title:  Mentally-Ill Mother Shoots Sleeping Five-Year-Old In The Head (VIDEO)
text: The warning signs were everywhere.Forty-one-year-old Sara Atkinson had stopped taking her medication. According to family members, she was growing increasingly paranoid. She claimed there were bombs planted in her home and thought there cameras hidden inside her five-year-old son s shoes.At one point Atkinson had threatened to kill herself and take her son with her.Shortly before Kenny Kreuscher s mother put a .22 rifle to his head as he lay sleeping, the little boy told his father that his mommy had punched him.Ken Kreuscher Sr. recorded the conversation with his son, documenting marks left on the child by his mentally ill mother, hoping that someone would intervene.Over the course of the past year, Ken Kreuscher had filed numerous police reports and contacted child protective services multiple times. He d gone to court to try to get an order of protection. I ve been telling everyone in court this was a possibility that this would happen,  Kreuscher said during an interview with Denver s KDVR, on March 11.But while Kreuscher raised the alarm over and over, no-one intervened on his son s behalf.At the beginning of March, the Colorado mother left the state with Kenny, traveling to Roundup, Montana.On March 5, while still in Montana, she shot the little boy in his sleep. She then turned the gun on herself.The five-year-old died 12 hours later.Here s more on the story from KUSA.There s a fine line between violating the rights of person who has been diagnosed with mental illness and protecting the lives of innocent people.Under federal law, a person who has been deemed to be a threat to themselves or others is not supposed to be able to possess a gun. The problem with the law, however, is that there are very strict rules about when and how a person with serious mental illness is determined to be a  threat to themselves or others. In the case of Sara Atkinson, although the people closest to her, including her own son, were sounding the alarm about her mental health, the law offers little help.While it s unknown where Sara Atkinson got the gun that she used to kill herself and her child, there was likely no law preventing her from purchasing or owning a gun, in spite of the warning signs in her behavior.Restrictions on gun ownership are limited to people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental institution, people who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity in a court of law and people who have been found incompetent to stand trial.At one time, local law enforcement officials were far more likely to err on the side of caution, requesting gun permits and licenses be revoked in cases where a person s behavior suggested a potential threat.For example, until 2010, local law enforcement officials in Tennessee could ask the state to revoke a gun permit in cases where a person  poses a material likelihood of risk to the public. But second amendment nuts challenged the state s law, calling it a violation of gun owner s rights.Thanks to the NRA, all across the country, it has become increasingly difficult to limit anyone s access to a gun.Today, even when all of the warning signs are there, it s nearly impossible to revoke a person s  right  to own a gun.Image credit: video screen capture via KUSA