Five hours after a 20-minute shooting rampage that ended in the death of a 9-year-old boy riding home in a minivan with his mother, detectives from Oakdale and the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension arrived at suspect Nhan Tran's home with a search warrant.
Among the many items of evidence detectives collected from the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet in Tran's room were two pieces of paper: a permit to purchase a firearm and a receipt for the Glock 9-millimeter handgun he had purchased from a nearby sporting goods store.
Tran, 34, who faces six felony charges — including a count of second-degree murder in the death of Devin Aryal — was found to be mentally incompetent last month by a court-appointed psychologist.
Yet he was able to clear the background check that enabled him to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer.
That Tran was able to buy a gun goes to the heart of the gun background check debate that has been raging in St. Paul and Washington, with one side arguing the futility of trying to create a foolproof system that ends up infringing on law-abiding gun buyers, the other pointing to the urgency to improve the system to keep more guns out of the wrong hands.
It also affirms the common ground on both sides of this contentious issue: the need to reach and help the mentally ill before they do harm.
"Since the Brady Act was enacted after an attempted assassination on President Reagan, nearly 2 million people nationally have been prevented from purchasing firearms because of background checks. That's not an insignificant number," said state Rep. Michael Paymar, DFL-St. Paul, who has taken the lead in advocating for stronger gun laws in the Legislature.
Minnesota's background checks cover purchases from licensed dealers, but not private sales at gun shows, on the Internet or among private parties. Despite the defeat of universal background checks in the U.S. Senate last week, Paymar is holding out hope that background checks will be broadened and strengthened when the bill reaches the House.