The latest details in the school shooting investigation: the suspect's parents called police on October 15 about a domestic disturbance. When police arrived, they removed the suspect's gun from their home and gave it to another adult outside the house.
This brings up a lot of questions, like can police legally take a weapon?
Brad Young is KMOX's legal analyst and show host. He's a partner at Harris, Dowell, Fisher and Young. He told KMOX's The Show about the legality of the situation.
He said that before police remove a weapon from someone, they first need to check the age of the person, since you have to be 18 to have a gun. Then they consider whether the person was a convicted felon, or if they had been committed to a mental institution. Orlando Harris was 19, and he neither a convicted felon, nor had he been institutionalized.
"So, once those checklists have been gone through by the police there was nothing further that they could do," Young said. "In other words, if they confiscated the gun, even if Harris was lawfully possessing the gun, at that point the police would have been, in essence, stealing the firearm."
"Even if he had been committed, he had not been committed since he reached the age of majority at 18," Young added. "And so, all of the searching in the world would not have come up with that evidence, even though hindsight of course is 20/20. We can look back and say this was a very troubled youth, but in that instance there's nothing that I can see that the police could have done."
Young also got into red flag laws, second amendment rights and the 14th amendment with the hosts of The Show. Listen here:
