Gun control dispute after live TV killing
THE murder of two television journalists has reignited America’s debate over gun control and raised searching questions about how a man with a history of mental health problems could legally buy a handgun.
Vester Flanagan, who also used the name Bryce Williams, had been ordered to seek medical help after repeatedly clashing with colleagues at WDBJ7-TV before leaving the station two years ago.
While some have used the killings to highlight the need for better gun control, a string of Republican presidential candidates said the answer was better mental health care, rather than gun control. Donald Trump told CNN: “This isn’t a gun problem, this is a mental problem. It’s not a question of the laws, it’s really the people.”
Mental health is among the factors checked for purchasers of guns. Federal laws make it illegal for anyone committed to a mental institution or anyone mentally “defective” to possess a firearm. But critics say the law sets the bar too high. In practice it rules out only people who have been found clinically insane by a court or who have received psychiatric care against their will.
Flanagan was able walk into a shop and buy a gun legally, without any questions being raised about the erratic behaviour that forced him to leave his job.
Internal memos show that Flanagan was ordered to have treatment in 2012 by his television station as his “behaviours continue to cause friction with your co-workers”. He was warned he would be fired if he continued to cause a “hostile work environment”.
Further evidence of his mental state was revealed in a 23-page fax he sent to ABC News after the shootings, describing himself as a “powder keg just waiting to go boom”.