Bullet Control: Part 2.

OK I'll admit I should have done a bit of research before I made my big presentation about how the USA could bring in money laundering style alert system to prevent future mass shootings like the one seen in Aurora, Colorado last Friday (21/7/12). However judging by the comments made by the gun club owner who refused the alleged shooter membership I might just have accidentally stumbled onto a good idea. In fact provided it's done right along with not leaving loaded firearms lying around it should just become part of the responsible gun ownership that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is always talking about. The only question though is how to do it right.

Due to the way that ammunition and everything else is increasingly sold over the Internet and shipped across state lines these days I think it will have to be a federal system involving an agency like the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Assuming that people who routinely sell guns and ammunition already have to be registered with the ATF it should be as simple as the ATF laying down a set of criteria such as say the sale of more the 3000 rounds of ammunition that they have to be informed about. Once this channel of communication has been opened between vendors and the ATF worried vendors should then be able to voluntarily report things that aren't on the list but give them cause for concern. There is absolutely no suggestion that a report should cancel the transaction or stop the purchaser receiving their goods. However once the ATF receive an alert I think there are really two options for what they do with those alerts.

What I think is the least intrusive option would be for the ATF to simply pass the alert onto to a dedicated team in the purchasers local law enforcement department. In large metropolitan areas such as New York this will have to be an entire department. However in smaller, rural areas it could easily be just one police officer who deals with the one or two alerts they receive a year. Once local law enforcement get the alert they then simply go around to the purchaser's house and talk to them. Obviously they purchaser should be under absolutely no obligation to talk to the police or allow them on to their property. However as a general rule if someone has brought a lot of ammunition because they do a lot of hunting they will be more then happy to talk to the police and show off their collection while the person who starts ranting about how the government is out to get them before slamming the door in the police officer's face is really the sort of person you'd be worried about having a large stockpile of weapons. If after the visit the trained and experienced police officer is still concerned about the purchaser's behaviour they should then bring in a trained mental health professional who should then visit the purchaser. If both the police officer and the mental health professional are still concerned about the purchaser's behaviour they should then be able to use existing procedures to compel the purchaser to undergo a full psychiatric assessment or temporarily confiscate their weapons. Something that I believe police in most states are already allowed to do. Obviously if things get to this point there will need to be lots of safeguards such as lots of paperwork and the right to appeal to a judge or tribunal in order to protect the purchaser's rights.

The other option involves behavioural analysis which although not an exact science is getting better every day. This involves collecting data about a person such as their credit card history, Internet search history, arrest record, employment history, medical records etc and feeding it into a computer algorithm which collates this data and calculates the risk someone poses of carrying out something like a mass killing. This approach is much more invasive and raises all sorts of civil rights questions. However as we move more and more of our lives on-line the amount of publicly available information about us has grown dramatically. For example if you buy something on-line then your Internet Service Provider (ISP) along with your credit card company and the company you brought it from will all have a record of exactly what you brought and when. All of these company's databases are vulnerable to computer hacking and they are allowed to sell most of this information on to third parties anyway. Therefore it is possible to make an argument that by allowing law enforcement access to this information all you're doing is allowing them to catch up with what everybody else is already doing. In fact thanks to the Patriot Act I think you'll find the FBI, ATF and DHS are already doing this even if they don't like to talk about it.

If behavioural analysis was used in the alert system it would allow the ATF to filter the alerts before passing some of them onto local law enforcement. For example this would allow the ATF to quickly find out that someone who had brought 3000 rounds of ammunition is also the president of the local chapter of the NRA and regularly hosts safe and legal shooting parties on their farmland. As this person obviously poses no threat to public safety the ATF could simply mark the alert about them for no further action rather then passing it on to local law enforcement. This is actually pretty much how the money laundering alert system works. If you've ever brought a house the chances are that you've had an alert issued about you but because someone was quickly able to tell that all that had happened is that you'd brought a house with money you'd borrowed from a bank no further action was taken so you never found out about it.

While I'm here talking about the Aurora shootings for what I hope will be the last time I need to talk about the booby-trapping of the suspect's apartment. The police said that this was done in order to kill either first responders or neighbours while destroying any evidence in order to increase the mythology about the crime. I said that the booby-trapping was done in order to keep the crime in the spotlight for as long as possible. In saying this I did not mean to imply that the booby-trapping should not be considered an attempt to kill. Instead I do most certainly think that the suspect should be charged to the full extent of the law over the booby-trapping along with any traffic violations he may have committed on the way to the theatre. I actually think that in setting the explosives the suspect was trying to do both. That is to say that his plan A was to kill first responders and destroy evidence but failing that his plan B was for the police to spend ages trying to diffuse them. When he was arrested after his gun jammed and it became obvious that plan A hadn't worked he decided to move to plan B by telling the police about the explosives.

I wouldn't worry too much about trying to figure out his motive though because I think it is fair to say that his brain wasn't working properly at the time. So if you can't understand what he was thinking it's normally a good sign that your brain is working properly. However that is not to say that the suspect cannot be held criminally responsible for his actions. For example here in Britain Channel4 is currently doing a big season of programs about mental health. Apart from the obvious tie in with the Olympics this is an attempt to manufacture public support for government welfare reforms that have already seen a number of people passed fit for work shortly before they died of their illnesses. The statistic that keeps coming out of these programs though is that 1 in 4 UK adults will suffer from some sort of mental illness during their lives. Based on my experience is broadly true but obviously we can't have 25% of the population running around breaking whatever law they like whenever they like otherwise they would be no point having laws. So in order to determine insanity in the legal sense we use what is known as the M'Naghten rules.

The M'Naghten rules were drawn up in the UK in 1843 during the trial of Daniel M'Naghten for the attempted murder of Sir Robert Peel and the murder of his secretary. Obviously this test has been updated over the years as our knowledge of mental illness has grown and different nations have slightly different versions but the over-riding principle remains the same. The M'Naughten rules state that someone can only use a defence of insanity if at the time of the offence they were (a) suffering from a defect of reason or (b) a disease of the mind to such an extent that they were not aware of their actions or that their actions were wrong. An example of a defect of reason would be a psychotic episode. This is hard to explain but it is similar to an alcohol induced blackout. Basically one moment you're sitting in you home watching TV then suddenly it's three days later and you're sitting in a strange room surrounded by strange people and you've got no idea how you go there. Psychotic episodes are so similar to drink/drug blackouts that if a suspect has voluntarily and knowingly taken drink or drugs close to the time of the episode it is considered concurrent operation and they can't plead insanity. An example of a disease of the mind would be a delusional schizophrenic I once knew who was absolutely convinced that the film "Star Wars" was really happening in a galaxy far, far away and members of the Rebel Alliance and the Evil Empire were being sent to this galaxy to do battle here on earth. Although he was probably the most harmless person you would ever meet if one day he did kill someone because he thought that they were one of these undercover Evil Empire stormtroopers who were trying to kill him you wouldn't convict him of murder because even though he was wrong in his head he totally believed he was simply defending himself. You would lock him up until those delusions had gone though.

The disease of the mind part of the M'Naghten test is the most difficult because it all comes down to of a matter of degree. For example the Norwegian court that is currently trying Anders Behring Breivik could well rule that his diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is severe enough to constitute a disease of the mind and find him insane rather then guilty. However in order to make that sort of decision you really need an experienced and qualified mental health professional who has been able to examine the accused individual at great length. Clearly in both the Norway or Aurora case I am not that person so my opinion should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Also to the list of symptoms I would expect survivors of the Aurora shootings to be experiencing such as; sadness, anger, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, restlessness or mild paranoia I should add numbness because strangely a lot of people leave these things feeling nothing at all. Like I said these are all perfectly normal human responses to this sort of trauma. However if symptoms persist feel free to consult an actual proper qualified doctor.