“When a teacher combines a paranoid belief system, demonstrated mental instability, strong suicidal tendencies, repeated expeditions to purchase weapons, and expressions of homicidal desires, and when he refuses to give an honest account of why he wanted to purchase weapons, there is genuine cause for alarm.” District: Teacher’s actions were ’cause for alarm’ [via usatoday.com]
Ok, the guy “could” have been crazy. The part that bugs me:
“Police had been following him that day and stopped him on his way home from the gun store. They asked to talk with him at his house, where they seized his guns.”
That’s what bugs me about this entire incident. There was no due process for any of this before both the cops and the district went off the deep end.
“Due process”….what’s that?
Something we had before 9/11.
@Chas – then you obviously weren’t paying attention. Maybe 9/11 accelerated certain trends already in progress, but long before the WoT, there was the WoD.
Due process was in its death throes after the alleged war on drugs…..
The great thing about this country is that you can believe anything you want to believe. We can all live in crazy town. That’s not illegal. Or, at least it used not to be. More and more the thought police are labeling you guilty until proven innocent.
3 rifles is NOT stockpiling, The article also stated he took 50K out of his account he could have really started stockpiling at that point, 50k would go a long way.
$50K would buy 666 Jennings J22s. I guess that’d be 6.66 hectojennings.
Heck, with that many J22s, you could probably piece together four or five that worked.
It’d be simpler to just throw them really hard.
Have Joerg Sprave build a gatling slingshot to fling them.
And one was a gift. His buying pattern didn’t seem unusual for someone “reacquainting himself with the gun culture”. Buying two guns over a year is deemed excessive? What was the gun that he hadn’t bought yet but could be taken down and “put in a backpack’? A Henry Survival .22?
Or a kel tec su 16.
Or a 10/22 takedown. Comes with the backpack.
Kel Tec Sub 2000. Awesome weapon.
Three rifles is a sale at the gun store.
Pre-crime?… On the other hand they do have to protect students if he is a danger…. On the third hand, firing him did t do that at all.
Why does it matter? The school is a gun free zone so he couldn’t bring them there anyway.
WINNER
This guy either needs to be locked up in an institution or given his job and his guns back along with an apology. It’s too easy to make a few unsubstantiated accusations and have someone’s rights needlessly stripped.
Also, once again, always use an alias when spouting your crazy sh!t all over the internet.
i see a court case and big payout in this
I didn’t know a trip to the local gun store counted as an “expedition.”
@Ross: exactly. And three – four (well, 2-3 and a shotgun), all of them different and maybe half of them being unusual or old, sounds like the start of a collection, not a stockpile. Or is that an arsenal? I can never remember…
The use of “stockpile” or “collection” depends on the narrative, not the count. But anything more than 2 is always an arsenal.
Only in the media.
Matt Lauer?
The “authorities” seem to have a great deal of difficulty coming up with a logical (if that matters today) theory on which to hang their actions. So throw a bit of everything at wall. Homicidal and/or suicidal. But purchased guns a year and half ago but has not kill himself or anyone else. A nutter before or after? According to some babbing shrinkologist and the local chief de polizi. He didn’t agree to have his head examined by some wackjob gov’t employee? Horrors. Brand him. Would this be the same shrink that ended up finding him nutty or #2?
I “loved” this comment from the comments section: “gun nuts and paranoid schizophrenia- the most common relationship in the USA.” That’s right buddy, you keep painting away with that broad brush of ignorance.
That’s not painting with a broad brush, that’s painting with a fire hose.
Or an East German water cannon. Our would-be ruling classes never objected to the Stasi protecting socialism & enforcing equality upon a helplessly disarmed populace.
In this instance, equating gun ownership with mental illness is a classic Communist tactic: identify the “enemies of the people”, then denounce them as a threat to public order. Then arrest them. More problematic here than in the old GDR, but not impossible, as we are seeing.
And no secret police organization has ever suffered from a shortage of recruits.
There’s a lot of information in that article that sounds like it was taken out of context and dangled as a carrot for the reader.
The guy certainly sounds crazy and it sounds like he shouldn’t be teaching, but I think he deserves an opportunity to defend himself and clarify these alleged statements.
Seizing his weapons in this case seems premature to me, even if those are his genuine views that does not indicate homicidal intent toward students.
I was thinking the same thing. Since we only have this reporters spin and we know how the media likes to spin on guns and crazies and are not above sensationalizing things, it is all too neat.
Maybe he took out the 50K because he decided to become a prepper — maybe he was joking around and said “aliens” caused super storm Sandy. In our ultra PC world, even a wrong phrase at the wrong time will get you in trouble.
He could be crazy or he may not be.
They said
An independent psychiatric evaluation ordered by the school found that Heller could be suffering from schizophrenia and psychosis and that his suicidal thoughts could indicate a potential for “aggressive conduct.”
However, schizophrenia is often incorrectly misdiagnosed and he may have bi-polar depression.
Who knows? We will never know the real story.
In the end, if he needs help lets hope he gets help and not simply sent off to jail.
his $50k, his business what he does with his own cash, where is the crime here?
Employed at the pleasure of those that hire.
I didn’t know that ones job was some sort of harpoon that once penatrated, the barb would keep it stuck and difficult to remove.
I believe your employment is symetrical in that you can quit any time you like and they can terminate you anytime they like.
Why should one have the power to make it a involuntary relationship?
Maybe he bought a car, or made a down payment on a house, or… There are dozens of normal (not crazy, not radical) reasons for withdrawing $50,000 from the bank. Tell us what he did spend it on.
Every piece of their “evidence” against him can be explained as perfectly normal. How many of us could be “put away”, if someone decided to examine our past for every “unusual” thing they could find and then take out of context to prove we are crazy? I know I could be!
“An independent psychiatric evaluation ordered by the school found that Heller could be suffering from schizophrenia and psychosis and that his suicidal thoughts could indicate a potential for “aggressive conduct.””
Oh, it could, but probably not.
Al Gore built a whole freaking religious cult using the term “could be” to whip up the sheeple into a warmingist feeding frenzy based on nothing but his own fantasies.
I sure he was a precious, little snowflake until he bought guns….
Those things corrupt minds.
Alex Jones strikes again. I wouldn’t want this guy teaching my kids, even if (maybe ESPECIALLY if) it was an online course. The pre crime stuff is kind of disturbing, but ultimately the issue is that he refused his employer mandated psych eval, probably because he feared the results.
Unfortunately psychiatry is based on zero science. All psychiatric diagnoses are 100% subjective, there are no physical tests or means to confirm or deny a psychiatric diagnosis.
Truth.
Sounds like any number of my friends, except we have more guns.
This doesn’t pass the smell test….has a lot more in common with a story designed to make people questioning the Sandy Hook story as crazy and mentally unstable. The Nazi’s and soviets used these simple and effective mechanisms to silence dissenters by labeling them mentally ill and locking them away.
I’m guessing the school’s “independent” psychiatic evalutation was performed by ESP since they didn’t actually talk with him.
Anyone would have a fast pulse after being illegally detained by the police and having a few thousand dollars of guns stolen on the way home.
If he were my kid’s teacher, and all they say about him was true (the talk of suicide and murder, not the purchase of a few guns), I’d be concerned at least. But you just can’t treat someone like that without due process in anything resembling a free society.
Not that I approve, but I understand the cops and school district. A couple of generations now have been taught that it is the job of government to protect us, that individuals are not capable of this function. So, naturally, if something happens everyone will be screaming their heads off about how nobody did anything. The courts don’t require cops to protect individuals, but the court of public opinion does. This is a symptom of a deeper problem that comes from people being brainwashed into surrendering freedom for the illusion of safety. Oddballs of all stripes, harmless or not, are always the first victims.
Telling someone that you don’t want them to work for you anymore is just one party of a voluntary relationship wishing to end that relationship. A crazy boyfriend doesn’t get to have a four day hearing for you to prove that he should move out and ask for a ruling to make you keep him as your boyfriend.
All the other issues of due process with his police interaction, is another matter.
guy looks like Matt Lauer from nbc.
I’d have to go with Matthew Fox, of Lost “fame.”
Bingo Paco…especially with the bunch in power now. I read the link and can’t see a compelling reason to steal…er seize his minor collection. He shouldn’t be a teacher but that’s about it. I also don’t have any grand conspiracy theories about Newtown. I don’t buy the official version but it won’t bring 27lives back( including Nancy Lanza ). And it makes me happy my grandkids are home schooled.
The sad part is that many people, including on this forum, will read material like this without giving it critical thought.
nah. The government has a legitimate need to seize your property without due process, along with your first born child….
why shouldn’t he be a teacher, what has he done?
So in other words, he’s a perfectly ordinary gun owner as described by anti-gunners.
That pretty much sums it up.
+1
“Heller was also concerned his own mind was being controlled by sinister forces…”
Well, yeah, he was working in a government school no doubt ran by fascists…
If the news media were trustworthy, I would say that the guy had at least some strange beliefs (others maybe not), especially taking all that money from his acct. But hey, he is free to believe whatever he wants as long as he does not become a threat. Frankly, I find the usual nonsense coming from the fascist class to be much more alarming seeing as how they are always wishing death on us – or more precisely wishing “someone” would do their dirty work for them by killing us. You know they are pacifists and all.
On the other hand, usatoday is not exactly trustworthy source in my opinion. So who knows.
And, seriously, 3 guns? C’mon man, thats no big deal. One of them isn’t even a pistol, so he gets a PASS for at least attempting the 4 main gun groups initially. Shotgun, pistol, centerfire rifle, rimfire rifle. That dont even count bear gun, antique gun, surplus gun, target pistol, safari gun, target rifle, fun gun, duck gun, goose gun, long range precision rifle, impulse buy gun, conversation piece, cowboy action pistol, 3 gun match guns, concealed carry pistol, truck gun, the list goes on. If anything, the 3 guns only gets a nod of sympathy.
When you’re a teacher, you gotta pick your spots. He probably would have gotten a clean bill of health if he was buggering a twelfth-grader.
That’s funny, and probably true.
What is their problem. I bought 10 pistols and 3 rifles in the last year or so. I have 2000 rounds of 22LR, 1500 rounds of 45 ACP, 1000 rounds of 9mm, 200 rounds of 30-06, and an assortment of some other calibers on hand.
I used at least 3000 rounds of 9mm, 2000 rounds of 22 LR, and 1500 rounds of 45 ACP in the last year.
And I’m just a beginner.
But I’m not paranoid (I don’t think) 🙂
He already had three guns?!! And wanted A FOURTH?!! OMG! OMG!! OMFG!!
N00b.
1) anyone else notice the guy’s name? Heller? Interesting.
2) If attempting to get a 4th is “stockpiling”, then I’m in trouble.
A Teacher has $50k in the bank? I call BS…..
Maybe he had a part time pharmaceutical business tn the school parking lot. Who knows?
Crazy man was stopped in the nick of time. FINALLY a school district gets something right. Fire his psycho butt and confiscate his guns. He’s a clear and present threat to the community.
That’s just my opinion, of course. To make it official and ensure his rights are respected, let him have his judicial hearing and let’s sort out his mental situation and capacity to conduct himself responsibly.
“let him have his judicial hearing”
And that would be for the crime of…. ?
Well, he is a pretty big idiot for volunteering to talk to the police at his house. If you didn’t call them, they aren’t on your side. Hell, even if you called them, they aren’t on your side.
I still haven’t heard anyone say that he’s even accused of any actual crime. Are we subjecting him to trial by innuendo, or is somebody saying, “Gee, this guy’s crazy, better strip his Constitutional Rights away!”
I say, knock off the mindreading and fortune-telling, and hold people accountable for actual behavior.
Tough call. Surfing the net and making sensational statements does attract attention now. This shouldn’t be news. There are plenty of conspiracy theories about Newtown. Look it up on YouTube. Some of the theories make pretty good sense, and from seemingly reasonable people. Entire websites exist on theories. Infowars is interesting reading.
Prepping is becoming an increasingly popular thing. Cash, water, food, several different types of guns (.22LR for hunting small game, larger modern sporting rifle to protect your family from those who didn’t prep, a shotgun for home defense, a handgun for trips to the gas station etc…), all are items preppers stockpile. And it isn’t about zombies. Preppers are prepared for electrical grid shutdown, natural disasters, civil unrest (does anyone still think that isn’t possible), basically everything short of zombies.
But if the guy is truly a nutjob, who was planning on something terrible that is a whole other thing. Then again, how would we know? Just because you think the whole world is coming to an end and the Government is out to get you, doesn’t mean it isn’t possibly true.
“But if the guy is truly a nutjob”
Whether he’s a “nutjob” in anyone’s opinion is irrelevant. The only thing people should be held accountable for are actual overt actions. If the guy has committed no crime, then he is a Free Man.
Yes, sometimes Free People do things that other people don’t like; well, tough toenails for those other people. Learn to mind your own damn business!
Let’s not even embark down the slippery slope of thoughtcrime.
Although they lie about it, the US Military has warplans to invade and/or subjugate Canada and Mexico; That is, our government is planning on doing something terrible to our neighbours, and does it all the time with others. Shall we confiscate the Military’s weapons?
I personally have a plan to kill everyone I meet, unless just being polite and professional to them will do. I have made expeditions to gun stores and come away with at least four guns AT ONCE and several thousand rounds of ammunition.
When are ‘they’ coming for me?
This isn’t a ‘slippery slope,’ this is the bottom of the cesspool.
FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted surveillance on Heller:
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/2014/07/04/fox-lane-adam-heller-newtown-fired-fbi/12237455/
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