Shayla Stewart's Suicide isn't Wal-Mart's Fault

AP via News8Austin: Mother of suicide victim sues Wal-Mart over gun sale

There were serious signs of trouble near the end of 24-year-old Shayla Stewart's life.

Stewart was diagnosed as bipolar and schizophrenic. She had assaulted police officers. She had been arrested for attacking a fellow customer at a Denton Wal-Mart where she had a prescription for anti-psychotic medication.

So she had a history of destructive and psychotic behavior.

Her parents say -- given all those signs -- another Wal-Mart just seven miles away should have never sold her the shotgun Stewart used to kill herself in 2003.

Her mother, Lavern Bracy, last week filed a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit against Wal-Mart.

The suit filed in Denton claims the clerks should have known about her daughter's illness or done more to find out.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

I suppose her parents think Wal-Mart clerks should be able to read minds, diagnose complicated mental illnesses, and do this on the spot when a customer asks to buy a gun. Barring that, I suppose Mrs. Bracy expects store clerks to, upon meeting a customer, pry into their lives for more information regarding their past and their health whenever they ask about certain products and items that may pose dangers to others.

I find these kinds of lawsuits utterly absurd. What a customer does with the items he or she buys bears no responsibility on the part of the business. We ought not to blame Ford for the carnage a drunken driver creates and we ought not to hold GE guilty for the loss of a pet cat locked in a fridge by a small child. Why? Because the individuals working in those companies did not do the acts in question. Providing the means to do something does not confer responsibility on the provider when those means are used for bad ends.

If these were true, then the opposite would have to be true. We'd have to pay these companies extra to compensate them for unexpected benefits we receive from their products. Anyone willing to take up that argument?

AP via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Suicide victim's mother sues Wal-Mart over gun

"We know that if they had ... so much as said, 'Why do you want this?' we would not be having this conversation because Shayla would have had a meltdown," said her stepfather, Garrett Bracy.

No you fucking don't. How could you possibly know what the interconnected and ever-changing mentalities, personalities, motivations, likes, and dislikes of several strangers are going to produce in the way of a common conversation between seller and buyer? It isn't the duty of a business person to discover the stated or intended uses of an item under interest. That's just a courtesy spent in the way of being nice and conversational to the customer.

Federal law prohibits stores from selling guns to people who, like Stewart, have been involuntarily committed to mental institutions or declared by a judge to be mentally ill and a danger to themselves or others, or who are incapable of handling their own affairs.

A federal background check is conducted on all gun buyers to weed out those who are prohibited. The form that must be filled out to buy a gun asks about mental health. Stewart, who had been committed to an institution and declared dangerously mentally ill by a judge, lied on that form, according to her mother's attorney.

The background check system has other problems as well. For example, the system approved Stewart's purchase because her name didn't show up in the FBI database. That happened because the database contains no mental health records from Texas and 37 other states.

Texas doesn't submit mental health records because state law deems them confidential, said Paul Mascot, attorney with the Texas Department of State Health Services. Other states have not computerized their record-keeping systems or do not store them in a central location.

There you have it, right in your face. The System failed on its own. So why hold Wal-Mart legally responsible?

Her parents said they wished that Wal-Mart had been more diligent by checking security files and prescription records. But those records are confidential under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, so stores cannot use them when deciding whether to sell a gun.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

I rest my case. How the hell is a Wal-Mart employee supposed to check this without breaking the law, wasting vast amounts of customer time, and not offending them in the process? This kind of expectation makes their jobs (which I have worked in the past) considerably more difficult.

AP via the Houston Chronicle: Mother of suicide victim sues Wal-Mart over gun sale

"Lavern went to the store the other day to buy over-the-counter headache sinus medication and they limited the amount of sinus medication she could buy at one time," Garrett Bracy said, his voice trembling with emotion. "But Shayla can walk into a store and buy a gun and they could care less. That's got to change."

Copyright 2004 Associated Press, All rights reserved.

No, if my son or daughter killed themselves with a firearm, I wouldn't point fingers at the store that sold it, the clerk who sold it, the manufacturer who built it, the trucker that transported it, the marketers who promoted it, or the contractors who built the infrastructure involved in every step of the process. I also wouldn't force businesses to act the way I want them to.

What I would do is blame my son or daughter and want to know what drove them to take the most final of all actions.

Posted by Drizzten at December 21, 2004 10:15 AM