Virginia Tech Massacre, A Legal Loophole

Virginia Tech Massacre: A Legal Loophole
To Whom it may concern:

April 16, 2007 the murder of 32 students at Virginia Tech by their fellow classmate Cho Seung-Hui must have come as a horrible shock to everyone, but especially to college students. Not to be stereotypical, but don’t these kinds of things usually happen to high schools? When did colleagues start becoming unsafe too? Truthfully, the first thought that came to mind was a brief feeling of relief that it wasn’t my college, which was quickly replaced by the thought that it could be.

It wasn’t a reassuring feeling.

But instead of wondering about why this guy felt it necessary to repeatedly shoot his classmates ( I’ve never felt the urge so I can’t sympathize) I had to wonder, how did he get his weapons in the first place? Like any good student, I decided to look into the matter. While reading an article posted on the CNN website titled Legal loophole gives mentally ill access to guns, I found my answer. Apparently in 2005, a judge found Seung-Hui Cho a danger to himself due to mental illness which, under federal law, should have disqualified him from buying a handgun. That information should have been placed in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a database of people disqualified from gun purchases, but wasn’t because Virginia officials didn’t notify the feds of his mental status. Why not? Because Cho was never involuntarily committed in a mental institution. Apparently that makes a big difference in Virginia and allowed him to buy the guns legally. So if you’re crazy and you know it, you may buy a gun!

But to be fair, only 22 states in the U.S. even put any mental-status entries into the federal database. The remaining states are too concerned with costs and privacy concerns as reasons they don't. So even if Cho had been in the database, he still would have been able to buy his weapons. One of his gun’s was even purchased from out of state. Which leaves me with another question, since the right to bear arms is a constitutional fact, how do we keep more cases like this from happening? Maybe we should think of adopting bullet control. Yes, you can have the gun, but the bullets will cost $1000.