Use ‘gun restraining orders’ to reduce mass shootings
If any more proof were needed that current laws and policies aren’t separating the most deranged individuals from the most destructive weapons, it came in last week’s mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport.
Chances to get accused shooter Esteban Santiago off the streets, or at least away from his gun, were squandered. Ill-conceived laws got in the way. And once again, innocent people died.
It’s not as though there were no red flags. Two months before the airport rampage, Santiago, agitated and incoherent, walked into the FBI office in Anchorage and told agents his mind had been taken over by a U.S. intelligence agency. He said he was having terrorist thoughts and believed he was being influenced by the Islamic State terrorist group. He had a loaded magazine on him and a gun in his car.
The FBI called local police, who confiscated the gun for safekeeping and took Santiago to a mental health facility where, police said, he was admitted.
Yet Santiago was out of the hospital before the end of the month. Exactly when and why have not been revealed. But if his delusions didn’t qualify for longer-term treatment, it’s hard to imagine what would. Even more alarming, not only was he able to retrieve his gun, but Anchorage police sent him a letter inviting him to come and get it.
That he did, and last Friday, Santiago flew to Fort Lauderdale with the Walther 9mm semiautomatic handgun in a checked bag, which is legal, and went on a shooting rampage. The episode is all the more shocking because of its familiar ring — another young man with untreated mental illness and a mass killing.
Changing this horrific pattern involves tackling a complex web of problems.
In many states, it is almost impossible to involuntarily commit someone even if he is — as Santia- go surely seemed — delusional. Many states, which understandably set high standards to prevent individuals from being railroaded into institutions, have set them so high that almost no one qualifies.
As for federal gun laws, mental illness disqualifies people from buying or possessing a gun only after they’ve been involuntarily committed by a court. Even when people fall into this category — or other prohibited categories — few states bother to take guns away. Most rely on the honor system. Alaska, for instance, has no law requiring relinquishment.
The mental health laws might be as tough to change as gun laws, leaving a difficult path forward.
A few states have found a promising solution. A handful allow police or family members to seek a “gun restraining order” in court against a person who presents a credible risk for violence. If a judge agrees, the person is barred from buying a gun or keeping ones he owns. In Connecticut, the law is credited with preventing as many as 100 suicides from 1999 through 2013. New laws in California and Washington were approved in ballot measures, despite vehement opposition from the gun lobby.
The key to preventing future Fort Lauderdales is to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, not to return firearms to them on a silver platter.