Shooter in Ringwood murder-suicide 'slipped through cracks'

[SecularMotion]

Seth Gunar moved in the fall of 2012 from an apartment in Mahwah to a three-bedroom house in Ringwood. He had to haul his things — including a gun and rifle collection — a mere half-dozen miles. But in retrospect, the fate of two lives may well have hung on that short journey across the Bergen/Passaic county line.

Gunar’s questionable behavior had already provided law enforcement authorities with many red flags. More than a year before he fatally shot a houseguest, Chris Coogan, then himself in early February, the police in Mahwah had moved to seize Gunar’s legal gun collection, believing that he presented a threat to himself and others.

But the move from Mahwah to Ringwood by Gunar, 43, a disbarred lawyer, brought a halt to the effort to obtain a court order to remove his weapons. In the weeks since the shootings, local and county law-enforcement officials have engaged in finger pointing over how a man who drank heavily, had a history of belligerent encounters and owned at least five or six guns and rifles had been allowed to retain them.

After Gunar moved to Passaic County, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office closed the case it had initiated to seize his weapons, anticipating that the Ringwood police would take up the matter. Mahwah police officials notified the Ringwood police about their concerns over Gunar’s drinking and his brushes with the law. But the Ringwood police did not act because they assumed the legal case had been transferred by the Bergen prosecutors to their counterparts in Passaic County. It had not.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/shooter-in-ringwood-murder-suicide-slipped-through-cracks-1.749987

[ManiacJoe]

1. Bad things happen when law enforcement drops the ball.

[Eleanors38]

2. Existing laws, unenforced.

[flamin lib]

3. A number of gungeoneers are on record for issuing ccw to known drunken wife beaters. nt

[Straw Man]

5. That's simply not true.

A number of gungeoneers are on record for issuing ccw to known drunken wife beaters.

What they are on record for is following due process for denial of a CCW. "Joe Schmoe said you're a drunken wife beater" is not due process.

"Known" is not the same as "convicted." Next we'll be going back to lettres de cachet and imprisonment by whim of the powers-that-be.

[flamin lib]

8. See reply #6. nt

[Straw Man]

10. #6?

See reply #6.

This one?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172140672#post6

I don't see your point.

[flamin lib]

11. Somehow I didn't think you would . . . nt

[Straw Man]

12. You're not making any sense.

And somehow you seem to think that it's my fault.

Here is the entirety of Post #6:

Hyperbole is not your friend.

Tell me how that supports your contention that "gungeoneers" favor the issuance of CCW permits to "known drunken wife beaters."

If you're suggesting that my reference to lettres de cachet is hyperbole, I would suggest that you're desperately trying to evade the main point. Perhaps that's the only strategy left to you. Sad.

[flamin lib]

13. From where I sit you're not able to see beyond GUNZ!!!!! Declare victory and go away. nt

[beevul]

14. Get off your high horse. You made a disparaging and untrue statement about several posters here

Get off your high horse. You made a disparaging and untrue statement about several posters here:

"A number of gungeoneers are on record for issuing ccw to known drunken wife beaters."

That is an untrue statement.

You knew it was untrue when you made it.

If it were true, you'd have cited it.

I was going to ask, "have you no shame", but theres no point in asking that, I think.

[blueridge3210]

15. Business as usual. NT

[flamin lib]

16. Which part of declare victory and go away did you miss?

The declare victory part or the go away part? Either way conversation is over. You're the second on my ignore list, congratulations.

[beevul]

17. WOW, you sure fixxed me.

And no, pro-gun people aren't going to "go away".

Folks like you have bansalot. Maybe its you that should go away, right on over to bansalot.


In any case, that your response to being called out for making false and disparaging statements about others, is to ignore rather than delete and apologize...says as much about you as the statements you initially made.

And it doesn't say anything good.

[blueridge3210]

18. The conversation is over, yet you are still typing? NT

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

6. Hyperbole is not your friend.

[ileus]

4. And we trust them to issue CC permits...

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

7. Actually, since those towns are in NJ...

...we trust them to issue CC permits and they, in fact, do not.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

9. So what you're saying is --

the police cannot be trusted protect the populace even when the laws are written to grant them power to interdict.