Lucky said:
Honestly, you always have a lot of good information, but on this one you are just so wrong.
Well then, you shouldn't have any trouble pointing me towards the section of the bill that you claim expands existing restrictions. Now that you have made all these assertions, would you mind doing that?
Wishing you hadn't wasted hundreds of dollars seeing that shrink or marriage councilor, and now it can be used to deny you on top of that.
No it cannot; because you see, going to see a shrink or marriage counselor is not the same thing as "being adjudicated mental defective" or "committed to a mental institution."
JLStorm said:
From the legal wording that one user posted it looks like anyone comitted to a mental health facility voluntarily or involuntarily would be unable to purchase a gun. Now it only says involuntarily on the backround check. How long until it says "have you ever been depressed or been to a psycologist"?
The bill in question says "commitment" much like 922(g) also says committed to a mental institution. The definition of "commitment" is explained in the federal regulations at
27 CFR 178.11
Adjudicated as a mental defective. - (a) A determination by a court,
board, commission, or other lawful authority that a person, as a result
of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness, incompetency,
condition, or disease:
(1) Is a danger to himself or to others; or
(2) Lacks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs.
(b) The term shall include--
(1) A finding of insanity by a court in a criminal case; and
(2) Those persons found incompetent to stand trial or found not
guilty by reason of lack of mental responsibility pursuant to articles
50a and 72b of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U.S.C. 850a,
876b.
Committed to a mental institution - A formal commitment of a person
to a mental institution by a court, board, commission, or other lawful
authority. The term includes a commitment to a mental institution
involuntarily. The term includes commitment for mental defectiveness or
mental illness. It also includes commitments for other reasons, such as
for drug use. The term does not include a person in a mental institution
for observation or a voluntary admission to a mental institution.
If you don't meet one of those two categories, then you aren't covered by 922(g) - which is already law and not part of this bill. What this bill does is make state mental health records available to NICS in order to determine whether you fit under 922(g). To the extent the bill just makes court findings of mental incompetence part of NICS, it probably isn't that big of a deal. One concern though is that H.R. 297 says that
any records that
could be used to determine this should be sent to NICS. I would be very concerned about mental records that don't involve court findings being sent to the federal government.
A second concern is that the definitions used above are from the federal regulations. This means that they are agency-written regulations and not Congressional legislation. Congress can always override agency-written regulations; but one concern is that a future federal agency might decide to change the definition and that decision is not subject to a vote in Congress. There are a lot of good logistical reasons not to do this, even if you wanted to; but it is something that is possible and tha gun owners should be aware of. However, realize that whether you support H.R. 297 or not, you will still have this problem because this is how the law is
already.
This link contains an excellent summary of these issues as well as case law on the subject of whether someone has been "adjudicated mentally defective or committed"
http://www.ncids.org/Commitment Manual/Appendix E.pdf
pcosmar said:
This would not have stoped Cho.
He had NOT "been adjudicated as a mental defective or been committed to any mental institution;"
He was sent for an evaluation, and was found to NOT be a danger.
Actually, you are touching on the exact issue this bill was meant to address. Under the federal definition of "adjudicated mentally defective" that is contained in 27 CFR 178.11 (cited above), Cho HAD been "adjudicated mentally defective" because a court found him to be a danger to himself or others. Under Virginia law though, only involuntary commitment counted and Cho did not meet that. Because Congress may not command states to report (see Printz v. United States) information to NICS, Congress must either bribe (more federal funds) or extort (less federal funds) states to report information according to the federal definition.
This bill uses a combination of carrot and the stick. It starts out by giving money to states to include more mental health records in NICS and then after a few years, it threatens to withhold money unless they continue to automate.
Personally, I don't think that H.R. 297
as it is currently written is a good bill. It has problems and some poor drafting in areas that we should be worried about. I wouldn't support it; but I wouldn't ask the NRA to take the suicidal step of opposing it publicly either. Mental health professionals have been doing a fine job of killing the bill off the past 5 years despite bipartisan support from Republicans and Democrats and gun control and NRA. If I were the NRA, I would say I support it and then do nothing and let it die again this year. On the other hand, I also don't think we should automatically assume that this bill can't be made into a positive either. With some rewriting and a few additional provisions, this could be a bill where everybody gets something they want.
Frankly, the biggest danger to my firearms ownership posed by H.R. 297 at the moment is that people who can't read any of the good, factual information in any one of the 10 threads on the issue are going to cause me to blow a gasket and be involuntarily committed.
They write the laws, people accept, and then they change the regulations. If US law is anything like Canada, regulations are much easier to change than laws.
