The Desmond Inquiry:
Lionel Desmond wouldn’t have had a valid licence to buy the rifle he used to kill his family if the New Brunswick Firearms Office had been aware of the extent of his interactions with mental health care providers and the RCMP.
Lionel Desmond wouldn’t have had a valid licence to buy the rifle he used to kill his family if the New Brunswick Firearms Office had been aware of the extent of his interactions with mental health care providers and the RCMP.
That's what the Desmond fatality inquiry heard from the operations manager for the provincial firearms office Thursday
Judge Warren Zimmer read her a letter signed by doctors at a Fredericton occupational stress injury clinic recommending an inpatient facility in Quebec take Desmond as a client due to his severe post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, amongst other issues.
“If our office would have been privy to this letter it would have changed the outcome of his licence review,” Lysa Rossignol testified.
She reinstated Desmond’s possession and acquisition licence in 2016.
At the time, Rossignol also didn’t know that the day after Oromocto RCMP seized a rifle and arrested Desmond under the Mental Health Act for threatening to commit suicide, he drove five hours to his wife’s home in Upper Big Tracadie and tried to get a rifle returned to him there.
"But we already have Red Flag Laws"
