiner at the FBI’s unit in West Virginia. The unnamed FBI examiner turned up Roof’s arrest on March 1 on a felony drug charge — but the system did not show a conviction, and it wasn’t enough to deny the purchase.
So she kept checking. And, Comey said, the first mistake comes in here. Roof’s rap sheet mistakenly listed the Lexington County, S.C., sheriff’s office as the arresting authority. The examiner then reached out to the sheriff’s office and prosecutors in Lexington for more information.
The sheriff’s office told her the Roof case was not theirs and advised her to check with police in Columbia, S.C.
And now, Comey said, the second mistake was made. The examiner consulted a contact sheet for local contacts in Lexington County, and didn’t see anything for Columbia. So she called West Columbia, where Roof allegedly tried to buy the gun, instead. Local authorities in West Columbia said they had no record of the case, and the examiner turned to other matters while she waited to hear from prosecutors.
Under the normal process, if gun dealers do not hear back from the FBI with a flat denial in three business days, they are free to sell the weapon to the person who filled out the biographical paperwork. And that’s what the gun store did with Roof on April 16.
The FBI background check worker, described by Comey as an experienced examiner who has been “struggling” over the church shooting, never heard back from prosecutors in Lexington. But if she had called police in Columbia and seen their arrest record on Roof, she would have known he had admitted to possessing a controlled substance. And that, Comey said, would have triggered an FBI denial of his weapons purchase on the grounds that he was “an unlawful drug user or addict.”
Comey said FBI officials in South Carolina, who have developed a relationship with family members of the church shooting victims, would brief them on the situation and his call for an internal review.
“All of us grieve for their unspeakable loss,” Comey said. “I want to know if there are ways to improve our process, our procedures and our training.”
Comey said he gathered and assessed the facts Thursday night, notifying the deputy attorney general and the attorney general, Loretta Lynch.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement: “It’s disastrous that this bureaucratic mistake prevented existing laws from working and blocking an illegal gun sale. The facts undercut attempts to use the tragedy to enact unnecessary gun laws. The American people, and especially the victims’ families, deserve better.”
The damages must come out of the hide of the bureaucrats that dropped the ball, not the taxpayers. If no bureaucrats are ever held responsible, why would they ever take measures to prevent these failures from happening again? Why would THEY care?
Better idea than mine.
Of course, the free market might respond with “bureaucrats insurance”, much like the directors policies that companies carry. A few judgements, and they’d be appropriately priced... although it’s a safe bet our government would pick up the cost. Would that be an instance of the fabled public/private partnership?
My point of contention is not with these people. I am just very concerned that this and the red flag BS opens the door for the a-hole left to go after 2A.
That is what you get when the government starts saying it has those protection for people. Not acting when having the means to act is a form of violence that should not be tolerated.
The government needs to be held liable if it claims it can replace oversight.
I did not know you could sue the sovereign...
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