Mental Records Missing From Gun Database

[Judi Lynn]

Mental Records Missing From Gun Database
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, November 26, 2005
(11-26) 09:37 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

In Alabama, a man with a history of mental illness killed two police officers with a rifle he bought on Christmas Eve.

In suburban New York, a schizophrenic walked into a church during Mass and shot to death a priest and a parishioner.

In Texas, a woman taking anti-psychotic medication used a shotgun to kill herself.

Not one of their names was in a database that licensed gun dealers must check before making sales — even though federal law prohibits the mentally ill from purchasing guns.
(snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/26/national/w093720S73.DTL

[stepnw1f]

1. Oh Goody!

Boy do I feel safer....

[Judi Lynn]

2. List of Rejected Gun Sales

List of Rejected Gun Sales
By The Associated Press

Saturday, November 26, 2005
(11-26) 09:38 PST , (AP) --

A prospective gun buyer's criminal record is the most common reason the FBI rejects sales that are submitted by federally licensed guns dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

A breakdown of the 850,000 rejected sales since 1998, according to the FBI:

_88 percent: criminal history, including felony, misdemeanor domestic violence, repeat drunken driving and drug abuse convictions.

_4 percent: domestic violence restraining orders.
(snip)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/26/national/w093850S74.DTL

[Turbineguy]

8. 126,000 rejected in 2003

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/guncontrol/a/brady2003.htm

That turns out to be about 1.6 percent.

Now I wonder what the percent of incidence of mental illness is in the general population. Yikes!

[jody]

3. Article wrongly states, "federal law prohibits the mentally ill from

purchasing guns".

In fact federal law only prohibits selling guns to anyone who "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution". 18 USC 922

[Solo_in_MD]

5. The problem is how should the gun dealers find out

Current system relies on online records. The dealers have to query the existing data and rely on its accuracy, good or bad. There are also stories of fully qualified people being denied purchases due to errors (ID theft, mistyped SSN). The issue here is and should be the accuracy of the system and how quickly mistakes in it can be fixed. Of course the price for this is a further erosion in what little medical and legal privacy we have left.

[jody]

6. Which patients who see an MD or Psychologist do you want to put in NICS,

the National Instant Criminal Background Check System?

As I pointed out current law says only those "adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution".

The article does not say whether the cases cited involve people of that class.

[Solo_in_MD]

7. My point exactly.

Seeking grief counseling after the death of a loved one should in no way block someone from firearms purchases. Clearly valid institutionalization would. Its the middle ground that gets fuzzy and hard.

[whatever4]

4. Sadly

When looking at what all the authorities could use to call a mental problem, I'm almost glad they aren't very good at tracking it. I mean honestly, should children also be taken from anyone with a "history", and would that be anyone that ever attended therapy, anyone that took medication (ever), or what? You get my drift. I can see how it's a problem, but, the other problem I mention bothers me equally as much. In looking at the overall trend of problems with lies and corruption and greed in politics, I think authoritarian abuse worries me more right now, actually.

Look at it this way, how many of us are well and truly depressed over current events and actions in our government, so, how many of us would rightly and prudently be put on that list for reacting to a terrible situation in a perfectly appropriate, normal, human way? It's not paranoid if they really are out to get you. One of my favorite movie line paraphrases. It's not silly to be very sad to watch our democracy turn into this ugly war machine it has become, unfeeling of human lives and welfare. Sadness? Has anyone here not spent time crying over it? No don't answer that; I'm a whimp.

What I mean to say is, some of those neocons really do think we're a little unbalanced to be upset about things like gay marriage bans and the war. The right thinks the left is nuts just as much as we know they're nuts. Projecting their own bad behavior on us, they don't even realize they're doing it. They think we're loony, left-wing, lacking in God and morals, many of us. They think we're not "right". They want to believe we're the crazy ones, and I mean, they want to believe that with a passion. They'll go far and run fast to get away from reality, to prove this point of faith, to themselves. This we know.

Not to invalidate your point entirely, and not to say it's not terrible when people are hurt. I just had to bring up this side of it. It's a restriction on our rights based on a measure of what is mentally healthy...in a nation under a government that is NOT mentally healthy. I'd just as soon they don't manage those particular records very well, I'd be happy with just using arrest histories, etc.

[Wise Doubter]

9. And, if you go to a gun show you don`t get checked at all

Isn`t that comforting ??!

[twaddler01]

10. Wonderful!

I look forward to meeting these lunatics! :sarcasm:

[Sgent]

11. While I have no problem

restricting sales to those who have been committed (court order), I have a real problem with the government expecting doctors to turn over a list of their patients.

Its one thing to get information from public court records, another to get it by breaking confidentiality.