By Moriah Balingit / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Originally published January 19, 2013
After facing legal and technical challenges for more than two years, the Pennsylvania State Police this week began transmitting hundreds of thousands of mental health records to a federal database used to conduct background checks for potential gun buyers.
On Tuesday, 643,167 mental health records were sent to the FBI-run National Instant Check System (NICS), according to the state police. The records represent people who are prohibited from buying guns because of involuntary mental health commitments.
"It's been an objective of ours for close to two years, so I think it's an important accomplishment that these records were able to be uploaded to NICS," said Lt. Col. Scott Snyder, deputy commissioner for the state police. The state police are working to fix a program that will upload the records automatically as they're created.
Strengthening the national database and universal background checks have been pillars of President Barack Obama's gun control agenda. On Wednesday, when he unfurled a massive gun control package, some executive orders were intended to make it easier for states to transmit mental health records to NICS.
Despite the state's achieving that goal, a disagreement between the state police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives over interpretation of federal gun law throws into question how the records will be used. At issue is the 302, the shortest and most common type of involuntary mental health commitment.
On Friday, a spokeswoman for the ATF said the bureau was still reviewing whether a 302 should preclude someone under federal law from buying a gun.
The entire story is here.
Showing posts with label Gun Violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gun Violence. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Hickenlooper's Gun Control
The Colorado Governor's plan to fix mental health, not firearms alone.
Review and Outlook - The Wall Street Journal
Originally published January 15, 2013
Gun control has been the exclusive political fixation of President Obama's Washington after Newtown, so perhaps readers will be surprised to learn that some states are being more constructive. One of them is Colorado, where Governor John Hickenlooper is promoting an innovative overhaul of his state's mental health-care system.
In his State of the State address last week, the Democrat said that "our democracy demands" a debate over guns, violence and mental illness—not least in the aftermath of James Holmes's attack on an Aurora movie theater that killed 12 and wounded 58 in July. "Let me prime the pump," Mr. Hickenlooper said. "Why not have universal background checks for all gun sales?"
There was a lot of media attention for that line, but much less for what followed. As Mr. Hickenlooper continued, "It's not enough to prevent dangerous people from getting weapons. We have to do a better job identifying and helping people who are a threat to themselves and others." His office spent the last five months developing a detailed $18.5 million plan to modernize civil commitment laws while expanding community-based mental health treatment.
The rest of the story is here.
Review and Outlook - The Wall Street Journal
Originally published January 15, 2013
Gun control has been the exclusive political fixation of President Obama's Washington after Newtown, so perhaps readers will be surprised to learn that some states are being more constructive. One of them is Colorado, where Governor John Hickenlooper is promoting an innovative overhaul of his state's mental health-care system.
In his State of the State address last week, the Democrat said that "our democracy demands" a debate over guns, violence and mental illness—not least in the aftermath of James Holmes's attack on an Aurora movie theater that killed 12 and wounded 58 in July. "Let me prime the pump," Mr. Hickenlooper said. "Why not have universal background checks for all gun sales?"
There was a lot of media attention for that line, but much less for what followed. As Mr. Hickenlooper continued, "It's not enough to prevent dangerous people from getting weapons. We have to do a better job identifying and helping people who are a threat to themselves and others." His office spent the last five months developing a detailed $18.5 million plan to modernize civil commitment laws while expanding community-based mental health treatment.
The rest of the story is here.
Warning Signs of Violent Acts Often Unclear
By BENEDICT CAREY and ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
The New York Times
Published: January 15, 2013
No one but a deeply disturbed individual marches into an elementary school or a movie theater and guns down random, innocent people.
That hard fact drives the public longing for a mental health system that produces clear warning signals and can somehow stop the violence. And it is now fueling a surge in legislative activity, in Washington and New York.
But these proposed changes and others like them may backfire and only reveal how broken the system is, experts said.
“Anytime you have one of these tragic cases like Newtown, it’s going to expose deficiencies in the mental health system, and provide some opportunity for reform,” said Richard J. Bonnie, a professor of public policy at the University of Virginia’s law school who led a state commission that overhauled policies after the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings that left 33 people dead. “But you have to be very careful not to overreact.”
The entire story is here.
The New York Times
Published: January 15, 2013
No one but a deeply disturbed individual marches into an elementary school or a movie theater and guns down random, innocent people.
That hard fact drives the public longing for a mental health system that produces clear warning signals and can somehow stop the violence. And it is now fueling a surge in legislative activity, in Washington and New York.
But these proposed changes and others like them may backfire and only reveal how broken the system is, experts said.
“Anytime you have one of these tragic cases like Newtown, it’s going to expose deficiencies in the mental health system, and provide some opportunity for reform,” said Richard J. Bonnie, a professor of public policy at the University of Virginia’s law school who led a state commission that overhauled policies after the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings that left 33 people dead. “But you have to be very careful not to overreact.”
The entire story is here.
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