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<div class="">February 8, 2013</div>
<h1>Suspect in Botched Shooting Bought Gun Legally Despite Mental Illness</h1>
<h6 class="">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/kim_severson/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by KIM SEVERSON"><span>KIM SEVERSON</span></a></span> and <span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/robbie_brown/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by ROBBIE BROWN"><span>ROBBIE BROWN</span></a></span></h6>
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<p>
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The gentle pace of life on the campus of <a href="http://www.ashleyhall.org">Ashley Hall</a>,
South Carolina’s only all-girls preparatory school, appeared to be back
on Friday. Parents lined up in the shade of the live oaks to pick up
their children. A luncheon for alumnae of the school, which was founded
in 1909, went on as planned. </p>
<p>
Still, police officers patrolled the iron fence that surrounds the
school and teachers remained on edge, trying to grasp how a woman with a
public history of mental illness had managed to buy a gun a week
earlier and amazed that the gun, when pointed at administrators who
confronted her in front of the school on Monday, did not fire. </p>
<p>
Alice Boland, 28, who was charged in 2005 with threatening to assassinate President <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/george_w_bush/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about George W. Bush." class="">George W. Bush</a>
and members of Congress as she waited in line at U.S. Customs, is again
charged with plotting a violent attack. On Monday, after pacing in
front of the school gates during car pool and visibly swinging a gun,
she tried to shoot two faculty members: the director of the high school,
Mary Schweers, and an English teacher, Chris Hughes. </p>
<p>
The police charged Ms. Boland with attempted murder and unlawful
carrying of a firearm. The only thing that stopped her, they said, was
that she did not realize the gun was locked. </p>
<p>
“We were very fortunate she did not know how to take the lock off, or
this could have been a tragedy,” said Earl Woodham, a spokesman in
Charlotte for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives. </p>
<p>
The authorities are investigating whether Ms. Boland was required to
disclose her history of mental illness when she bought the gun. A small
firearms store in Walterboro, 50 miles from Charleston, sold her the
Taurus PT-22 pistol on Feb. 1. She filled out a federal background check
form and was approved. </p>
<p>
She appeared to have bought the gun legally, Mr. Woodham said. Gun
buyers nationwide are required to disclose mental illnesses only if they
have been committed to an institution or found “mentally defective” by a
judge, he said. </p>
<p>
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are mentally unstable but
who would not technically be declared mentally defective,” he said.
</p>
<p>
Ms. Boland’s 2005 brush with law enforcement came when she became upset
with the slow process of getting through Customs in Montreal. </p>
<p>
“I am going to kill President Bush with a gun,” she said, according to
federal court papers. “Just give me a gun. I am going to come back and
shoot you all.” </p>
<p>
The federal charges were dropped after she pleaded not guilty by reason of mental incompetence. </p>
<p>
In an interview on Friday, her parents, who live in nearby Beaufort,
said she continued to struggle with mental illness. Ms. Boland is being
held on $900,000 bond at a detention center in North Charleston. </p>
<p>
Just before noon Friday, as parents waited to pick up their children at
the school, the tragedy averted remained the topic of the day. Here in
the heart of historic Charleston, at a school that graduated Barbara
Bush, the former first lady, and the feminist author Nancy Friday, the
threat of gun violence had seemed like a concern for some other city.
</p>
<p>
Parents were grateful for the quick action by administrators, who used a
well-rehearsed emergency plan to secure the campus and stalled Ms.
Boland at the gate. Two weeks ago, in response to the Newtown, Conn.,
massacre, the police met with school officials to rehearse the protocol
for a school shooting. </p>
<p>
The mayor of Charleston, Joseph P. Riley Jr., said that the incident was
a “wake-up call” and that he would encourage South Carolina legislators
to tighten restrictions on background checks for mental illness.
</p>
<p>
“If you threaten to kill a president of the United States, so many alarm
bells should sound when you go to buy a gun,” he said. “We could easily
be talking about a homicide or multiple homicide. It’s a miracle we’re
not.” </p>
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<p>Kim Severson reported from Charleston, and Robbie Brown from Atlanta.</p> </div>
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