Spankey said:
sapphi_snake said:
HappySqurriel said:
It seems like an incident like this seems to gain national (and international) attention about once a year, and (almost) always it is far more complicated than the initial knee-jerk reactions make it out to be ...
I suspect by the time this is over far more people will be asking "Why didn't anyone do anything when there were so many obvious signs?" than "Why did a 14 year old have a gun?"
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Wouldn't the more logical thing to say be: "Why did they give him a gun when there were so many obvious signs?"
This story is yet again another reason why people shouldn't be allowed to own guns without passing a psychological exam.
OT: Take that gun ho Americans! 
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good point, but in this case the person undergoing the phych exam would have been the father, which might not have helped. private buying of guns to give to other people shouldn't be allowed imo, but i can't see any viable way of enforcing that.
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Outside of specific instances, it's not allowed. Transfer between spouses or family members is one of those exemptions (as it should be because family can transfer property between one another untaxed in most cases, plus the government would NEVER be able to stop it). They're called "straw purchases" and the ATF comes down like a hammer when they find them.
The thing is that any of those laws wouldn't really have helped in this case. It was father-to-son (no way you're stopping that) and it was a hunting rifle, which isn't tracked and checked with the voracity of a handgun or tactical rifle (this applies to almost any country, not just the US).
