A question regarding gun background checks and the mentally ill

[NickB79]

How exactly do we walk the fine line between guaranteeing that people with mental illnesses are prohibited from purchasing firearms when their names are run through the background check system, while at the same time not violating their medical privacy rights or violating the doctor/patient confidence that is so important to treating those with mental illnesses?

I'm not very clear how the law currently works as it is with regard to this. I do know that you are supposed to be denied a firearm if you've ever been civilly committed, but that's about all.

[Recursion]

1. And you've outlined the big problem, haven't you?

Try as we might, "evil" is not in DSM-IV and probably won't be in V, and there's not a code for a psychiatrist or social worker to say "this guy really seems 'off' to me in a non-specific way".

Civil commitment and a few other interventions are supposed to make it into a state database that then gets fed to the Feds, but there are several roadblocks there (eg the state of Pennsylvania has never submitted any names) -- that was how Cho (the Virginia Tech shooter) had a clean background despite having been remanded for psychiatric care.

We can tighten this up, but really, the real issue with mental illness is that they are victims, rather than perpetrators, of violence.

[PoliticAverse]

2. The following website can give you more information on the issue...

http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/justice/possession-of-a-firearm-by-the-mentally-ill.aspx

Note that there has been an issue with getting states to actually report disqualifying events to the federal government
for inclusion in the NICS database.

[NickB79]

5. So why doesn't the Fed sue the states for this data?

It's something the federal government can do on it's own, without input from a GOP-blocked Congress. Why can't Obama, Holder, or the new ATF director take this up right now?

We want better gun control measures; getting an accurate data set in the NICS system seems to be an obvious place to start.

[PoliticAverse]

6. Because of some Supreme Court decisions the Federal government is limited in forcing states to do

things like collect and report data.

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. If you have seizures, as a matter of public safety Doctors must contact police so your license

to drive can be revoked. The law could be written so that a psychiatrist, psychologist, or physician would be required to contact the police if they have medical information that the person is a danger to himself or others.

The problem is figuring out what type of diagnosis would trigger such a report.

[Niceguy1]

4. and steps need to be taken to

Protect the persons rights....it shouldnt be just a checkbox on a form. There should be an appeals process and some sort of hearing. And any such revokation should be temporary

[former9thward]

7. The problem is the law of unintended consequences.

Someone who has a mental issue may be ill but they are not stupid. They are going to decline to seek help because they think rights will be taken away. So the very people that need help will avoid it because they don't want a written record following them around.