Why Did the College Station Shooter Own Guns?
Two innocent people were killed during a shootout yesterday between Thomas Alton Caffall III and police. But anti-rights propagandists will avoid the story behind the story in their rush to use this to demand more gun control.
Caffall’s mother said her son was “having difficulties with his mental health in recent years.” His stepfather called Caffall “crazy as hell” and a “ticking time bomb.”
“At one point, we were afraid that he was going to come up here and do something to his mother and me.”
Question: If that’s true, did you reach out to authorities?
The “Federal Categories of Persons Prohibited From Receiving” a firearm includes: “A person adjudicated mental defective or involuntarily committed to a mental institution or incompetent to handle own affairs…”
Caffall, age 35, “quit his job nine months ago and vowed never to work again.” Does that sound like somebody competent to handle their own affairs?
Last month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported:
“According to FBI data, the number of firearm transactions that were denied based on mental health records increased from 365 (or 0.5 percent of 75,990 total gun purchase denials) in 2004 to 2,124 (or 1.7 percent of 123,432 total gun purchase denials) in 2011.”
We already have enough laws in place. The only failure here may be citizen involvement.
The government that serves best is the one the People control, but if we don’t take action when necessary, we abdicate responsibility, and there will always be those ready to assume it, provided we surrender our freedom, responsibility’s twin.
“Caffall, age 35, “quit his job nine months ago and vowed never to work again.” Does that sound like somebody competent to handle their own affairs?”
Sounds like an Occutard.
So, no, it doesn’t.
Could, didn’t want-to.
In what possible sense is this a “Texas A&M shooter?” The incident did not take place at Texas A&M. The shooter had no ties to Texas A&M.
True, bad choice of words. College Station where A&M resides. Let me see if I can edit that.
Texas A&M is noted for being an excellent university in the conservative column. All the more reason to tag the school with the shooting in the ‘popular media’.
(full disclosure: I’m Class of ’72)
It was probably coined by the A.P., and thereafter everyone uses it.
Its Alinski’s “personalize” tool…it sounds like a SCHOOL SHOOTING doesnt it?
Everyone knows where the schools are in their neighborhood. They’re specific places you can picture, and now you picture a shooting happening RIGHT THERE….
Makes you scared to go to school, send your kids to one, drive past one etc etc.
Just another subtle way they try to control the narrative…
with lies like “Texas A&M shooting”
Thanks, Howard. I expect as much from the Huffington Post, but not from this excellent site.
Request in to my editor to change “Texas A&M” to “College Station, Texas”. I don’t have edit capability after post goes live.
I think the word ‘adjudicated” still means something. There are many people who could be called incompetent, or worse, by others. I don’t know if Caffall was ever involuntarily committed. It sounds like he would have been, in a perfect world.
Let’s just say that the state has a financial interest in not confining people who ought to be locked up. Nobody is accountable. Trust me on this – from bitter personal experience. Call it an error of omission. Likewise, society has an interest in not turning into a Soviet system where enemies of the regime are confined for deviant thoughts. Or maybe you trust Big Sis, Eric Holder, Joe Biden and a host of government officials more than I do. Because that’s the error of commission in this little thought experiment.
No leap to judgement here. There are no easy answers. Some innocent is going to pay, because mistakes will be made.
Prefer legal process of innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If we were doing our job better, the government would represent us and be much smaller and accountable. If this were all true, the legal process to confirm one’s mental incompetence would involve clear, concise criteria, and process would be transparent. In a perfect world. Nevertheless, if the parents didn’t act, it may have affected the outcome.
True, until due process (and a legally suffcient demonstrated reason for it) he was still just some guy who didn’t want to work, however strange/angry.