"Legally Purchased" Assault Rifles Used in Latest Mass Shooting

Reports are that the latest mass shooting that left eight (8) people dead took only a few minutes.  How so many deaths in two or three minutes?  Easy answer, the shooter had assault rifles that had yet again been legally purchased under Indiana's obviously inadequate gun laws. Despite the bloviating of the NRA and gun nuts, assault rifles have one purpose: to kill lots of people quickly.  They have no legitimate reason whatsoever to be in hands of civilians.  There is even less reason for them to be in the hands of someone with mental health issues such as the shooter in Indianapolis, yet America continues to (i) put the monetary interests of gun manufacturers over the safety of the public, and (ii) have a pathetic mental health system, with many health insurance plans providing minimal coverage.  The simple reality is that assault weapons need to be banned and those in private hands confiscated/bought back.  Until this happens, the carnage and needless deaths will continue.    We also need strict liability applied to gun owners so that (i) an owner is liable for any death or injury caused by a gun in their ownership, and (ii) insurance companies will cease writing insurance on homes with one or more guns in them.  If pit bulls can be reason for carriers to refuse coverage, even more so guns.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the latest failure of the nation's gun laws.  Here are excerpts:

The 19-year-old gunman who fatally shot eight people at a FedEx plant Thursday used two legally purchased assault rifles, police said Saturday, raising new questions as many call for tighter restrictions on powerful firearms and more safeguards on who can own them.

Police said the shooter, a former employee at the facility, bought rifles legally last July and September — months after his mother said she feared her son would attempt “suicide by cop.” That led authorities to question Brandon Hole, temporarily detain him for mental health reasons and seize his shotgun. The gun was not returned, officials say.

Yet Hole went on to obtain more firearms, despite Indiana’s “red flag” law aimed at keeping such weapons out of the hands of potentially dangerous people. Under that law, a measure adopted and debated in many states, officials can confiscate someone’s weapon and then argue to a judge that the person should be prevented for some time from having a gun. Indianapolis police said Saturday night that they cannot say why Hole was not barred from purchasing the weapons under red flag laws or whether authorities had pursued it.

The victims of Thursday’s shooting ranged in age from 19 to 74, including a recent high school graduate with basketball talent and a 68-year-old Indian immigrant who loved long walks around his neighborhood. Four members of the Sikh community were killed. The massacre also hospitalized at least five people, with one in critical condition, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

Hole was known to law enforcement: Last spring, according to a brief statement released Friday by the FBI, his mother called police with fears of “suicide by cop,” and Hole was interviewed after items of an undisclosed nature were found in his bedroom. But authorities have released few details about that investigation.

Police would not say Saturday where Hole bought the rifles he used in his attack.

Under Indiana’s red flag measure, authorities have two weeks after seizing a gun to go before a judge. But a red flag case can stretch months as the person who lost the firearm makes their own case, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears told a local news station last February. During that time, the person can buy another gun — a “loophole” that Mears urged lawmakers to fix.

“There is nothing preventing a person from purchasing, using or borrowing a firearm from someone else while their case is pending,” Mears told Fox 59 last year. “The law only applies to the dangerous firearm the person had access to when the officer interacted with them.”

A person who knew Hole said he had suffered from mental illness, and said he did not get the treatment he needed.

Authorities may need time to piece together a “psychological autopsy” of the gunman, said Christopher Ferguson, a Stetson University professor of psychology who is an expert on mass shootings.

He said a common feature in many mass shootings is that the perpetrator has an untreated or undiagnosed mental illness and is an “injustice collector” who blames some group, or society generally, for all that has gone wrong in the person’s life.

“Other people are screwing them over. Society is evil. Society is hurtful. They are emotionally crushed by their relationship with society, and they’re very angry about it. So they want to die, but they want to bring other people with them,” Ferguson said.

The massacre has recharged the political debate about gun laws, with President Biden calling for a ban on military-style semiautomatic rifles and limits on ammunition cartridges. Some local leaders demanded new laws to keep weapons out of the hands of people known to pose a public threat.

Indianapolis City-County Council member Ali Brown (D) renewed a call Saturday for lawmakers to ban military-style assault weapons.

Also disturbing is the reality that "injustice collector" could well describe much of the GOP base.