“You can commit mass murder then still go to heaven.”

On August 4, George Sodini , 48, walked into the LA Fitness Center in Collier, Pennsylvania, wearing black workout gear and a headband. In his pocket was a .32 semiautomatic handgun. He carried a duffel bag with three more handguns: two 9mm semiautomatic pistols with 30-round clips and a .45 caliber revolver. All told, he was carrying 150 rounds of ammunition.

Sodini entered an exercise room where an aerobics class was taking place, turned off the lights, and opened fire, emptying one of the 9mm pistols. He then drew the second 9mm pistol and continued firing. In his last act, Sodini drew the .45 revolver and shot himself in the head. When the smoke cleared, at least 36 rounds had been fired and Sodini and three women lay dead. Sodini’s victims were Heidi Overmier, 46; Elizabeth Gannon, 49; and Jody Billingsley, 37. Nine other women were wounded in the shooting.

Within minutes of the tragedy becoming national news, the internet community discovered a journal that Sodini had posted online. In it, Sodini provided his name, date of birth, and hometown—and in a series of entries dating back to November 2008 detailed his plans to commit mass murder. Sodini asked “Why do this?? To young girls?” and made it clear that it was because he was lonely, suicidal, and deeply angry at women, who he felt had spurned him his entire life. He took comfort, however, in a conversation with his pastor at Tetelestai Church in Pittsburgh, who convinced him that “you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven.” The journal even detailed a previous failed murder-suicide attempt by Sodini on January 6 of this year. “I chickened out!” he wrote. “I brought the loaded guns, everything. Hell!”

Authorities had also had previous contact with Sodini. Jack Rickard, a deacon at Tetelestai Church, reported Sodini after he harassed a woman there. A state trooper called Sodini to discuss the matter with him, but no charges were filed. Sodini was asked to leave the church, however, and he did.

A week before the shooting, Sodini came to authorities’ attention again when they received reports that a man on a public bus in Pittsburgh had pulled out what appeared to be a grenade from a computer bag. The man saw a passenger on the bus watching him and said, “It is real. Do you want to hold it?” Soon after, police questioned Sodini—who matched a description provided by the passenger. Sodini denied any involvement, and escaped charges when the passenger couldn’t confirm him as the suspect. After the shooting at LA Fitness Center, Allegheny County Police found a note in Sodini’s home that referred to the grenade incident. “Don’t worry about that; it was a fake,” it said.

Despite all this, Sodini purchased the firearms using in the shooting legally (and bought one of his high capacity-magazines and a magazine loader from Eric Thompson, the online gun dealer who also armed mass shooters Seung-Hui Cho and Steven Kazmierczak). Sodini also held a permit to carry a concealed handgun in the state of Pennsylvania.

The screening process for both purchasing firearms and obtaining a concealed carry permit in Pennsylvania involves a computerized background check. That check searches a state database and also the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the federal database maintained by the FBI. Because he had no significant criminal record, and because he had not been involuntarily committed to a mental institution or adjudicated as a “mental defective,” Sodini passed those checks. No background investigation is conducted in Pennsylvania to determine if there is any significant history that is missed by the computer check (this is despite the fact that the NICS database is missing millions of records that should be disqualifying purchasers). The result is that Pennsylvania authorities allowed Sodini to purchase firearms and carry a handgun in public without even looking for what it took bloggers minutes to find—a publicly-posted journal detailing his plans to slaughter women.

George Sodini is the fourth confirmed concealed carry permit holder to commit mass murder this year. Like him, the others—Frank Garcia, Michael McClendon, and Richard Poplawski—all had obvious red flags in their background that should have prevented them from obtaining their permits. It has been clear for some time in America that our weak gun laws make it easy for dangerous individuals to purchase firearms. The frequency with which they are obtaining permits to carry concealed handguns in public is a phenomenon that is even more disturbing.

“It was almost like looking in the devil’s eyes.”

On March 10, 28 year-old Michael McLendon began a shooting rampage at the ranch-style home in Coffee County, Alabama, where he lived with his mother. First, he shot and killed her and her four dogs, then laid them on and around the living room couch, which he soaked with paint thinner and lit on fire.

McLendon then got into his Mitsubishi Eclipse wearing a vest loaded with ammunition and armed with a .38 caliber handgun, a shotgun, and two assault rifles (an SKS and a Bushmaster). He drove south to the town of Samson to a white frame house where he had lived for years with his uncle, James White, 55, and aunt, Phyllis White. The two were sitting on the porch with their daughter, Tracy M. Wise, 34, her son, Dean, 15, and a family that lived across the street: Andrea Myers, 31 (the wife of a local sheriff’s deputy), and her two children, 4-month old Ella and 18-month old Corrine. McLendon’s great aunt, Virginia White, 74, was in a trailer parked in the White’s yard. McLendon exited his vehicle and opened fire on them all, killing everyone but Phyllis White and Ella Myers. Phyllis White ran to a neighbor’s house and was saved when McLendon’s gun jammed. Ella was rescued by a neighbor, but had to be taken to a hospital later for surgery for a gunshot/shrapnel injury. A neighbor who saw McLendon as he pulled away from the house in his Eclipse said of him: “It was almost like looking in the devil’s eyes.”

But McLendon was not done yet. He killed another man, James Starling, 24, on a nearby street, shooting him in the back as he tried to run away. Starling was the father of two children and had another on the way. McLendon then rounded the corner and killed Sonya Smith, 43, outside a convenience store. Two men, Jeffrey Nelson, 50, and Greg McCullough, 49, were injured at the store.

McLendon then continued on to the town of Geneva. At this point, police were in pursuit of him. McLendon was still spraying fire, and killed motorist Bruce Malloy, 51. When an officer tried to ram McLendon’s Eclipse, he fired into the officer’s vehicle, narrowly missing him. McLendon then evaded a roadblock and drove to Reliable Products, a metals plant where he once worked. There he engaged in a shootout with law enforcement officers before finally entering the business, turning a gun on himself, and taking his own life.

During the entire rampage, which lasted approximately 50 minutes, McLendon fired more than 200 rounds, killed 10 innocent people, and wounded six.

Subsequent investigation revealed that McLendon held a permit to carry a concealed handgun which had been issued by the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department. A friend of his, Cecil Knowles, told reporters that McLendon had a lifelong fascination with guns. Officials have yet to indicate where McLendon purchased the firearms used in the shootings, but have indicated they were all bought legally.

After the rampage, authorities who investigated the home McLendon lived in with his mother found notes he had left on a dresser and kitchen table. “The notes had lists of co-employees and employers who apparently had done him wrong,” said 12^th Judicial Circuit District Attorney Gary McAliley. “Along side of the names, he wrote notes on who had done what, for example, ‘turned me in for not wearing earplugs.’ The note also listed three different locations of employers.” Investigators also found 20 to 30 boxes of ammunition, a bullet-proof vest, and “dozens of soot-covered DVDs on how to commit acts of violence, including how to shoot into a moving car and building a homemade gun silencer.” McLendon stopped showing up to his job shortly before the rampage, spent his free time shooting guns at the local firing range and behind his home, and talked “about being depressed about his failure to become a Marine or a police officer.” He had also been involved in an argument with family members over custody of a family Bible, and had recently received a letter from a lawyer representing another family member telling him to back off. “He was excessively upset about that,” said McAliley.

“He had obviously planned to go out in grand style,” observed Colonel Chris Murphy of the Alabama Department of Public Safety.

Disturbingly, McLendon is not the only mass shooter in recent months who held a concealed carry permit:

• CCW permit holder and Neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski killed three police officers and wounded one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 4.



• CCW permit holder Frank Garcia killed four and wounded one in a shooting rampage in upstate New York on February 14.



• CCW permit holder Randal Rushing killed three people in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on July 17, 2008, telling reporters, “I had fun.”

These incidents and others provide powerful evidence that screening procedures for concealed carry permit holders are as minimal and ineffective as those for gun purchasers in the United States. Hopefully, state legislators across the country will begin putting the safety of their citizens ahead of the interests of the gun lobby, which has consistently defended existing standards for permit holders—and even acted to weaken them further.