12/26/07
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If the bill passes, gun dealers will be allowed to check mental health records reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. |
If passed, the bill will do two things. It will provide gun dealers access to documented health reports, which will help them determine if someone can or cannot purchase a gun, and it will also "help states with the cost."
"This bill will make America safer without affecting the rights of a single law-abiding citizen," said the Senate's chief sponsor, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "I hope the president immediately signs this essential legislation."
And Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was shot on the Long Island Rail Road in New York, stated, "To me, this is the best Christmas present I could ever receive."
Both the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association agreed on the bill. If it passes, gun dealers will be allowed to check mental health records reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
One person behind the eight-month stalemate was Republican Sen. Tom Coburn. His greatest concern "was that [the bill] did not pay for successful appeals by veterans or other people who say they are wrongly barred from buying a gun," he said.
Finally, a compromise was reached. The bill would "require that incorrect records — such as expunged mental health rulings that once disqualified a prospective gun buyer but no longer do — be removed from the system within 30 days," says the Associated Press. The bill would also "authorize up to $250 million a year over five years for the states and as much as $125 million a year over the same period for state courts to help defray the cost of enacting the policy."
One viewpoint against the bill, however, is that "in forging compromise with the gun lobby, the bill's authors unintentionally imposed an unnecessary burden on government agencies by freeing up thousands of people to buy guns," says the Associated Press.
"Rather than focusing on improving the current laws prohibiting people with certain mental health disabilities from buying guns, the bill is now nothing more than a gun lobby wish list," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center. "It will waste millions of taxpayers' dollars restoring the gun privileges of persons previously determined to present a danger to themselves or others."
However, Pelosi reminded listeners of why the bill was proposed: "The tragic shooting at Virginia Tech in April starkly demonstrated that serious gaps exist in the transmittal of background records, allowing thousands of people who are barred from acquiring guns to escape proper background checks."
On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech, using two guns he had purchased. While his "documented history of mental illness" should have kept him from buying a gun, the records were never forwarded on to the national background check system.
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