Jacksonville shooter had history of mental illness and police visits to family home

Jose Pagliery, Curt Devine, and Drew Griffin, CNN Investigates
Updated 1:34 AM EDT, Tue August 28, 2018






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CNN —
David Katz, the shooter who killed two people and wounded 10 others before taking his own life at an e-sports tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, on Sunday, was in treatment for psychiatric issues at least as early as the age of 12, according to family divorce records.

Katz, who was 24, was prescribed a number of psychiatric medications, including an antipsychotic, and saw “a succession of psychiatrists,” according to a 2006 letter from the father’s attorney. A separate 2006 court filing states that a therapist said David had experienced a “psychiatric crisis.”

CNN also obtained police records that show 26 calls for service to the police from the Katz family home in Columbia, Maryland, from 1993 to 2009, for issues ranging from “mental illness” to domestic disputes. At least two of those calls involved Katz arguing with his mother, though none of the reports provided to CNN show any physical violence. The Howard County Police Department declined to release the reports from a number of the incidents, citing statutory restrictions.

Since Sunday’s shooting, the family has told investigators that David Katz suffered from mental health issues, according to a law enforcement source who described the family as being very cooperative with investigators. Both parents have worked for the federal government. Richard Katz is a NASA engineer employed at the Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington, DC, according to an agency spokesperson. Elizabeth Katz was listed as an employee of the Food and Drug Administration at the time of her divorce.

Neither Elizabeth nor Richard Katz could be reached by CNN for comment.

The court records reveal a divorce and custody battle that was so acrimonious both parents filed to have a guardian ad litem assigned to represent the interests of David, their younger son. They strongly disagreed about his mental health treatment.



Court documents state that Katz suffered emotionally as a child and was prescribed psychiatric drugs, including Lexapro, an antidepressant, and Risperidone, an antipsychotic medication sometimes used to treat schizophrenia. Katz’s mother took him to see a number of psychiatrists as well as a social worker and art therapist, according to a 2006 letter from the father’s attorney.

His father disputed the necessity of the drugs and a psychiatric evaluation sought by David’s mother, suggesting that his son instead “attend a support group for middle school students.” “Richard Katz has seen no evidence whatsoever of schizophrenia in David Katz,” a motion from his father’s lawyer said.

On one occasion, according to a document from the father’s lawyer, Katz strongly reacted to the notion of going to an appointment and locked himself in the car. The boy was then “faced with the prospect of being put in handcuffs by the police.”

The day after his 13th birthday, police were called to the mother’s Columbia home to help with her son, because of “the volume of the television and his overall lack of respect toward her and his grandmother,” according to a police report. The day after his 14th birthday, according to another police report, Katz called police to the home because his mother “keeps punishing him by taking away his video games.”

Katz attacked fellow competitors at a Madden NFL video game tournament at the downtown shopping complex Jacksonville Landing after losing a game earlier in the day, according to survivor Alexander Madunic. He killed himself with his own handgun, according to Sheriff Mike Williams.

Katz legally purchased a 9mm handgun and a .45-caliber handgun back home in Maryland in the last month, according to officials. One of the weapons had a laser sight that attached to the gun, officials said. It’s unclear how he transported the weapons – and extra ammunition – to Jacksonville, or how he got them into the event.

Federal gun laws prohibit anyone who has been committed to a mental health institution against their will – or adjudicated “mentally incompetent” – from legally purchasing a firearm. A clinical history of psychological issues does not preclude someone from buying a gun. And such medical records are considered private, protected patient information.

Since 2013, residents in Maryland must obtain a handgun qualification license from the state police before purchasing a pistol or revolver. That means Katz would have submitted his fingerprints, undergone a background check, and passed a firearms safety training course to buy those guns.

CNN visited Katz’s former stepmother’s home in northern Baltimore. There, a man who declined to identify himself said they knew Katz played video games, but they were unaware he owned a firearm. Most recently, Katz’s father had been living near Federal Hill in Baltimore, at a home searched by law enforcement after the shooting.

Katz attended Hammond High School in Columbia. CNN spoke to several graduates who remembered him.

Ti’Andre Montana, who graduated a year ahead of Katz, remembered him as a video gamer who “was antisocial.”

“He stayed to himself … he didn’t talk much,” Montana said. “He was a good guy. I couldn’t image him doing such thing.”

Drew Ford, who graduated in 2011 alongside Katz, only spoke to him a few times. But he remembered his reserved demeanor.

“He was a quiet kid, but when you talked to him he seemed cool,” Ford said.

Three years after graduating high school, Katz started to attend classes at the University of Maryland, according to university spokeswoman Katie Lawson. He enrolled in September 2014 and was not registered for classes this fall. He lived off campus, and majored in environmental science and technology.

University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh issued a public statement that referenced yet another mass shooting that occurred at a newspaper in Annapolis just a short drive away from Katz’s hometown: “Our community grieves for the families of those who lost their lives in yesterday’s horrific shooting in Jacksonville. When our community was directly impacted by the shooting in Annapolis this summer, I said that more than silent reflection is needed to end the epidemic of gun violence in our country, and I will say that again today.”

CNN’s Majlie de Puy Kamp, Collette Richards, and Evan Per

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/us/jacksonville-madden-shooter-katz-mental-health-invs/index.html

 

Let's face it; as long as the gun lobby has unfettered control of Congress nothing will be done. Not a thing.
The GOP is the party of chaos, murder and inhumanity and they'll stay that way because the vast majority of their voters are proud morons.

 

White Sox Shooting Happened After Woman Snuck Gun in Via ‘Belly Fat’: Report

Only in America. After gunfire injured two women during a Chicago White Sox game on Friday night, a new report indicates that not only did the gun in question belong to one of the victims, but that she smuggled it into Guaranteed Rate Field in a highly unusual way. On Tuesday, Peggy Kusinski, a journalist for ESPN Chicago, reported on Twitter that the shooting “was indeed an accidental discharge by one of the women ‘grazed’ by the bullet.” Kusinski added: “She reportedly snuck the gun in past metal detectors hiding it in the folds of her belly fat.” Authorities previously said that a 42-year-old woman who sustained a gunshot wound to the leg was treated at a local hospital, while a 26-year-old woman who suffered a graze wound to her abdomen refused medical treatment. It was not immediately clear to which woman Kusinski’s report referred. On Monday, Chicago police said that investigators had “almost completely” confirmed that the shots had come from inside the stadium.


https://www.thedailybeast.com/chica...n-in-under-belly-fat-report?ref=home?ref=home

 

This is really interesting. The Supreme Court struck down concealed carry permits saying they were a 20th century invention with no historical background. So Moms Demand Action volunteers are proving that's bullshit and laws against concealed carry of guns go back to at least the early 1800's.



The Volunteer Moms Poring Over Archives to Prove Clarence Thomas Wrong
Mark Joseph Stern
Thu, August 31, 2023 at 3:45 AM MDT·10 min read
352



The academic research relied upon by Thomas and other judges to strike down gun laws has been shaky at best. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.


In 2018, after a teenage gunman murdered 14 students and three faculty members at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Jennifer Birch, fearing for the safety of her own children, decided to join the fight against gun violence. “My kids were the same age, in high school,” she told Slate, “and it was enough to say: I have to do something now.” What Birch could never have anticipated is that five years later, she would find herself in the basement of a courthouse poring over 150-year-old county archives. Birch’s mission, as part of a volunteer force for the gun safety group Moms Demand Action, has been to identify Santa Ana, California, firearm regulations from the 1800s and earlier—all part of an effort to satisfy the Supreme Court’s increasingly preposterous whims about what’s necessary to prove a firearm regulation is constitutional.

The archives Birch encountered were clean, dark, and mostly empty, with large tables upon which the archivist laid a series of fragile law books from previous centuries. Examining the delicate pages, Birch was surprised by what she found: Santa Ana prohibited the concealed carry of weapons, including guns, in 1892, while neighboring Anaheim followed suit in 1893. Orange County itself, in which both cities are located, had also prohibited concealed carry for well more than a century.

In 2022’s Bruen decision, the Supreme Court struck down bans on concealed carry and expanded upon the previous standard for determining the constitutionality of gun regulations, declaring that authorities had to find analogous gun laws that existed prior to 1900. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, found that before that date, concealed carry bans were not part of America’s history and traditions, and they were thus unconstitutional. Yet here, in a basement archive, Birch found evidence to the contrary, lost to history. And she had barely scratched the surface.

Birch is one of about 20 volunteers with Moms Demand Action, part of the gun safety group Everytown, who are scouring archives across the United States for historical firearm regulations. The project is far from academic. In Bruen, the Supreme Court demanded proof that a firearm regulation is rooted in “longstanding” tradition in the form of “historical analogues”—old gun laws that show how Americans “understood” the Second Amendment in the past. The historical record of firearm regulations, however, is far from complete. So motivated volunteers like Birch, a product designer by trade, are stepping in to fill the gaps. What they’ve found directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s conclusions.


While the academic research already relied upon by Thomas and other judges to strike down gun laws has been shaky at best, the stakes of attempting to satisfy the test he laid out could not be higher. For just one example, see next term’s big gun case, which asks whether the Second Amendment prevents the government from disarming people who are under a restraining order for domestic violence.

Until Moms Demand Action came along, attorneys looking to prove a gun regulation’s historic analogue have largely been outmanned and outgunned. According to Thomas, courts have no obligation to perform independent research in Second Amendment cases, or even satisfy themselves that they’ve amassed a fair and representative record. Rather, courts are “entitled to decide a case based on the historical record compiled by the parties,” and nothing else. The disparity in these cases between well-funded gun rights advocates and government attorneys—with little expertise and relatively low access to expert historians—means a court may strike down a gun law not because it’s unsupported by the record, but because government lawyers lacked the time, knowledge, and resources to dig up analogous laws from the past.

Volunteers like Birch want to change that, one archive at a time. Bita Karabian, a friend and co-volunteer, got involved with Moms Demand Action after the Uvalde massacre. “I realized we aren’t safe at school, at the grocery store, at a movie theater,” she said. A lawyer in her day job, Birch initially focused on lobbying the Legislature to “fix the hole that Bruen punched in California’s gun safety laws.” Once Birch and Karabian took on research roles, though, they quickly grew attached to the work. “I was interested in learning more about the history of where I live,” Birch explained. “As I started to go through the archives, I got more inspired.” The two made connections with state archivists and city clerks throughout Orange County, learning to parse the “fancy cursive handwriting” of the 1800s. Some city ordinances weren’t even indexed, forcing Birch and Karabian to leaf through the longhand lawbooks page by page, wearing special archival gloves.

There is a certain thrill in the hunt. “After the first few finds, I was like, ‘Whoa,’ ” Birch told me. “There was so much there.” Over and over again, Birch and Karabian found the same thing: strict limits on the use and possession of firearms, dating back at least to the 1850s, that belie Bruen’s vision of a 19th-century Wild West where the right to bear arms was almost never infringed on. The regulations uncovered were consistent as to weapons and across cities throughout Orange County, one of the more conservative counties in the state. “Many of these limitations were enacted shortly after cities were incorporated as part of their very first batch of laws,” Karabian said. “They were always framed as commonsense safety precautions.” She was surprised: “I thought: ‘Wait a minute—every city in conservative Orange County had a prohibition on concealed carry dating back to their earliest days?’ ”

These regulations covered the gamut: “Almost every city had prohibitions on concealed carry,” Karabian said. Not just license requirements, she noted, but outright bans: “One of their first acts was to make sure that people are safe, which meant not carrying concealed weapons.” Other ordinances outlawed the firing of any gun within the city. California cities also required gun owners to store gunpowder safely, and restricted the amount of it that a person could store at one time. These laws are analogous to modern-day regulations of ammunition, like requirements for safe storage and bans on high-capacity magazines—regulations that are under attack in the courts right now. (Many of the most lethal mass shootings are carried out with high-capacity magazines.)

Volunteers in other states report the same thing. (Everytown is compiling a list of their discoveries; the organization shared a draft with Slate and allowed us to share individual findings, but asked us not to publish the entire list—currently at 159 laws—because it remains incomplete.) The volunteers note every gun-related law they come across, whether it loosens or tightens access to firearms, but the trend is overwhelming: In the 18th and 19th centuries, cities and states were far more concerned with keeping guns out of people’s hands, and away from public spaces, than with guaranteeing a right to bear arms.

A representative sampling: In the 19th century, the concealed carry of firearms was expressly forbidden in Memphis, Tennessee; Jersey City, Hoboken, and Plainfield, New Jersey; Chicago, Illinois; New Orleans, Louisiana; Olympia and Wilbur, Washington; and Denver, Colorado. More than 50 local governments outlawed the firing of any weapon within city limits. About 30 localities restricted or outlawed the storage of gunpowder, including Santa Ana. A dozen localities limited, heavily taxed, or banned shooting ranges. (In 2017, a federal appeals court struck down a Chicago law that restricted—but did not outlaw—shooting ranges within the city, finding no “history and legal tradition” to support it.) More jurisdictions banned guns in private establishments; for instance, an 1817 ordinance in New Orleans barred citizens from carrying weapons into a “public ball-room.” (In January, a federal judge blocked a New Jersey law that banned guns in bars, restaurants, and entertainment venues, finding that it was not supported by “the nation’s historical tradition.”)

These findings are the result of about one year’s work by 20 volunteers. The numbers increase significantly when laws from early decades of the 1900s are included. In Bruen, however, Justice Thomas declared that all laws enacted after 1900 are not constitutionally relevant, because they do not “provide insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment.”

This arbitrary cutoff hints at a broader problem for Everytown’s project: It is unclear whether judges who avidly support a sweeping right to bear arms will care about evidence that contradicts their beliefs. The record of these judges so far is uninspiring.

Moreover, Thomas’ opinion in Bruen displayed a great talent for dismissing every piece of evidence that clashed with his favored outcome. For example, in the 1800s, many Western territories implemented stringent restrictions on firearms; some, like Idaho and Wyoming, prohibited the public carry of any firearm in all municipalities. Yet Thomas dismissed the importance of these laws, reasoning that they were “transitional” measures that did not reflect the national “consensus” or “tradition.” Such “confounding” logic, as one federal judge described it, might allow Thomas and other like-minded judges to wave away any piece of evidence that volunteers like Birch and Karabian are able to put in front of them.

This selective exclusion, and many other slippery aspects of Thomas’ analysis in Bruen, may prompt pessimism about whether the Everytown database will serve any real purpose or change any minds. But Jacob Charles, who serves as the executive director of the Center for Firearms Law at Duke University School of Law, sees real value in the effort. Few scholars have paid keener attention to the post-Bruen fallout than Charles, whose center is compiling a repository of historical gun laws that’s approaching 2,000 entries; the findings are meant to assist lawyers and judges, though it is also open to the public. Despite his skepticism of the Bruen test, he saw real value to Everytown’s work.

“In my experience reading lower court judges implementing Bruen’s test so far,” Charles told me, “most seem to be trying to conscientiously apply the new test and struggling with how to reason analogically across time to any number of historical regulations. For most of them, I think, they will welcome additional historical materials to work with, but continue to struggle with understanding what to draw from them.” At the Supreme Court, however:

I think there’s reason to doubt that additional historical evidence will make too much of a difference. If Bruen is any indication, there are several justices ready to dismiss evidence showing restrictions on the right and who will focus very minutely on any discernible differences between modern and historical laws.

Even if volunteers like Birch and Karabian cannot change any of the justices’ minds, in other words, their research may have a real impact in the lower courts, where most Second Amendment cases are decided. For example, the federal judiciary is grappling with the constitutionality of laws that limit the locations of shooting ranges, restrict concealed carry in public and private venues, disarm people convicted of illegal substance use, and ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and other unusually dangerous weapons. Volunteers with Moms Demand Action have already found historical analogues that support all of these modern laws, and their work has just begun.

There is value, too, in documenting the truth at a time when jurists like Thomas are embracing brazen falsehoods, and transforming them into the law of the land. Future generations, and future Supreme Courts, may see this historical evidence as a justification to roll back or overturn decisions like Heller and Bruen that hinge on bogus history. At a bare minimum, setting the record straight helps the public understand that Justice Thomas is endangering people’s lives on the basis of a lie. The fight for gun safety laws follows a long and legitimate American tradition. It is the battle against gun safety that seeks to transform the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/volunteer-moms-poring-over-archives-094500741.html

 

Biden administration proposes rule that would require more firearms dealers to run background checks

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is proposing a rule that would require thousands more firearms dealers to run background checks, in an effort to combat rising gun violence nationwide.

The proposal comes after a mandate from President Joe Biden to find ways to strengthen background checks following the passage of bipartisan legislation on guns last year.

People who sell firearms online or at gun shows would be required to be licensed and run background checks on the buyers before the sales under the rule proposed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The bureau estimates that the rule would affect anywhere from 24,500 to 328,000 sellers. It is aimed at those who are in the business of gun sales, rather than those with personal collections.


Background checks help prevent guns from being sold to people convicted of crimes, teenagers and others who are legally blocked from owning them, said the agency's director, Steve Dettelbach. Federally licensed firearm dealers are also required to keep records and sell guns with serial numbers, both of which help law enforcement trace weapons used in crimes.

“Unlicensed dealers sell guns without running background checks, without keeping records, without observing the other crucial public safety requirements by which the (federally licensed firearm dealer) community abides,” he said.

The nation is grappling with a rise in gun violence and a record pace of mass shootings for the year. Over the weekend, three Black people were shot to death by a white man wearing a mask and firing a weapon emblazoned with a swastika in Jacksonville, Florida. The shooter, who had purchased the weapons legally despite previously being involuntarily committed for a mental health exam, killed himself.

The Giffords Center to Prevent Gun Violence applauded the proposed rule change, saying it closes a “gaping loophole.” Executive Director Peter Ambler said the Biden administration had taken a “giant step forward towards our goal of universal background checks.”

Kris Brown, president of the gun control group Brady, said more than 1 in 5 gun sales in the U.S. are conducted without a background check.

Gun rights groups, on the other hand, have argued it would do little to stop the gun violence problem. Those advocates have previously quickly sued over other ATF rule changes that they argue infringe on gun rights.

The proposed rule will be open for public comment for 90 days. It was not immediately clear when it might become final.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-administration-proposes-rule-require-172833266.html

 

An armed society is a polite society. That would be one of the most laughable lies ever told if so ,many people didn't get killed over it. Which makes it one of the most deadly and tragic lies ever told.

Eight Injured, Ambulance Torched in Colorado Road Rage Shooting

Eight people were hospitalized in Colorado on Thursday evening after a suspected road rage shooting led to a car crash and multiple vehicle fires, authorities said. The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office said preliminary inquiries had determined that a suspect opened fire at another car. “The victim vehicle crashed and caught fire, and the suspect vehicle left the scene,” the sheriff’s office said. Authorities said no one was hit by the gunshots but the people taken to hospital had received injuries from the crash. An ambulance responding to the incident also caught fire, the sheriff’s office said, but no one was hurt by the blaze.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/eight...colorado-road-rage-shooting?ref=home?ref=home

 

More people die every day from fentanyl poisoning then guns! What are the Democrats doing to fix that... Oh wait a minute, the Democrats aren't even talking about it nor is their news stations..... hmmmmmm

Can't make sleepy Joe look bad...

 

NC child finds gun in car, shoots and kills 2-year-old brother, police say



A 2-year-old boy was shot and killed by his 5-year-old brother inside a car in Statesville Thursday evening, officials said. The brother accidentally fired the loaded gun he found inside the family’s car on Fort Dobbs Road, deputies told WSOC, The Charlotte Observer’s news partner. When police arrived, a neighbor was performing CPR on the child, according to an Iredell County Sheriff’s Office news release. The deputy continued until paramedics took the boy to Iredell Memorial Hospital, where he was flown to Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, according to the news relea...

Read More


https://www.rawstory.com/nc-child-finds-gun-in-car-shoots-and-kills-2-year-old-brother-police-say/

 

Simple, they murder a lot more now with guns, duh