Doesn't "Baghdad Jim" receive threats on a regular basis? What's new.
What would be more productive is to give some thought to dealing with the Mentally Impaired that are given some pills, told to take them, and then released to the street with little or no supervision. The warning bells were rung a long time ago with this "fruitcake" in Tucson but nobody, most importantly the parents, took any meaningful action.
We've had police officers killed by "mental cases", an attempt on a President (Regan) by someone with real mental issues, and other cases where some early intervention and identification could make a difference. Instead we wait, afraid to take any action until they kill someone, or a bunch of someones. At the very least, intervention only to the extent that they are identified as Mentally Incapable, they become "known to the system" and those who should not have firearms can be ID'd and sales prevented by Dealers.
Others will have differing views on that last point but in the Tucson example it might well have prevented him from obtaining a firearm.
You know, I've had this discussion a few times this week, and I want to throw this idea out to you.
People are bringing up that very point. "We need to evaluate people more for mental illness to restrict gun purchases." So where does it start? At what point is someone targeted for evaluation? Making death threats? Getting into a bar fight? Sleep trouble? Possibly having post-traumatic stress? Pointing their finger at someone in school?
I hate to use an over-used cliched term, but this is a slippery slope to start going down. Soon it will include people with misdemeanors in the past that they took care of, people who are prescribed sleeping aids, then it will be Veterans who are on a "waiting period" because they *might* have post-traumatic stress, then it will be every single school kid who got into a fistfight in 5th grade.
Take that into scope for a second.
How many Americans have a misdemeanor? I don't know but I can safely say a lot of them. Should you be delayed for a firearms purchase because when you were 15 you got caught with a can of beer and paid a fine? Especially if there's a serial killer running around who's targeting people like you at your school? How about if you got a ticket in a school zone? Misdemeanor DUI? Jaywalking?
Over 100 million Americans have sleep problems. Who knows how many of them have a sleep aid? Should we delay them because they got some Ambien for their rotating shift work? What about everyone who buys diphenhydramine tablets?
Post-traumatic stress? Every single combat Veteran is lumped into this one, but some of the groups people forget to mention when they point at PTSD are: people in bad car crashes, assault victims, people who witnessed terrible things, people who suffered from child abuse, etc. The list you could come up with for people who have "potential post-traumatic stress" is HUGE.
I've been beaten up in high school before, I've lost some family members due to violence and witnessed it, I was beat on as a kid, and I chose to join the military and fight for the country. Should I be delayed when I choose to buy a firearm? Should others here be delayed for that?
Should a house wife that recently got assaulted be delayed from buying a handgun for her home because she "may have PTSD" from the incident?
You know what would have hindered or prevented Loughner from killing all of those people in Tuscon? An armed detail for the event. Armed citizens. Sure, it may not have made the deaths a nice 0, but he may not have even thought about doing it if he knew there were going to be 50 people armed there. Sadly, he would have probably just picked a gun-free zone and hurt people there instead.
tl;dr: People shouldn't be scrutinized for their choice to buy firearms because of a few factors, especially ones as ambiguous as post-traumatic stress, misdemeanors, sleeping problems, etc.