Idiots With Guns
Here’s a bit of free advice for all gun control advocates thinking of “proving” how lax our gun laws are publicly committing “legal” acts: don’t. CNN tried it earlier this year by sending a correspondent to buy an “assault” weapon in Texas, and ended up violating at least one, possibly two federal statutes in the process. CNN and the correspondent were never charged, most likely because the statutes in question are only criminal offenses if committed “willfully,” and CNN could only have acted “willfully” if it had known about the laws it was flouting. And we all know news organizations don’t know the first thing about half of the crap they report on, so there’s your reasonable doubt right there.
Aubrey Ellen Shomo (h/t: Say Uncle) tried a comparable stunt under Colorado’s citizen-friendly concealed carry law. While CNN sought to show how easy it was to obtain “assault” weapons “legally” in other states, Shomo sought to show how easy it was for nutcakes with long psychiatric histories to carry concealed weapons. Shomo writes:
I’m a pacifist, but, recently, I’ve been thinking about getting a concealed weapons permit. I want to be able to call myself “The Packing Pacifist.” It would go over well with my conservative relatives. Also, it could be fun to show people my permit and my psychiatric records at the same time.
Really clever, eh? For more on her psychiatric records, go here.
The class was in a little shop in a little strip mall, in an industrial part of town. There was an 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper sign in one of the windows that announced the school. I could tell this was a high-class establishment.
Don’t you love the anti-gunners’ elitist attitude? The only thing she forgot to say is that there wasn’t a Starbucks nearby. Horrors.
Inside, I filled out a standard form to make sure I was legal. Restraining orders? None. Felony? Nope. Ever been committed? Snicker. Technically, no. Not by a court.
Neato, but the form didn’t ask whether she was committed by a court, did it? She doesn’t say what the form was, but the smart money says it was either ATF Form 4473 or something very similar. The ATF form doesn’t t say anything about “by a court,” nor is there any good reason why it should, seeing as 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4) doesn’t, either. That statute provides, in relevant part:
It shall be unlawful for any person … who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution … to … possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition.
The “commerce” bit is there to keep the Supreme Court happy, and accomplishes little else beyond that. Rely on it at your own peril. Better yet, if you’re trying to get a concealed carry permit in Colorado, don’t rely on it at all. Colo. Rev. Stat. 18-12-203(1)(c), the operative section of Colorado’s shall issue law, requires that the applicant not be ineligible to possess a firearm under federal law – and the Colorado statute, unlike its federal counterpart, has no “interstate commerce” requirement at all. Thus, if Shomo was committed – not committed by a court, but committed – she lied on the form. And if the form was ATF Form 4473, that lie was under penalty of perjury.
So, is Shomo a criminal? Based on what she’s written, it’s unclear. For one thing, the same statute that requires CNN’s violation to be “willful” also requires Shomo’s to be “knowing.” To the extent a “knowing” violation must be made with knowledge that she was violating the law, as the “willful” violations do, Shomo may be able to invoke the “forgive me, for I know not what the hell I’m talking about” defense available to CNN. Also, there’s a long line of interesting case law discussing what does or does not constitute being “committed” to a mental institution for purposes of federal law. There is no bright line rule, but there does seem to be a general pattern of cases suggesting that a person who was institutionalized voluntarily from start to finish will not be deemed to have been “committed,” so it’s at least arguable to that to the extent her time in the institutions was all agreed to voluntarily by her parents (as opposed to, say, a hospital administrator), she may be able to claim she was never “committed,” and is therefore not a prohibited person under federal or state law. Of course, if you also believe her own take on her medical history, it’s not really clear why she should be, either. After all, she claims to have “a clean bill of mental health,” and that she never should have been institutionalized in the first place. If both statements are true, why shouldn’t she be allowed to own a firearm (setting aside, of course, the karmic reason of wanting to deny that right to others)? And if she concedes she should be legal, then what’s the point of “show[-ing] people my permit and my psychiatric records at the same time?”
Shomo has either written a really, really dumb screed against Colorado’s concealed carry law, or she has done something even dumber by breaking the law and writing about it in a public forum. Either way, one thing is clear: she ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
UPDATE: Gun Law News says parental commitment doesn’t count. That sounds right.
FINAL UPDATE: Shomo produces the permit in question, and explains her prior commitments were voluntary on the part of her parents, and therefore did not constitute “commitment” for purposes of federal law. Oddly enough, she also all-but-admits that this is a good thing, arguing that she herself should be allowed to own a firearm. Which kinda makes you wonder what the point of that whole exercise was supposed to be.
Meanwhile Shomo’s brother in arms down under, Tim Lambert, repeats his earlier canard about Michael Fumento’s denials of Lambert’s sock puppet charges not constituting “real” denials, and that this supposed lack of denials constitutes as an admission of guilt. Then again, during that same period I insinuated that Lambert may have forged the messages attributed to Fumento’s alleged sock puppet, and Lambert has not responded to that statement at all. So by Lambert’s own standards, the mere fact that he has not denied flatly and unequivocally (or, for that matter, at all) my charges that he may have forged the Fumento sock puppet comments, must mean he did in fact forge them. Right?
UPDATE: Well, now he denies it. Query whether he’d accept such a late repeat denial from Fumento anyway. My guess is he would put about as much stock in that as he does put in John Lott’s denials of all that other stuff Lambert’s accused him of doing over the years, but that’s just me.
December 18th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
Actually, I’m pretty sure that the term “committed” refers only to people who have been *involuntarily* committed. At least, that’s the way I’ve always understood it. Any shmuck can self-admit to a mental ward. It takes a real whacko to get committed. When I went in for depression, the nurse who signed me in was kind enough to explain to me that I wasn’t being committed, I was self-admitting, which is legally a very different thing. Could be she was lying to make me feel better about the whole thing, but I doubt it–she wasn’t a very nice person. If the reporter wasn’t involuntarily committed, she probably wasn’t breaking the law. I can tell you from experience, though, that self-admitted patients are very safe people to be around. The ones who have to be locked in by a judge, though, are scary and absolutely shouldn’t be allowed to carry a concealed weapon.
December 18th, 2005 at 8:40 pm
Ha! You said all that already…I just didn’t read all the way to the finish. Did I mention that the diagnosis was depression AND attention deficit disorder? Hee…
December 19th, 2005 at 1:41 am
[...] Update: Fumento’s sidekick Jeff “Xrlq” Bishop claims that Fumento has denied being Spencer. Where? Xrlq is keeping that part a secret. He also falsely claims that I haven’t denied the charge that I forged the Spencer post. I have denied it (see second sentence of this post), but again, for the record, I did not forge the post. It was posted by someone with the same IP address as Fumento. [...]
December 19th, 2005 at 5:14 am
Cyndee, I recall reading somewhere that there is an exception for those that self-commit. However, Shomo admitted she did not self-commit. I don’t think she obtained the permit but rather the little certificate that says she passed her class. Still, handling firearm/ammunition is a no-no for crazy folks.
December 19th, 2005 at 5:16 am
[...] Xrlq has more on Aubrey Ellen Shomo, who may have violated the law by taking a CCW class. I discussed her here. [...]
December 19th, 2005 at 7:04 am
She admitted she didn’t self-commit, but she also said she got out when she was 16, as soon as she was old enough to fire her psychiatrist. That sounds to me like the decision to commit her before was her parents’, not the hospital’s. If that’s the case, her stay in the looney bin may well have been “voluntary” for purposes of the federal statute. Frankly, I hope so; else we’ve got a lifetime ban on gun ownership not just by people who were crazy at one point, but also by people whose parents happened to be the psychological equivalent of hypochondriacs.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:06 am
I do believe she displayed intent to lie on the form. Carrying one quote above out a little further, she wrote
“Ever been committed? Snicker. Technically, no. Not by a court. Am I a fugitive from justice? I bet fugitives usually answer that one honestly.”
That tells me she knows she’s lying and tries to justify it with that last sentance.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:59 am
She may have intended to lie, but I doubt that’s enough if the statement she gave is in fact accurate. Generally, you can’t charge someone with an attempt crime if the act they attempted wasn’t a crime, even though that person may have falsely believed that it was at the time. It’s basically the flip side of “ignorance of the law is no excuse” – as surely as a false belief it wasn’t a crime won’t exonerate you, a false belief that it was won’t incriminate you.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
From: http://www.livejournal.com/users/mixedstate/43825.html
I have heard quite a bit of controversy about my CCW permit course and my permit.
The allegations:
My responses:
Any questions?
My article reads “Ever been committed? Snicker. Technically, no. Not by a court.”
The word adjudicated is central here. I have not been so adjudicated.
As for a commitment, my parents signed me in voluntarily. I may have been locked in against my will, but the law says I was a voluntary patient.
As such, I answered question 9 no. Should my past be a policy issue? Probably. Did I lie? No. I didn’t have to. That’s the point.
Should I be allowed to own a firearm now? Yes, I believe so. I have a completely clean bill of mental health. That said, I probably should have had to prove it. Nothing, under the law, separates me from anyone else with my past who might – very understandably – not be the sort of person the General Assembly of the State of Colorado wants to see armed.
Also, I make no attempt to hide my history. I mentioned it in the article, and it’s all a google search away. It was when I got my permit, too.
So, to the detractors that claim I am not entitled to own a firearm, or carry one concealed. I am. To those who claim I lied. I did not.
My point is about how easy it is to get a permit, and about how stereotypical my instructors were.
December 20th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
No, it’s not. It’s a two part question. The first part asks if you have been adjudicated mentally defective (which includes having been adjucated mentally defective). Presumably, the answer to that part of the question is no. The second part merely asks if you have ever been committed to a mental institution. It doesn’t say anything about courts, or adjudication; just were you committed.
That’s probably true, for the second reason you gave (that your confinement was voluntary on the part of your parents), but adjudication vs. lack thereof is irrelevant.
That’s an interesting hypothetical possibility, but unless the State of Colorado has had a rash of shootings by crazed maniacs with concealed carry permits, what’s the point of raising it? Also, while your article claims that Colorado is required to give CCWs to anyone who meets basic critieria even if they are a threat to society, that’s not quite true. Colo. Rev. Stat. 18-12-203(2) provides as follows:
Now, after railing against your own state’s shall-issue law, you admit that for all the snickering about your non-committal commitment, you probably should be allowed to carry a gun – a position I don’t dispute. By contrast, I can’t carry a gun myself. I’ll give you three guess as to which of the following reasons is why, and the first two don’t count:
Meanwhile, you complain about a hypothetical problem in Colorado’s shall-issue law which, by your own admission, didn’t really materialize in your own case, except in the sense that you weren’t challenged enough to prove … whatever. Forest, meet trees. Trees, forest.
December 21st, 2005 at 5:49 am
[...] Via Xrlq, Aubrey Ellen Shomo addresses her critics addresses the following allegations: I do not have a CCW permit. [...]
December 21st, 2005 at 10:52 am
Seems my original inclination, the cause of my rant, was correct:
December 21st, 2005 at 7:05 pm
Tim Lambert, little child of the Outback, is desperate for me to post a comment on his website denying that I set up a sock puppet. For one, he’d sell his mother’s soul to increase his declining blog rankings by one iota. For another, he’d succeed in making me break my vow not to post on his silly little site. So he continues to say I’ve made no denial since I’ve made none on Deltoid — a rather egocentric view of the world to say the least. What’s most interesting is the paucity of comments he’s gotten on his “still no denial” charge and even the lack of interest shown by those who did comment. In other words, if I did set up a sock puppet it appears nobody but Lambert and his human sockpuppet John (“Duh, whaddya want me to say, Tim?”) Fleck seems to care. Alternatively, they may not believe Lambert. Might be a reason for that, since he’s played these games before and set up his own sock puppets. So again and for the last time I will deny ON THIS SITE but not on Lambert’s that I have never posted under any name but my own, his ability to slap together a name with my IP address on a graphic notwithstanding. (I’ll bet he spends his spare time putting actresses heads on the bodies of nude models.)
Finally Tim, if you won’t get psychiatric help then at least get something else — a life.
December 21st, 2005 at 7:45 pm
See? He still didn’t deny it. All he said was that he WILL deny it! Liar, liar, pants on fire. And no, I won’t get a life.
August 17th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
If you go to a psychiatric ward in a hospital voluntarily then it doesn’t really count as being “committed”; mainly because you really aren’t a “threat”, if you have been involuntarily, well… then I guess you are generally screwed if you want to get a gun license.
There are a lot of alcoholics actually that go to those places voluntarily for instance. Another thing to keep in mind is that there is a lot of poor record keeping…