Tech Killing Sparks Debate on Guns, Mental Health

By Peter J. Smith, Virginia Statehouse News Friday, December 16, 2011

ALEXANDRIA - The recent shooting of a police officer at Virginia Tech has resurrected a debate on gun control in Virginia and has raised questions about whether the state’s mental health screening laws are strong enough.

Ross Truett Ashley, 22, of Radford, shot and killed Virginia Tech Police Officer Deriek Crouse, a 39-year-old father of five, and then shot and killed himself in a nearby parking lot, according to Virginia State Police.

This incident has rocked the Virginia Tech campus, which was the site of a 2007 massacre, when mentally ill student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 fellow students, faculty and then himself.

Now Republicans, with their newfound control of the General Assembly, may seek to extend conceal-and-carry permits to public universities. The law now allows Virginia's public universities to set up their own public safety regulations, including making campuses so called "gun-free zones."

Mark Owczarski, spokesman for Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, said the university stood by its right to keep guns off campus.

"Our perspective has been for a long time — and recent events have not changed this — that guns and weapons do not belong in the classroom," he said.

Kirsten Nelson, spokeswoman for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, which advocates for public universities and colleges, said these institutions "need to be the ones to make campus safety decisions, and we support their purview to do that."

State Sen.-elect  Barbara Favola, D-Arlington, supports the universities and colleges’ gun restrictions and supports improved mental health services at those institutes of higher education.

“People expect a university to provide a safety net,” she said.

Favola added that enhanced mental health screenings for potential gun buyers also should be on the table.

“There are lots of opportunities to fall through the cracks. I’m trying to find opportunities for cracks to be filled,” she said.

Ashley's acquaintances told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that they feared he had serious mental health issues. Authorities have not confirmed or denied public speculation that Ashley was mentally ill.

But state Sen.-elect Dick Black, R-Leesburg, said state and federal laws banning those with mental illness from possessing firearms were enough.

Firearms dealers must perform criminal background checks on potential gun buyers before every firearm purchase. Dealers check the prospective purchaser's name against state and federal databases for criminal history or legal eligibility to own a gun, including whether the individual has a history of mental illness.

Philip Van Cleave, president of Virginia’s Citizens Defense League, or VCDL, a grassroots gun advocacy group, said enhancing the mental health screening process would hurt law-abiding people with ordinary health problems. VCDL is lobbying the General Assembly to overturn the right of public universities to enact conceal-and-carry bans on campus.

“We don’t want a situation where if you voluntarily went to a doctor for depression, then it will cost you your gun rights,” Van Cleave said. “Some people would not get treatment and just try to stick it out in order to keep their rights.”

But Josh Horowitz, executive director of Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a national organization against gun violence, said the state should have more tools in its background checks to stop mentally ill individuals from buying firearms.

“Other states have the tools to put temporary holds on people from purchasing a gun, such as a psychiatrist or therapist who knows a person is mentally ill, but hasn’t been stopped by an adversarial legal process,” he said. "We don't have that here."

Van Cleave said the checks were ineffective, and are at best a “cosmetic Band-Aid” to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. He said determined criminals could obtain weapons through “straw purchases” — asking a friend with a clean record to purchase a firearm for them.

“There is no way to prevent that,” he said.

Favola said that while gun control laws may not have prevented the recent murder at Virginia Tech, she sees potential in reforming the way the community health services board interacts with the college and university communities to provide mental health services.

“We need to reform the system to be outcome oriented — helping clients with mental health issues get well, instead of doing the very minimum of service that the law requires,” she said. "We need enough money funding our community services boards and more flexibility in Medicaid reimbursement to provide the mental health support these kids need."

Gun advocates said that instead of clamping down on gun ownership, lawmakers should extend conceal-and-carry legislation to the state’s public universities.

“We need to let good people protect themselves, and that is a disincentive to criminals trying anything,” Van Cleave said.

Black said he would support such a proposal, saying that gun-free zones encourage criminals to kill by removing the uncertainty that someone other than law enforcement could stop them.

“If you prohibit law-abiding people from carrying concealed firearms, then you prevent them from being in the position of potentially stopping a murderer,” he said.

But opponents said removing those restrictions on campus would make universities more dangerous.

“I don’t think anybody in the entire campus safety apparatus — from administrators to police officers — thinks armed students would make campus safer,” Horowitz said. “The general public is against it, and Republicans will have a tough slog trying to make that sell.”

“It’s going to be very sad if that bill gets introduced,” Favola said, but she expressed pessimism that Democrats could stop it. “I’m not sure with the current make-up of the Senate that we could stop it again.”

Favola said she has not yet developed model legislation on gun control for the General Assembly, but she is focusing on mental-health community services.

James Martinez, director of the Office of Mental Health Services at the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, declined to comment.