Salon.com > Sandy Hook Shootings http://www.salon.com Thu, 23 May 2013 17:49:56 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Don’t forget Sandy Hook http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/we_cant_afford_to_forget_sandy_hook_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/we_cant_afford_to_forget_sandy_hook_partner/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 15:56:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13288783 This week, we spent time with Francine and David Wheeler, parents of six-year-old Ben Wheeler, one of the 20 children and six educators shot and killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Francine and David moved from New York City to Newtown to raise a family somewhere safe. They could never have imagined that in that quiet place on a Friday morning, just days before Christmas, gunfire would take their younger son’s life.

The Wheelers’ courage and commitment deeply touched us. Since their son’s death, they have managed to cope with memory and hold together their lives — and the life of their surviving son, Nate — with uncommon grace. Along with other Newtown families, they lobbied the Connecticut state legislature — which now has the toughest gun law in America — and in Washington, they walked the halls of Capitol Hill, urging senators to vote yes for the amendment that would expand the use of background checks for people buying guns.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/03/we_cant_afford_to_forget_sandy_hook_partner/feed/ 4 Newtown rejects budget with extra school security http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/newtown_rejects_budget_with_extra_school_security_ap/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/newtown_rejects_budget_with_extra_school_security_ap/#comments Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:41:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13280592 NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — Newtown residents have rejected a budget that included money for extra school security in the wake of the December school shootings.

Voters turned down the $72 million school budget by 482 votes and rejected the $39 million town government budget by 62 votes Tuesday. Nearly 4,500 residents voted on the plans, which would have increased spending by 4.7 percent next fiscal year.

Officials put an extra $1 million in the school and town budgets to hire extra police officers and unarmed security guards to put in each of Newtown's seven schools. The plan was spurred by the shootings that killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/newtown_rejects_budget_with_extra_school_security_ap/feed/ 3 How to honor the victims of a national tragedy http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/how_to_honor_the_victims_of_a_national_tragedy/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/how_to_honor_the_victims_of_a_national_tragedy/#comments Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13275723 Can you hear yourself think? Can you manage more than bursts of confusion and anger? Can you feel your own humanity anymore? I'll admit it: I've had trouble this week, too. After an explosion like the one in Boston, it is indeed hard to hear one's own internal monologue, much less meditate on such horrific events. Polluting that sacred quiet of the mind is both the haunting boom of the bombs themselves and even worse, the noisy coda that we've become so accustomed to.

Sensory overload, of course, is the deafening effect of the Catastrophe Aftermath, one of the last unifying and consistent rituals in our atomized nation. Yes, regardless of whether the tragedy is a school shooting or a terrorist attack, the epilogues of these now-constant mass casualty events have become prepackaged productions that seem less like reality than scripted television dramas.

You know how it goes. Cable outlets blare breaking news chyrons. Twitter explodes with declarations that we are "all from (insert city name) today." Websites post videos of viscera and other disaster porn. Pundits wildly speculate about perpetrators. The president promises justice. Law enforcement press conferences review body counts. Municipal officials insist the community will "stand united." Funerals commence. A media icon says something outrageous. Other media carnival barkers then react to the bombast. Ultimately, the whole episode becomes another excuse to limit civil liberties and is forgotten by all but those personally affected.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/how_to_honor_the_victims_of_a_national_tragedy/feed/ 94 Connecticut passes strict gun laws after Newtown http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/connecticut_passes_strict_gun_laws_after_newtown_ap/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/connecticut_passes_strict_gun_laws_after_newtown_ap/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:50:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13258634 HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut lawmakers announced a deal Monday on what they called some of the toughest gun laws in the country that were proposed after the December mass shooting in the state, including a ban on new high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the massacre that left 20 children and six educators dead.

The proposal includes new registration requirements for existing magazines that carry 10 or more bullets, something of a disappointment for some family members of Newtown victims who wanted an outright ban on the possession of all high-capacity magazines and traveled to the state Capitol on Monday to ask lawmakers for it.

The package also creates what lawmakers said is the nation's first statewide dangerous weapon offender registry, creates a new "ammunition eligibility certificate," imposes immediate universal background checks for all firearms sales, and extends the state's assault weapons ban to 100 new types of firearms and requires that a weapon have only one of several features in order to be banned.

The newly banned weapons could no longer be bought or sold in Connecticut, and those legally owned already would have to be registered with the state, just like the high-capacity magazines.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/connecticut_passes_strict_gun_laws_after_newtown_ap/feed/ 6 Who’s to blame for gun violence? Movie critics! http://www.salon.com/2013/02/16/whos_to_blame_for_gun_violence_movie_critics/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/16/whos_to_blame_for_gun_violence_movie_critics/#comments Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13203925 At last the real villain has been revealed in our poisonous and circular culture of violence: It’s me. Well, OK, maybe not me personally, but the underpaid, disheveled and endangered tribe to which I semi-reluctantly belong, the movie critics. Even by an optimistic count, America is down to a few dozen professional film critics, most of whom traipse back and forth between screening rooms in Manhattan and Los Angeles, often appearing to have recently arisen at 7 o’clock in the evening. (The general fashion statement and social mode, as a friend once put it, is one of “Troll Under the Bridge.”) And yet, according to a baffling new article in Harper’s by cultural critic Thomas Frank, our sad-sack crew is a crucial enabler of American gun violence. (That’s a firewalled link, so I’ll try to quote liberally from the article while staying on the fair side of fair use.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/16/whos_to_blame_for_gun_violence_movie_critics/feed/ 97 Bombs, guns and swastikas found in Connecticut home http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/bombs_guns_and_swastikas_found_in_connecticut_home_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/bombs_guns_and_swastikas_found_in_connecticut_home_partner/#comments Fri, 01 Feb 2013 21:08:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13188024

Just down the road from the scene of the December school massacre in Newtown, Conn., police in Stamford have discovered a home filled with bomb-making materials, assorted firearms and white supremacist and anti-police propaganda.

The Southern Poverty Law Center Stamford police and FBI agents today identified and interviewed a middle-aged man who apparently had been illegally living in the home, triggering an inspection Wednesday by health inspections. The home is less than 700 feet from a middle school. The suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, has not been charged while authorities discuss whether to proceed with state or federal charges.

Police discovered loaded weapons, including rifles and shotguns, near entry points to the home, white supremacist and anti-police propaganda, a monitoring system to watch the outside of the home and a reinforced escape tunnel that ran underground through the backyard, the Stamford Patch reported. They also found bombs that were being prepared with PVC pipes loaded with nuts and bolts that were apparently meant to serve as anti-personnel shrapnel.

In addition to swastikas, a poster inside the home depicted a police funeral with a derogatory message scrawled across it, Stamford Police Chief Jon Fontneau told the newspaper. Loaded firearms were discovered near entry points to the home.

“I’ve been on hundreds, if not thousands, of search warrants,” the chief said, “and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

D.J. McAneny, a reporter for the Stamford Patch, told Hatewatch today that police and explosives experts were at the house at 170-172 Vine Road throughout the night but had cleared the scene by midday today. Stamford is 25 miles from Newtown, where 26 people were murdered on Dec. 14.

Anne Fountain, director of the Stamford Department of Health and Social Services, said her department had received the initial complaint about the property in May, but workers were refused entrance when they went to the home, the Stamford newspaper reported.

“We had received a complaint of an illegal dwelling with several code violations, but he wouldn’t let us in,” Fountain told the newspaper. “We’d been there a second time prior to [Wednesday]’s visit, so this was on ongoing complaint. We had to obtain a search warrant to access the home, which is why the police were present.”

The Stamford police chief said that when one of his officers, accompanying the health department worker, discovered explosives, they evacuated and police took over the investigation.

Tax records show the property is owned by William Hertle Properties LLC, and Debra Saturno-Galang is listed as co-owner, the Stamford Patch reported.

The police chief said health workers and his officer who initially entered the home were overcome by the smell of urine and feces from the basement, apparently from dogs that weren’t let outside, Fontneau said.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/01/bombs_guns_and_swastikas_found_in_connecticut_home_partner/feed/ 9 12 rational responses to irrational gun arguments http://www.salon.com/2013/01/25/12_rational_responses_to_irrational_gun_arguments/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/25/12_rational_responses_to_irrational_gun_arguments/#comments Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:47:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13181816 AlterNet In a recent discussion about gun control on Thom Hartmann's program, my opponent suggested that gun control advocates like me really have a cultural aversion to guns. That's a standard ploy for the gun set: when reason isn’t on your side, deploy emotional and personal arguments instead.

"Anti-gun"? I could've brought up my own recreational gun use, or even brought out the firing range pass I carry in my wallet. But I'll admit that I've lost a little of my taste for it as our national killing spree continues unabated. What's more, that would've been disrespectful to the millions of Americans who do have an understandable aversion to guns. Personal habits should have no part in a rational policy discussion.

Now that President Obama has made his initial gun control proposals, the crazy's being ratcheted up to a new level. Rational Americans in all walks of life will be confronted with these kinds of arguments. We're going to need a playbook. Here are 12 responses you can use when you're confronted with some of the standard illogical, irrational and emotionally overheated statements that gun extremists use.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/25/12_rational_responses_to_irrational_gun_arguments/feed/ 199 7 uncovered quotes that reveal just how crazy the NRA’s become http://www.salon.com/2013/01/23/7_uncovered_quotes_that_reveal_just_how_crazy_the_nras_become/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/23/7_uncovered_quotes_that_reveal_just_how_crazy_the_nras_become/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:51:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13179539 AlterNet The 143-year-old National Rifle Association has not always been like today's NRA, fighting every gun control law as if the essence of American freedom depends on every citizen owning a gun. What follows are a series of shocking quotes taken from various academic histories of the NRA by top officials within the organization supporting reasonable gun control laws.

1. “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons,” said NRA President Karl T. Frederick, a 1920 Olympic gold-medal winner for marksmanship who became a lawyer, praising state gun control laws in Congress. He testified before the 1938 federal gun control law passed. “I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.”

2. “We do think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States,” NRA Executive Vice-President Franklin Orth told Congress, shortly after Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy with an Italian military surplus rifle Oswald bought from a mail-order ad in the NRA’sAmerican Rifleman magazine.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/23/7_uncovered_quotes_that_reveal_just_how_crazy_the_nras_become/feed/ 160 Shooting sprees start with women http://www.salon.com/2013/01/21/mass_killers_start_with_women/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/21/mass_killers_start_with_women/#comments Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13177303 The Nervous Breakdown On Friday, November 30, after driving himself from Connecticut to Wyoming, Christopher Krumm used a bow and arrow to kill his professor father at the front of a classroom filled with community college students, and then stabbed himself to death. But before he did that, he stabbed his father’s 42 year-old girlfriend at home two miles away.

On Friday, December 14, Adam Lanza went on a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed twenty children and six adults. But before he did that, he shot and killed his mother at home.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/21/mass_killers_start_with_women/feed/ 67 We need to make the gun control debate about crime control http://www.salon.com/2013/01/20/we_need_to_make_the_gun_control_debate_about_crime_control/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/20/we_need_to_make_the_gun_control_debate_about_crime_control/#comments Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13176835 Los Angeles Review of Books WHEN I FIRST INTERVIEWED Paul Barrett, author of Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun, for this publication (“Happiness Is A Warm Glock”), the mass shootings in Aurora, CO and Oak Creek, WI were recent events. This time, Barrett and I met under the long shadow of the Newtown, CT massacre, where, on December 14, Adam Lanza fatally shot his own mother, 20 children and six school employees before taking his own life. The world mourned for the losses at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the wake of the country’s second deadliest mass shooting, the United States is once again forced to confront its aggrandized gun culture. The question is: will anything be different this time?

With 300 million-plus weapons in private hands, the United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the OECD countries, and the second highest number of homicides (second only to Mexico, which has a lot related to drug trafficking. See here for some interesting analysis of OECD and non-OECD gun ownership and deaths).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/20/we_need_to_make_the_gun_control_debate_about_crime_control/feed/ 39 The NRA once supported gun control http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/the_nra_once_supported_gun_control/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/the_nra_once_supported_gun_control/#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13170521 AlterNet For nearly a century after, its founding in 1871, the National Rifle Association was among America’s foremost pro-gun control organizations. It was not until 1977 when the NRA that Americans know today emerged, after libertarians who equated owning a gun with the epitome of freedom and fomented widespread distrust against government—if not armed insurrection—emerged after staging a hostile leadership coup.

In the years since, an NRA that once encouraged better markmanship and reasonable gun control laws gave way to an advocacy organization and political force that saw more guns as the answer to society’s worst violence, whether arming commercial airline pilots after 9/11 or teachers after the Newtown, while opposing new restrictions on gun usage.

It is hard to believe that the NRA was committed to gun-control laws for most of the 20th century—helping to write most of the federal laws restricting gun use until the 1980s.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/the_nra_once_supported_gun_control/feed/ 16 The Pentagon: The global NRA http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/the_pentagon_the_global_nra/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/the_pentagon_the_global_nra/#comments Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:38:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13170510 Given these last weeks, who doesn’t know what an AR-15 is?  Who hasn’t seen the mind-boggling stats on the way assault rifles have flooded this country, or tabulations of accumulating Newtown-style mass killings, or noted that there are barely more gas stations nationwide than federally licensed firearms dealers, or heard the renewed debates over the Second Amendment, or been struck by the rapid shifts in public opinion on gun control, or checked out the disputes over how effective an assault-rifle ban was the last time around?  Who doesn’t know about the NRA’s suggestion to weaponize schools, or about the price poor neighborhoods may be paying in gun deaths for the present expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment?  Who hasn’t seen the legions of stories about how, in the wake of the Newtown slaughter, sales of guns, especially AR-15 assault rifles, have soared, ammunition sales have surged, background checks for future gun purchases have risen sharply, and gun shows have been besieged with customers?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/the_pentagon_the_global_nra/feed/ 3 Assault weapons bans won’t save enough lives http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/assault_weapon_bans_are_not_enough/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/assault_weapon_bans_are_not_enough/#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13165848 The American Prospect The Newtown elementary school massacre has finally sparked a discussion about what to do about the 80 gun deaths in America each day, seven of which are children.

But the dialogue remains constrained, as if we know we have to talk about gun control but we’re still afraid the National Rifle Association (NRA) will scold us as anti-freedom oppressors or start shooting. Beyond the obvious—banning assault weapons and limiting the size of gun clips—there is little information or analysis about concrete reforms that could make a difference. We’re still shying away from basic issues like how criminals, youths, and mass murderers get guns, why existing laws don’t seem to provide rudimentary safety, and why so little attention is paid—and so little responsibility ascribed—to the purveyors and profiteers of the gun industry.

Gun crimes are usually discussed as if the transactions and guns involved are illegal, but the truth is that most guns that end up being used in crimes are obtained legally. The problem is not illegal guns, but the essentially unregulated market in devices designed to kill.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/assault_weapon_bans_are_not_enough/feed/ 27 Mass shootings do little to change state gun laws http://www.salon.com/2013/01/05/mass_shootings_do_little_to_change_state_gun_laws/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/05/mass_shootings_do_little_to_change_state_gun_laws/#comments Sat, 05 Jan 2013 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13162557 ProPublica Following the mass shooting in Connecticut, the Obama administration and lawmakers around the country have promised to re-examine gun control in America.

ProPublica decided to take a look at what's happened legislatively in states where some of the worst shootings in recent U.S. historyhave occurred to see what effect, if any, those events had on gun laws.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/05/mass_shootings_do_little_to_change_state_gun_laws/feed/ 6 We’d all be packing heat if the NRA had its way http://www.salon.com/2013/01/04/wed_all_be_packing_heat_if_the_nra_had_its_way/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/04/wed_all_be_packing_heat_if_the_nra_had_its_way/#comments Fri, 04 Jan 2013 23:02:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13162346 We wrote and spoke about guns just a few days before Christmas, following the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. So did Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association. His now infamous, “no questions” press conference was the most stunning, cockeyed one-man show since Clint Eastwood addressed that empty chair at the Republican National Convention.“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he pronounced.

LaPierre might well have plagiarized his vision of a wholly armed nation from another “man of the people” of 40 years ago, the protagonist in the famous sit-com "All in the Family." On a 1972 episode, when a local TV station comes out in favor of gun control, Archie Bunker hits the airwaves with an editorial rebuttal:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/04/wed_all_be_packing_heat_if_the_nra_had_its_way/feed/ 42 Gun deaths rampant after Sandy Hook massacre http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/gun_deaths_rampant_after_sandy_hook_massacre/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/gun_deaths_rampant_after_sandy_hook_massacre/#comments Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:12:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13161031 AlterNet There have been more than 400 guns deaths since the Newtown massacre on December 14, according to a new interactive project between Slate.com and the anonymous twitter user @gundeaths.

The two launched the project because, as Slate writes, there are few real-time chronicles of daily gun deaths in the United States, despite the daily mention of firearms and gun politics in the media since the shooting. In fact, the onslaught of reporting on guns has been so intense, The Huffington Post published an article this morning with the headline “So You’re Bored of the Newtown Massacre?”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/gun_deaths_rampant_after_sandy_hook_massacre/feed/ 88 The National Guard in public schools? http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/the_national_guard_in_public_schools/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/the_national_guard_in_public_schools/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2012 22:29:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13156124 AlterNet Days after California’s liberal Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer gave an impassioned floor speech saying that big steps must be taken to stop gun violence that is killing 87 people a day across America, she proposed a bill to give governors power to deploy National Guard troops in public schools—or assign them to local police departments, freeing them to put police in schools.

“Is it not part of the national defense to make sure that your children are safe?” Boxer said at a press conference, where she unveiled the Save Our Schools Act. “The slaughter of the innocents must stop....”

“Of all the bad ideas I've heard in the aftermath of the Newtown murders, the worst comes from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, who wants to provide federal funds for states to send the National Guard into schools,” wrote the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/the_national_guard_in_public_schools/feed/ 26 Christian right blames atheists for Sandy Hook shootings http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/christian_right_blames_atheists_for_sandy_hook_shootings/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/christian_right_blames_atheists_for_sandy_hook_shootings/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:22:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13155599 AlterNet All that was needed to make the national tragedy of the killing of 20 children and 6 adults into an anti-God kick in Jesus' teeth fest was for the usual suspects who hate Jesus to step up to defame His Name again. Of course I'm talking about the "Christian" leaders who can be counted on to drag the name of Christ through the mud at every profitable fundraising importunity. Christian leaders say that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut was the result of our national falling away from fundamentalist Protestant gullibility.

The idiots -- religious village idiots that is -- are at it again. I thought Dobson was dead but I guess not. He's just retired. He's still alive enough to act like the zombie-for-Jesus'-younger-dumber-brother he is.(I went on his show 3 times back in the day when I too was part of the religious idiots club.) Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association hate host talk-show host, and Franklin-sell-my-soul-to-the-Mormos-because -I-hate-Obama-so-much-Graham (of course), the president and CEO of the tax-exempt Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was not to be outdone.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/christian_right_blames_atheists_for_sandy_hook_shootings/feed/ 58 Does the Bible make Americans more violent? http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/does_the_bible_make_americans_more_violent/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/does_the_bible_make_americans_more_violent/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:38:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13155654 AlterNet My friend Li is an Evangelical Christian and, in keeping with her family values she keeps an eye on what her children view and read. In the summer, she took her 12-year-old daughter to the Hunger Games. “It’s the perfect movie for her,” Li commented. “No swearing and no sex.” No swearing; no sex. Just people stalking and killing each other.

The Motion Picture Association of America agrees with Li’s priorities. So did the writers of the Bible.  Our love-hate-love affair with violence goes way back.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/27/does_the_bible_make_americans_more_violent/feed/ 27 75 percent of states ignore mental illness checks for gun buyers http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/most_states_ignore_mental_illness_background_checks_for_gun_buys/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/26/most_states_ignore_mental_illness_background_checks_for_gun_buys/#comments Wed, 26 Dec 2012 17:08:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13154904 AlterNet As the White House eyes new gun-controls following the Sandy Hook school massacre and firearms dealers are seeing guns sales spike, a handful of recent investigative reports suggest that the nation’s state-run system of screening gun buyers for mental illness is mostly a mirage—except in a dozen states where governors want the system to work.

Federal law prohibits gun sales to anyone who was declared mentally unfit by a court. In Bill Clinton’s first term, Congress passed a law requiring states to report these mental health records to the FBI. But in 1997, the Supreme Court threw out that requirement, saying states could share whatever information they wanted to—or more likely not share it.

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