(3-8-17) I don’t like simply reprinting articles, but sometimes I read a story that needs to be widely shared. My former employer has published two such pieces this week. Here’s the first of two.
A warning, a gun sale and tragic consequences – Despite a mother’s plea, her mentally ill daughter was sold a firearm.
Ann E. Marimow in The Washington Post – 3-7-17 Photos by Christopher Smith
Wellington, Mo.
She called the police. Then ATF. After that, the FBI.
Janet Delana was desperate to stop her mentally ill adult daughter from buying another handgun.
Finally, Delana called the gun shop a few miles from her home, the one that had sold her daughter a black Hi-Point pistol a month earlier when her last disability check had arrived.
The next check was coming.
Delana pleaded.
Her daughter had been in and out of mental hospitals, she told the store manager, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She had tried to kill herself. Her father had taken away the other gun, but Delana worried that her daughter would go back.
“I’m begging you,” Delana said through tears. “I’m begging you as a mother, if she comes in, please don’t sell her a gun.”