A woman in Delaware with no criminal record, no arrests period, was denied on her application to purchase a gun because she was too old and a woman.
An employee in the state police Firearms Transaction Approval Program noticed Vansickle’s age and gender, and brought the sale to an immediate halt.
Now, imagine this exact same story, except replace “firearms purchase” with “vote” and “age and gender” with “race and sexual orientation”, and try to tell me that you wouldn’t see this all over the news.
To play Devil’s advocate for a moment, it’s quite possible that said employee saw that data and went “Oh shit, suicider”.
While that’s a possibility, it’s also not their responsibility. In Delaware, you can only deny a purchase legally if the purchaser has a criminal record, or there is sufficient evidence to show that they present a “credible danger to themselves or others”. Being old and a woman is none of these things.
“In Delaware, you can only deny a purchase legally if the purchaser has a criminal record, or there is sufficient evidence to show that they present a “credible danger to themselves or others”.
Yup, and in those cases there’d better be tangible evidence of a conviction that actually bars firearms ownership not just some misdemeanor on which the DSP phone operator makes a “judgment call.” Same thing goes for the purchaser being a “credible danger to themselves or others.”
There’s very specific legal criteria under which to prohibit firearms purchases. The job of the DSP here is to check whether the potential purchaser has something in their record/file with the DSP which falls under those criteria. If they’re doing anything other than that they need to be fired on the spot and / or sued.
“credible danger to themselves” sounds a lot like “suicide”.
I’m not defending the acts in questions, but the possibility should be considered.
But unless there’s evidence that they pose a credible danger, you can’t legally hang their purchase like that. You’d have to have a red flag in the database or something, not just “old and a chick”.
@ Kalium
So you are positing that the people doing the go/no-go on the purchase are psychic psychologists? It seems to me that’s the only way they would be able to credibly make an assessment that they were a “credible danger to themselves” with nothing to look at but records.