How They Got Their Guns

[Rob L 3,811]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html?action=click&contentCollection=Science&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article How They Got Their Guns

By LARRY BUCHANAN, JOSH KELLER, RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DANIEL VICTOR

UPDATED December 3, 2015

The guns used in 15 recent mass shootings, including the attack in San Bernardino, were bought legally. At least eight gunmen had criminal histories or documented mental health problems that did not prevent them from obtaining their weapons.

DEC. 2, 2015 Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, husband and wife, were suspected of killing 14 people at a holiday office party in San Bernardino, Calif. Four guns were recovered: a Smith & Wesson M&P assault rifle, a DPMS Panther Arms assault rifle, a Smith & Wesson handgun and a Llama handgun.

• OVER SEVERAL YEARS

  The F.B.I. found evidence that Mr. Farook was in touch with people domestically and abroad who have Islamist extremist views, according to officials.

• BEFORE SHOOTING

  The chief of the San Bernardino Police Department said he was not aware of the suspects having any previous contact with law enforcement.

• BEFORE SHOOTING

  All four guns were bought legally, the two handguns by Mr. Farook and the two assault rifles by someone who is not a suspect, authorities said. The Los Angeles Timesreported that the guns were bought at Annie’s Get Your Gun, a gun store in Corona, Calif.

• DEC. 2, 2015

  The couple killed 14 people at a holiday party. Investigators said it is unclear if terrorism was the motive.

OCT. 1, 2015 Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, where he was a student. He was armed with six guns, including a Glock pistol, a Smith & Wesson pistol, a Taurus pistol and a Del-Ton assault rifle, according to The Associated Press.

• 2008

  Mr. Harper-Mercer was in the Army for one month, but was discharged before completing basic training.

• 2009

  He graduated from the Switzer Learning Center in Torrance, Calif., which teaches students with learning disabilities and emotional issues.

• BEFORE SHOOTING

  In all, Mr. Harper-Mercer owned 14 firearms, all of which were bought legally through a federally licensed firearms dealer, a federal official said. Some were bought by Mr. Harper-Mercer, and some by members of his family.

• OCT. 1, 2015

  He killed nine people in Roseburg, Ore.

AUG. 26, 2015 Vester Lee Flanagan II, 41, shot and killed a Roanoke, Va., television reporter and a cameraman with a Glock handgun while they were reporting a story live.

• 2000

  Mr. Flanagan filed a lawsuit against a TV station in Tallahassee, Fla., that had fired him, alleging he was the victim of racial slurs and bullying.

• 2012

  He was hired at WDBJ in Roanoke, but within months his bosses had documented problems with his harsh language and aggressive behavior. He was later fired and filed another harassment lawsuit.

• JUNE 2015

  Federal officials said Mr. Flanagan bought the gun legally from a licensed dealer. He had not been convicted of a crime or determined to be mentally ill.

• AUG. 26, 2015

  Mr. Flanagan killed the reporter and cameraman, injured a woman who was being interviewed and died after shooting himself.

JULY 23, 2015 Using a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol bought from a pawnshop, John R. Houser killed two people and wounded nine others at a movie theater in Lafayette, La.

• 2006

  Mr. Houser was denied a state-issued concealed weapons permit because he was accused of domestic violence and soliciting arson.

• 2008

  A judge ordered him sent to a psychiatric hospital.

• 2014

  Mr. Houser bought the weapon in Alabama. Officials said it had been purchased legally, though he had been denied a concealed weapons permit earlier, and despite concerns among family members that he was violent and mentally ill.

• JULY 23, 2015

  He killed two people in Lafayette.

JUNE 17, 2015 Dylann Roof, 21, killed nine people with a .45-caliber Glock pistol at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

• FEBRUARY 2015

  Mr. Roof was charged with a misdemeanor for possessing Suboxone, a prescription drug frequently sold in illegal street transactions.

• APRIL 2015

  He purchased a gun from a store in West Columbia, S.C. Mr. Roof should have been barred from buying a gun because he hadadmitted to possessing drugs, but the F.B.I. examiner conducting the required background check failed to obtain the police report from the February incident.

• JUNE 17, 2015

  Mr. Roof joined a Bible study group at Emanuel A.M.E. Church and opened fire with the gun he bought in April.

OCT. 24, 2014 Jaylen Ray Fryberg, 15, used his father’s Beretta pistol to shoot and kill four students in his high school’s cafeteria in Marysville, Wash.

• 2002

  Raymond Lee Fryberg Jr., Jaylen’s father, was the subject of a permanent domestic violence protection order, which should have been entered into the federal criminal background database.

• 2013

  Mr. Fryberg applied to buy the Beretta from a gun shop on the Indian reservation where he lived with Jaylen. A background check failed to come up with the protection order because it was never entered into the system.

• OCT. 24, 2014

  Jaylen Fryberg texted five of his fellow students to come to the cafeteria, where he opened fire.

APRIL 2, 2014 Specialist Ivan Antonio Lopez opened fire at Fort Hood with a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol, killing three people and wounding 16 others.

• 2011

  Specialist Lopez came back from a four-month deployment to Iraq and told his superiors that he had suffered a traumatic head injury there. Military officials said he had never seen combat and was being evaluated for possible post-traumatic stress disorder.

• MARCH 2014

  Specialist Lopez had seen a military psychiatrist as recently as the month before the shooting. He was being treated for depression and anxiety, and had been prescribed Ambien to help him sleep.

• MARCH 1, 2014

  Mr. Lopez bought his gun at the same shop where Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army major, had bought at least one of the weapons used in a 2009 mass shooting on the base that killed 13 people.

• APRIL 2, 2014

  Around 4 p.m., Mr. Lopez started firing on soldiers.

SEPT. 16, 2013 Aaron Alexis, 34, used a Remington shotgun to kill 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

• 2011

  Mr. Alexis was given an honorable discharge after showing what Navy officials called a “pattern of misbehavior” during four years as a reservist.

• A MONTH BEFORE THE SHOOTING

  He twice sought treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs for psychiatric issues. He told police in Rhode Island that people were pursuing him and sending vibrations through the walls of his hotel.

• SEPT. 2013

  He was stopped from buying an assault rifle at a Virginia gun store, but was allowed to buy a shotgun. He passed local and state background checks.

• SEPT. 16, 2013

  He killed 12 people at the Navy Yard.

DEC. 14, 2012 Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed his mother in their home, then killed 26 people, mostly children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., using a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle and a .22-caliber Savage Mark II rifle.

• 2009

  Mr. Lanza graduated from high school. Some classmates said he had been bullied in high school. He struggled with a developmental disorder and was described as acutely shy, not known to have close friends.

• AFTER HIGH SCHOOL

  He was “completely untreated in the years before the shooting” for psychiatric and physical ailments like anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, a state report found.

• BEFORE THE SHOOTING

  His mother, Nancy Lanza, a gun enthusiast, legally obtained and registered a large collection of weapons and would often take her sons to shooting ranges.

• DEC. 14, 2012

  Mr. Lanza used his mother’s guns to kill her and 26 others.

AUG. 5, 2012 Wade M. Page, 40, killed six people with a Springfield Armory semiautomatic handgun when he opened fire in the lobby of a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., as congregants arrived for Sunday services.

• 1994

  While in the Army at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Tex., Mr. Page was charged with criminal mischief after kicking holes in the wall of a bar. He pleaded guilty.

• EARLY 2000S

  He came to the attention of authorities because of his affiliation with a white-power band called End Apathy, which performed songs with violent lyrics.

• JULY 2012

  He bought the firearm legally at a gun shop outside Milwaukee. He passed a background check and paid $650 in cash.

• AUG. 5, 2012

  He killed six people and wounded three others at the temple.

JULY 20, 2012 James E. Holmes, 24, killed 12 people and wounded 70 at a theater in Aurora, Colo., using a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic rifle, a Remington shotgun and a Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

• MARCH 2012

  Over four months, Mr. Holmes legally bought more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition for handguns, 3,000 rounds for a semiautomatic rifle and 350 shells for a 12-gauge shotgun, all over the Internet.

• MAY 2012

  He was seeing a psychiatrist and in the process of withdrawing from a graduate program at the University of Colorado Denver’s Anschutz Medical Campus.

• MAY 2012

  In the 60 days before the shooting, he bought four guns legally at local gun shops. Seeing a psychiatrist, even for a serious mental illness, would not disqualify him from buying a gun.

• JULY 20, 2012

  He opened fire in the theater, killing 12 people.

APRIL 2, 2012 One L. Goh, 43, opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun at a small religious college in Oakland, Calif., where he had been a student. He killed seven people.

• BEFORE SHOOTING

  “He was a loner and what some might call a loser, but he didn't exhibit any behaviors that would have alerted anyone,” a district attorney told reporters after the shooting, according to CNN.

• EARLY 2012

  Mr. Goh legally bought the handgun at a gun store in Castro Valley, Calif., passing a federal background check.

• APRIL 2, 2012

  He killed seven people at Oikos University in Oakland.

• JAN. 2013

  A judge ruled he was not fit for trial after two psychiatric evaluations concluded that he had paranoid schizophrenia.

JAN. 8, 2011 Jared L. Loughner, 22, killed six people with a Glock handgun in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Ariz., at an event for Gabrielle Giffords, who was a Democratic representative from Arizona.

• 2007

  Mr. Loughner was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, but the charges were dropped. The next year, he failed a drug test when trying to enlist in the Army. Neither incident barred him from buying a gun.

• OCT. 2010

  He was forced to withdraw from community college because of campus officials’ fears about the safety of the staff and students, his parents later said. The incident would not have shown up on a background check.

• NOV. 30, 2010

  He passed a background check and bought the handgun at a store in Tucson, Ariz.

• JAN. 8, 2011

  He killed six people in Tucson.

NOV. 5, 2009 Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist facing deployment to Afghanistan, opened fire inside a medical processing building at Fort Hood in central Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 43 others. He was armed with an FN Herstal pistol.

• DEC. 2008-JUNE 2009

  Intelligence agencies intercepted 10 to 20 messages between Mr. Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings.

• JUNE 2009

  Federal authorities dropped an inquiry about the messages after deciding that they did not suggest any threat of violence.

• JULY 31, 2009

  Mr. Hasan bought the pistol legally at a popular weapons store in Killeen, Tex., paying more than $1,100.

• NOV. 5, 2009

  He shot and killed 13 people at Ford Hood.

APRIL 3, 2009 Jiverly Wong, 41, fired at least 98 shots from two handguns, a Beretta 92 FS 9-millimeter pistol and a Beretta PX4 Storm pistol, inside a civic association in Binghamton, N.Y., where he had taken an English class. He killed 13 former classmates and association employees.

• BEFORE THE SHOOTING

  Mr. Wong had been arrested, cited or had some minor contact with the police at least five times since 1990, but details about the cases remain unclear. At the time of the shootings, he was not a subject in any investigation, nor did he have a documented mental health issue.

• MARCH 2008

  Mr. Wong bought the first gun, the Beretta 92, at a store in Johnson City, N.Y. He passed a background check.

• MARCH 2009

  Mr. Wong bought the second gun from the same store, but his background check was not approved immediately. He received the gun under a federal rule that allows a gun to be sold if the background check system does not return a decision in three business days.

• APRIL 3, 2009

  He killed 13 people in Binghamton.

Note: Information on the precise version or year of manufacture of each gun was not always available, so a version of the model is shown. The handguns used by Christopher Harper-Mercer are omitted because the models have not been released. The guns shown for Adam Lanza do not include the gun he used to shoot himself.

Source: Government and law enforcement officials

Additional work by Wilson Andrews, Sarah Almukhtar, Alicia DeSantis, Guilbert Gates, Josh Katz, Julie Shaver and Karen Yourish

[Sousuke 1,214]

I'll be curious to find out if their firearms were bullet button equipped or not.

[smilesammich 10,727]

I'll be curious to find out if their firearms were bullet button equipped or not.

what does that mean?

[Sousuke 1,214]

what does that mean?

In a standard config, AR15s are illegal in California. However their AR15s were bought legally so they must have had a bullet button installed at the time of sale.

A bullet button replaces the standard magazine release. It requires the use of a tool to change the magazine which is a slowish process. The bullet button meets CA code.

The tip of a bullet can be used as the tool - hence the name.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Sousuke

[smilesammich 10,727]

In a standard config, AR15s are illegal in California. However their AR15s were bought legally so they must have had a bullet button installed at the time of sale.

A bullet button replaces the standard magazine release. It requires the use of a tool to change the magazine which is a slowish process. The bullet button meets CA code.

The tip of a bullet can be used as the tool - hence the name.

so the point of a bullet button is to slow down reloading?

[Sousuke 1,214]

so the point of a bullet button is to slow down reloading?

Its actually a reaction to an attempt to ban AR15s in California.

Lawmakers wrote the law with the notion that people would have to physically bolt the magazines in place making AR15s practically unusable. But an engineer worked the bullet button out to be compliant with the law. So the bullet button is actually created by gun supporters.