Lots more curious information is coming out about the a-hole in question who killed 3 and wounded 5 MSU students.
The Detroit News: MSU shooter Anthony McRae's past shows warning signs
State officials Tuesday identified 43-year-old [a-hole], who had a history of mental health issues and was charged with multiple gun-related crimes in 2019, as the believed gunman who killed three people and wounded five others at Michigan State University.
Interesting for if he had a "history of mental health issues" they apparently were both never properly dealt with, nor did he get classified as a harm to himself or others and the info apparently never went anywhere - or if he was, somebody dropped the ball big time. It will be interesitng to see if they deign to inform us what those mental health issues were.
But wait, there's more!
[a-hole], whom neighbors in Lansing described as a "hell-raiser" who practiced target shooting out his back door, also had a recent history with firearms. And his father, Michael McRae, 66, told The Detroit News that he had encouraged his son to get rid of his guns.
Let's stop right there.
He "practiced target shooting out his back door" in the City of Lansing.
Lansing has an ordinance, 696.01 prohibiting the discharge of firearms in public, the violation of which is a misdemeanor. There is no record he was ever charged with this, even though apparently police did show up at his house as a result.
Was he doing some of this target shooting while on probation for his misdemeanor?
If so, that would have violated his probation terms that he could not posses a weapons, and likely would have then been locked up on the high misdemeanor conviction.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor is trying to deflect from their failings in crafting a plea deal (which to be fair, they do tend to do a lot in this situation, especially for in the current BLM age for BLM-type defendants) that reduced the charge from a felony to a misdemeanor, and thus allowing him to purchase a firearm, complete with passing a background check for same (we will note he would not be eligible for a CPL due to his conviction until 2027).
Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane, who was appointed to his position in December, argued that, even if McRae had been convicted on the original charge, he likely would have avoided jail or prison time because sentencing guidelines for the two charges are similar and would have resulted in a recommendation against incarceration.
This is called a lie by omission on the part of the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office.
A felony conviction, even with the same terms of probation and no jail, would have prevented him from legally purchasing the firearm from the pawn shop (assuming NICS worked and the record was correctly entered).
Again, even with this information, none of the laws proposed by Whitmer and the Democrats would have prevented this act, yet they will still persist in pushing forward with laws they do know, or at the very least should know, would not have prevented this incident at all.
Meanwhile we have an ongoing mental health crisis in both this state and country, made much worse by the Covid lockdowns, and lack of mental health funding and facilities is contributing to this cycle of a-holes (assuming this a-hole really had mental issues) committing crimes.
Whitmer and the Democrats, if they really wanted to prevent future murders, would quit this grandstanding on gun control measures they know will be ineffective. Instead, they should do something effective and increase mental health funding and police/security funding for schools.
5 comments:
We are kinda at the point where "Mental Health" really needs to lead to "Incarceration for the safety of the rest of the public" with most of these folks.
I think this is a large part of why these sorts of things didn't happen in the '60's and before.
We lock up dangerous dogs and dangerous bulls for the safety of the rest of society. But not humans.
B: Yep, thewre was a really bad confluence of interestes in the 60s.
The left, who thought the mentally ill were just seeing the worked differently and shouldn't be locked up in facilities (that often were not good) but instead should get to be part of society, and if the average citizen egg got cracked to make their society omelet, then too bad.
The right, that wanted to save on costs of mental health facilities.
Together they came together for some bi-partisan idiocy on the mentally ill.
The news is reporting that he lawfully purchased the weapons because he pled his charges down to a misdemeanor. My understanding of federal law (specifically, 18 U.S.C. 922g) is that regardless of whether the state classifies the crime as a misdemeanor or felony, if the maximum possible sentence is greater than 1 year, it's a felony under federal law and the person convicted is prohibited from owning firearms. Therefore, I believe the fact that he pled to a state misdemeanor with a 2 year possible sentence (MCL 750.227c) means that he was prohibited under federal law from owning a firearm.
Am I right about that?
"Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution"
"...committed..." implies involuntary admission.
There are people who are going through a tough-patch due to external chaos in their lives, they admit themselves (perhaps with guidance from loved ones) into a mental institution and they turn their lives around. Rehab might be a good example or maybe even weight loss clinics.
Depriving people of rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights because they sought treatment becomes a step down the slippery slope.
Mental health is a complex subject and the patients often don't see why THEY have to change or take meds so treatment plans, which are not all that effective also have a problem with patient compliance.
Unknown: Not necessarily. The answer to that is really complicated and often high misdemeanors in Michigan are not considered equivalent to a felony by ATFE under 922g even if the penalty can be more than one year.
ERJ: Yep, current standard is involuntary commitment. Standard likely needs to be if they have been diagnosed as a Danger to themselves or others and evne if they voluntarily enter they should be prohibited until psychiatrically/psychologically cleared.
The problem (if you'd call it that) with a lot of these meds is that once the right one is found and administered is that they WORK.
So, patients stop having the presenting problematic symptoms, get released and feel damn good. They feel so good they stop taking the meds, and then the psych problems reemerge and it spirals out yet again, rinse and repeat.
Society seems to have decreed the mentally ill, who are a danger to themselves or others, now have greater rights (ie can't be forcibly medicated, can't be committed, cant be held if refuse to take their meds, etc) than the common citizens they prey upon, who seem to have no right not to be attacked by them - and are often prevented by weapon free zones form effectively defending themselves form such.
It's complicated but the current mental health system needs a huge overhaul and a ton more effective resources dedicated to it. The current solution held together with band-aids and chewing gum is not working.
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