Va. Tech Shooting: Privacy Laws Are Inhibiting Gun Control Legislation
<a href="http://www.groundreport.com/poetsdream">Ann Clemmons</a>
May 03, 2007
Cho Seung-Hui a tormented young man, already exhibiting crazed behavior, ignored the advice of a teacher, slipped through a mental health care facility, conned campus police, and bought two firearms. Teachers, students, and law enforcement personnel were not able to prevent this tragic event. It seems many people, agencies, and family members were aware of the fact that Cho Seung was "troubled" however, due to the so-called protection of privacy laws; they were unable to help him.
Privacy laws are inhibiting gun control legislation. There is now a bill before congress promoting states to report mental health records to the national database used to conduct background checks on people buying guns. Already federal law prohibits anyone involuntarily admitted as a "mental defective" from purchasing a firearm. However, only twenty-two states provide mental health records to the National Criminal Background Check System. At present, the National Criminal Background Check System, screens people before they can purchase a firearm. However, if states are not required to push mental health care facilities to provide mental health records, for all persons including voluntary commitments, what good is the law doing anyone?
This problem has been going on for years, and gun control advocates, special interest groups, and law enforcement officials have been trying to shed light on the this unpredictable reporting. However, the biggest obstacle has been the privacy law in relation to mental health care records. Evidently, if you are voluntarily committed to a mental health care facility, privacy laws prohibit the facility from reporting your time there.
If Virginia, had required mental health care facilities, to report voluntary records to the National Criminal Background Check, the people who died that day at Va. Tech., would still be alive. Cho Seung-Hui would not have been able to purchase the two firearms that killed thirty-three people, including him. Meaning, Virginia only reported involuntary commitments. Moreover, we do not know for sure when someone approaches the counter in a store, to purchase a firearm, if they have or have not threatened to harm themselves or others. We are in the dark as to whether they have or have not spent time in a mental institution.
In the case of Cho Seung-Hui he had voluntarily gone to St Alban's, after his involvement in two prior incidents with the police involving two female students. However, since Virginia did not require mental health care facilities too report voluntary commitments, Cho Seung-Hui was able to purchase two firearms. Therefore, someone who rattled off incoherent babble on a video tape, and then sent it to NBC was able to buy not one, but two guns! In fact, after the shootings police investigators were unable to get information about his mental health status, all due to the privacy act. It is no wonder that Cho Seung Hui shared the same characteristics as other school shooters. Privacy laws prevented these characteristics from becoming available to the proper authorities before the shootings took place.
What senseless acts, especially at a time of war, when we are already losing scores of human lives.
After Cho Seung gunned down two people, crossed the street into a classroom, bolted the door to keep help out, and fired two firearms into his fellow students, reaction around the world was that of sadness and outrage. Thirty-three students died that day, including Cho Seung Hui. When are we going to wake up? There are American kids across the world battling terrorism, and more are killed right here in our back yard, due to the American people's debate over gun control.
Since the first report of this shooting, we have heard urging from other nations on the need for reforming Americas gun control laws, and self -defensive attitude. By not implementing some changes in American policy and culture, we will earn more than the right to bear arms. We will also earn the right to bear unspeakable pain and sorrow, consequences that follow the lack of proper procedures in place to protect our citizens from the improper use of firearms.
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Original Source: Ground Report
<a href="http://www.groundreport.com/articles.php?id=2833707">http://www.groundreport.com/articles.php?id=2833707</a>
This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License</a>.
Ann Clemmons
2007-06-05
Brent Jesiek
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
eng
The tragedy of Virginia Tech is partly a tragedy of bureaucracy
<b>From the Editor</b>
May/June 2007
by <a href="mailto:kathrin.lassila@yale.edu">Kathrin Day Lassila</a> '81
<b>The tragedy of Virginia Tech is partly a tragedy of bureaucracy.</b>
I don't mean the sort of complaint people usually make about bureaucracy -- too much paperwork and red tape. I mean the opposite. Too few records. Too little discussion and sharing of information. Too few staff, perhaps.
I'm not blaming the state of Virginia or Virginia Tech for failing to stop a determined murderer. But enough bureaucracy, of the right kind, would have given them a chance. The gun salesman would have known Seung-Hui Cho had a history of mental illness and wasn't entitled to buy guns. The associate dean who told a worried professor last fall that she hadn't heard of any previous problems would have known about the two complaints to the police and the judge's ruling that Cho was a danger to himself.
The competing needs for privacy and protection can't be perfectly balanced.
Colleges and universities serve a vulnerable demographic. Usually, "major mental illness first shows itself somewhere between the ages of 17 to around 25," says Lorraine Siggins, chief psychiatrist at Yale Health Services. Against those rare but terrible events, universities need discreet and careful systems. If a student has trouble and the trouble is resolved, the university has to leave the student alone to live the ordinary turbulent life of a young adult, in privacy, without stigma. But if trouble recurs, the right administrator has to be able to find out fast that this isn't the first time.
The competing needs for privacy and protection can't be perfectly balanced. After VT, says Betty Trachtenberg, dean of student affairs at Yale College, university officials everywhere thought, <i>There, but for the grace of God . . .</i>
But it's easier to have good systems and enough staff at a wealthy, relatively small private institution than a large public institution. Siggins speaks of a "web" of people at Yale who act as a safety net. Medical privacy rules prevent her staff from taking action or sharing information on any patient unless that patient is an immediate "threat to self or others." (She wouldn't comment on how often that happens and said Health Services doesn't give out statistics.) Instead, "what most frequently happens is that the person comes to people's attention in lots of different ways."
The campus police report any incident involving a student to the disciplinary committee and the student's dean. In Yale College, the 12 residential college deans are the people who, says Trachtenberg, "notice when somebody's in trouble." In the professional schools, relationships with teachers and fellow students serve this need, as most schools have small student bodies (from 120 art students to 670 law students). The Graduate School has only two associate deans of student affairs for 2,600 students. But Graduate School dean Jon Butler says the 50-plus department directors of graduate studies are the people who call his office when a student is in trouble.
Once the warning flags go up, administrators can, for instance, suspend a student or require the student to seek treatment. In a meeting after the VT massacre, Trachtenberg and the deans of the colleges agreed that Cho's multiple episodes of stalking and frightening students -- "behavior that is not consistent with living in a community" -- would have triggered action.
Not that they can be certain. "It's very hard to think that something like this would fall through the cracks" at Yale, says Trachtenberg. "Nevertheless, I am knocking wood as I talk to you."
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Original Source: <a href="http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/editor.html">http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/editor.html</a>
Kathrin Day Lassila
2007-06-11
Sara Hood
Permission granted by author Kathrin Lassila, kathrin.lassila@yale.edu
eng
Student privacy under scrutiny
<b>Shooting sparks national debate</b>
By: Eric Johnson, Senior Writer
Posted: 5/24/07
Congress is wading into the turbulent debate about campus safety in the aftermath of last month's shootings at Virginia Tech and is considering possible changes to federal laws governing student privacy.
A bill to loosen disclosure restrictions for campuses dealing with at-risk students is already attracting attention in the House, and similar measures are being drafted in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the UNC-system will consider during the next few months whether to back any move to alter long-standing federal policy about the disclosure of student health records.
"In Washington, there's a lot of attention on this issue," said Kimrey Rhinehardt, UNC-system vice president for federal relations. "I think that certainly now, more than ever, the university is going to be a part of that discussion."
The April 16 shooting of 32 students at Virginia Tech by a classmate with a documented history of mental instability has prompted colleges across the country to reevaluate their security procedures.
It has also drawn national attention to the vague guidelines that govern when and how campuses can respond to threatening or self-destructive behavior by a student.
Federal law prohibits universities from contacting a student's parents unless the student presents an imminent danger to himself or others, a standard that is open to wide interpretation. In recent years, campuses have been sued for taking preemptive measures against troubled students in some instances and for failing to take preemptive action in others.
As a result, most campus administrators have welcomed the opportunity to review the existing statutes.
"I think there's enough confusion now that most institutions would tell you that it could hardly get any worse," said Becky Timmons, assistant vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education.
"Institutions may assume that scrutinizing this legislation would lend some greater clarity to the issue," she said. "There are some very legitimate reasons for the laws we have the on books, but they do create grey areas for campuses."
The UNC-system has created a task force that will explore those grey areas, along with a whole host of other safety issues. The group will represent a variety of constituencies, from chancellors and legal counsel to students and staff members.
Only after the task force has weighed in with recommendations - scheduled for sometime in September - will the system consider lobbying for any changes to federal law.
"Because the issues of privacy and disclosure are so delicate, it's going to take a lot of people thinking about this to come with the right balance," Rhinehardt said.
In announcing the safety task force earlier this month, university officials stressed the need to avoid any hasty reactions.
Noting that UNC campuses are statistically far safer than North Carolina as a whole, System President Erskine Bowles said the task force would proceed cautiously with any recommendations.
"We have to really make sure we think through these issues and don't just react," Bowles said. "We have to do things that make good common sense."
It is unclear whether the task force will finish its work in time for UNC to weigh in effectively at the federal level. It will depend on how quickly Congress moves to revisit the privacy and disclosure issues.
The state of Virginia has formed its own high-profile commission to study the shooting at Virginia Tech, and Timmons said that might prompt federal lawmakers to take a more deliberative approach.
"I think there is a little bit of a sense of proceeding slowly out of a sense of respect for the Virginia Tech situation," she said.
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Original Source: <a href=http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/05/24/StateNational/Student.Privacy.Under.Scrutiny-2907006.shtml>The Daily Tar Heel - May 24, 2007</a>
Sara Hood
2007-07-16
Sara Hood
Kevin Schwartz <kschwartz@unc.edu>
eng