People With Mental Illness Target of New Gun Law

Psychiatr News February 1, 2008
Volume 43, Number 3, page 1
© 2008 American Psychiatric Association

In government news, supporters of a new gun-control law claim it might have prevented the deaths of 32 people last year in a massacre at Virginia Tech carried out by a student who was mentally ill. Some psychiatrists, however, say the law falls short as a meaningful way to reduce gun violence. The psychiatrists point is further proven with the recent shooting at NIU where the gunman had legally bought all FOUR of his weapons while being medicated for a mental illness.

This debate stems from President George W. Bush’s signing of a measure in January intended to prevent people with serious mental illness from buying guns.

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FOID is an acronym for Firearm Owners Identification. Residents of the state of Illinois are required to have an FOID card to possess or purchase firearms or ammunitio.

Kazmierczak, the gunman from the NIU shooting, had a state police-issued FOID, a firearms owners identification card, which is required in Illinois to own a gun and that such cards are rarely issued to those with recent mental health problems. However, the only questions pertaining to an individual who is mentally disabled are question 3 and 5 on the FOID application.

Because one would have to “provide detailed documentation” if they answer yes, wouldn’t it be easier to just say no? And why five years? Is it proven that five years after being hospitalized for a mental condition that you are cured of your mental illness? I thought the cure came from the medication. Why don’t they ask if one is currently being treated for a mental illness, wouldn’t that make more sense? Isn’t it wrong then to say that the FIOD is not given out to those who are mentally ill?

NIU Gunman–Mentally Ill

In recent news, Steven Kazmierczak, 27, had a history of mental illness and had been off his meds for weeks when he stepped out from behind a screen on the Northern Illinois Universities Cole lecture hall’s stage Thursday and opened fire on a geology class killing himself and five others. It is known that Kazmierczak spent more than a year at the Thresholds-Mary Hill House in the late 1990s. His parents placed him there after high school because he had become “unruly” at home.

The former Thresholds-Mary Hill House manager couldn’t remember any instances of him being violent.

“He never wanted to identify with being mentally ill,” she said. “That was part of the problem.”

According to USAToday.com, he had a short-lived stint as a prison guard that ended abruptly when he just didn’t show up for work one day and he was in the Army for about six months in 2001-02, but he told a friend he’d gotten a psychological discharge.

UsaToday.com also states that Kazmierczak had a state police-issued FOID, a firearms owners identification card, which is required in Illinois to own a gun and that such cards are rarely issued to those with recent mental health problems. And since Kazmierczak’s stay in the mental health center was more than five years ago, it didn’t raise red flags.

Unlike Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho — a sullen misfit who could barely look anyone in the eye, much less carry on a conversation — Kazmierczak appeared to fit in just fine.

Ironically, in a post that remains on a Northern Web site, apparently a brief autobiography that he wrote in seeking the treasurer’s post of the Northern chapter of the Academic Criminal Justice Association, Kazmierczak said, “I’ve worked very hard as a student. … I feel that I’m committed to social justice.”

Although they do not disclose his mental illness, I find it ironic that just about every “killer” has a mental illness, or are mentally disturbed in some way like Ted Bundy. According to abolishdeathpenalty.org Ted Bundy’s psychotic episodes were because of his mental illness; he had no fear of punishment. The death penalty, in fact, attracted rather than repelled him from committing heinous acts. He may have gone to Florida to commit murders because he knew it was the place he was most likely to be sentenced to death. Bundy even refused a plea bargain that would have prevented him from being sentenced to death and appeared to thrive on the attention and publicity of the capital case. According to this site, the death penalty may have encouraged his conduct.

Another recent killing possibly due to mental illness was in L.A. where a gunman fatally shot a SWAT officer and three members of his own family on the 9th of February (one week ago). USAToday.com claims that he suffered from “significant mental health problems” and had a juvenile criminal record. Edwin Rivera, who was killed by a sniper as he attempted to flee the house hours later, first showed mental health problems when his mother died about a decade ago, Deputy Chief Gary Brennan said.

Are these people seriously mentally ill or are we just trying to find an excuse as to why a person would kill another. Could our search for an explanation for independent isolated acts of violence led us to assume a correlation of something that can not be disproven–mental illness. I think it’s time that we come to terms with the fact that somethings are incurable and inexplainable and leave it at that.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-17-niu-shooting_N.htm , http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-08-police-standoff_N.htm , http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23171567/, http://www.abolishdeathpenalty.org/TalkingPoints.htm