Lax state reporting could allow mentally ill to get guns

The mass slaying of eight people in Appomattox last month has some asking how the man accused of murder could have owned so many weapons when a family attorney has said he had a mental breakdown in 2007.

Lynn Almond lives about a mile from the Snapps Mill Road home of Christopher Speight, where seven people were found shot to death on Jan. 19, and another clinging to life who died a few hours later. Speight, 39, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of his sister, Lauralee Sipe, who lived with her family at the house.

“We need to take these weapons out of the hands of people who are mentally unable to handle them,” said Almond, who is starting a petition in hopes of inspiring legislators to change the laws relating to the reporting of mental health histories.

Mental health questions on concealed-carry permit

The application for a concealed-carry permit asks several mental health-related questions:

• Have you ever been committed to the custody of the commissioner of mental health, mental retardation and substance abuse services?
• Have you been acquitted by reason of insanity, adjudicated legally incompetent, mentally incapacitated or adjudicated an incapacitated person by a court of Virginia or any other court?
• Have you been involuntarily admitted to a facility or ordered to mandatory outpatient treatment, or were you the subject of a temporary detention order … who later agreed to voluntary admission…?
• Have you received mental health treatment or substance abuse treatment in a residential setting within the five years prior to the date of this application?

Gun-permitting procedures address mental health in two key areas: Virginia’s concealed carry permit, which Speight has had since 1995, asks the applicant to voluntarily answer several mental health-related questions; and background checks required for gun purchases from a dealer can include information on whether the applicant has had court-ordered commitments for mental health treatment.

Henry “Hal” Devening, a Lynchburg attorney who handled the family’s real estate affairs for the Snapps Mill Road property, has said that Speight had a mental breakdown after the death of his mother in December 2006, while he was living in Georgia. The Spout Spring man was subsequently removed as a trustee for the property, Devening said, because of concerns about his mental condition.

However, it is not known if Speight sought mental health treatment while in Georgia.

“I don’t know whether he was committed voluntarily or not,” Devening said. Other than Speight and any medical professionals who may have treated him but are bound by privacy laws, “the people that would know are all deceased.”

Background checks are only as reliable as information sent in to a federal database, and states don’t reliably send it in, said Doug Pennington, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence.

Georgia, for example, sent only 3,174 records of people with court orders for involuntary commitment to the national system in 2008, Pennington said. By comparison, Virginia — which has about two million fewer people than Georgia, U.S. Census figures show — sent 104,269 records during the same year.

“It’s only as good as the records it searches,” Pennington said. “If a state isn’t sending its records properly, things fall through the cracks.

“Some states haven’t submitted any records of the dangerously mentally ill.”

The FBI runs the federal database, known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched in 1998, it provides a check of criminal backgrounds across the U.S. for criminal convictions and other matters that would disqualify someone from purchasing a handgun.

“Things don’t always show up,” said Appomattox County Commonwealth’s Attorney Darrel Puckett. “All the states have different terms and rules for what they report and how they report it. Even with criminal instances, sometimes we get reports from other states and we have to call and ask what it means — that is, if you happen to get lucky.”

Pennington said Virginia has a strong track record for sending information about court-ordered commitments of the dangerously mentally ill. Other states, however, send precious few records, or none at all.

“When there’s a presumption that everyone who wants a firearm should get a firearm, we are bound by society to allow them to get one,” said Pennington, whose organization has closely followed news of the Appomattox slayings. “Unless we decide to make it more difficult to get access to firearms, then we can’t be surprised when these things happen.”

A person who voluntarily seeks mental health treatment or voluntarily commits himself or herself without court involvement is not reflected in the criminal history check, and for good reason, said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizen Defense League.

“They don’t want to discourage people from seeking help,” Van Cleave said. “If you take away their gun rights, they won’t come in. People have to feel like if they need help they can get it without being punished. You want them to come in and get help. It’s different when the state commits you.”

Speight consistently denied a history of serious mental illness in applications for concealed firearm permits filed in Appomattox County Circuit Court. On his most recent application — filed on Jan. 6, 2009 and granted on Jan. 15, 2009 — he indicated that he had not received mental health treatment in a residential setting within five years.

Puckett and Appomattox Sheriff Wilson Staples signed off on a section of the permit verifying Speight had no criminal convictions or pending charges.

The applications for concealed carry permits are signed and notarized, meaning the applicant attests that all the information is correct, said Puckett. Otherwise the applicant has committed perjury and can be prosecuted. With the exception of the criminal background check, the court system is bound to accept the information in the application as correct and must approve the application, Puckett said.

“There is no real mechanism to go in and look beyond what is reported in the criminal history,” Puckett said. “It’s very strict in terms of what the court shall do. The court’s hands are very much tied.”