A “Good” Gun-Control Law?

Earlier this year, after Seung Hui Cho went on his rampage at Virginia Tech, I wanted to write about’no, I wanted to scream about’t he need to keep guns out of the hands of these nutjobs and about my frustration at the inability of NICS to put the nix on gun sales to these young wackos. In the end, I changed my mind and wrote only about the sorrow we all felt from the tragedy and the shame we felt at how the anti-gun lobby tried to use the incident to further its own agenda.

I changed my mind and the topic of my previous editorial because, first of all, I realized I’m not qualified to write on the subject of mental illness; I know next to nothing about psychiatry or how to identify someone who is potentially dangerous to himself or others. And I changed my mind because, as concerned as I am about ending these violent episodes, I’m equally concerned with the individual’s personal liberties and the individual’s right to privacy.

I hoped, in any case, that cooler, smarter heads would address the problem, and something positive would come out of the Blacksburg shootings’s omething that might restrict the rights of the criminally insane, without further restricting the rights of the rest of us. It looks to me like the "something" I was looking for is in the works as we go to press with this issue. It’s known as HR 2640, the "NICS Improvement Act," which overwhelmingly passed the U. S.

House of Representatives by a voice vote last week (early June). The Democrat-backed legislation, written in coordination with the National Rifle Association, supports measures to prohibit firearm purchases by those who have been adjudicated by a court as mentally defective or as a danger to themselves or others.

HR 2640 would provide financial incentives to states to make records of prohibited individuals available for use in the NICS, and would also require federal agencies to provide such records. (Note that those individuals blocked from buying a gun by these newly provided and updated records’s uch as Cho’ are already prohibited under current law from owning firearms.) Additionally, the bill makes some much-needed improvements to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), according to the NRA.

For example, certain types of mental health orders will no longer prohibit a person from possessing a firearm, and adjudications that have expired or been removed from a person who has completed treatment and has been released with no further supervision will no longer prohibit the legal purchase of a firearm.

This provision also addresses concerns about disability decisions by the Veterans Administration, and would restore the 2nd-Amendment rights of thousands of discharged military personnel who had their rights taken away by the Clinton/Gore administration.

Like current federal law, HR 2640 would not prohibit gun possession by people who have voluntarily sought psychological counseling or checked themselves into a hospital; records of voluntary treatment also would not be available under federal and state health-privacy laws. Similarly, voluntary drug or alcohol treatment would not be reported to NICS. The bill is now headed to the Senate.

The NRA promises to monitor the legislation throughout the congressional process to ensure that any changes to the bill will benefit lawful gun purchasers and restrict only those presently adjudicated by the courts as mentally defective. I don’t know if this bill could have prevented the tragedy at Virginia Tech, but I do know one thing: It’s the first piece of gun-control legislation I’ve ever supported. Editor Keith Lawrence Technical