More On the NIU Killer

He was hospitalized for a year in a psychiatric facility, according to this February 16, 2008 ABC News report:

Though Kazmierczak seemed friendly and normal, he had a troubled past. After high school, Kazmierczak's parents sent him to Thresholds-Mary Hill House, a psychiatric treatment center for teens, where he lived for a year while getting therapy and medication for what was described as "unruly" behavior.

Louise Gbadamashi, a former employee at the Chicago treatment center, told the Associated Press that he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications. "He never wanted to identify with being mentally ill," she said. "That was part of the problem."

Crime, Guns, and Videotape using unnecessarily tactless language points out that Kazmierczak obtained an Illinois Firearms Owners ID card--required to buy or possess ammunition in Illinois--and which includes a background check. The Illinois FOID application asks if you have been hospitalized for mental illness in the last five years--which was apparently not the case. This February 16, 2008 Chicago Sun-Times article indicates:

A criminal background check is performed for every applicant, said Lt. Scott Compton, a State Police spokesman. He said State Police are also required to check a person's mental health history.

...

Compton said a person who has been to a facility for mental illness almost never receives an FOID card. However, applicants and cardholders are not required to report any medication they may be taking.

However, federal law doesn't have that same five year limit. Kazmierczak's mental illness hospitalization didn't get noticed during the federal background check for any of the four guns that he bought through licensed dealers. I'm not sure if HR 2640, recently signed into law, would fix this or not. I would certainly hope so.