According to a November 30th article in the Washington Post, the FBI has become more serious about trying to keep guns out of the hands of Americans with mental illnesses.
According to the Post, “Justice officials said the FBI’s ‘Mental Defective File’ has ballooned from 175,000 names in June to nearly 400,000, primarily because of additions from California. The names are listed in a subset of a database that gun dealers are supposed to check before completing sales.â€
The Virginia Tech shootings raised awareness of the “mental illness†gap in “instant checks†of gun purchasers. A controversial bill supported by the NRA and gun control groups that will allegedly help bolster record keeping of prohibited purchasers is languishing in the U.S. Senate, due to a hold put on it by gun extremist Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Even if passed, some contend the legislation will actually open up new loopholes, particularly for Veterans judged to have mental health issues.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group favoring tighter firearms controls, told the Post that the most optimistic estimates suggest that even the FBI’s expanded list is missing 4 of 5 Americans who have been ruled mentally dangerous to themselves or others.
Nonetheless, the more guns not sold to unstable individuals, the better for society, even if it is a small incremental step to dealing with America’s gun violence problem.
The growth in the FBI’s database is a step in the right direction, but just one very small step.
