Va. governor may close gun-access loophole

[hnk45acp]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18290395/

Va. governor may close gun-access loophole
Gunman exploited law in order to buy guns used in campus rampage


Updated: 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia's governor said Tuesday he may be able to close the loophole that allowed a mentally ill Virginia Tech student to acquire the guns he used to kill 32 classmates and faculty last week.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said in a radio interview that changes in the reporting of people a court has ruled have mental problems into a background check database might be possible with an executive order.

Seung-Hui Cho had been ordered by a court to undergo psychiatric counseling after he was ruled to present a danger to himself.

But because doctors Cho was treated as an outpatient and never committed to a mental health hospital, the court finding never made it into the database that federal law requires gun dealers to check before selling a firearm .

This breaking story will be updated.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

[buzz_knox]

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said in a radio interview that changes in the reporting of people a court has ruled have mental problems into a background check database might be possible with an executive order.

This will bring some interesting due process violation claims.

 

[crebralfix]

After all, if the legislature won't make law, the King should.

 

[skidmark]

I'm not all that sure an Executive Order can do what Gov. Kaine wants to accomplish. The Mental Health system falls under the Executive Branch, but the Involuntary Committment Order is issued by the Judicial Branch.

Is he going to order MH to send certain records/info to the Central Criminal Recoreds Exchange? I cannot find anything in the Code of Virginia prohibiting that, or prohibiting CCRE from accepting information from MH.:banghead:

§ 37.2-819. Order of involuntary admission forwarded to CCRE; firearm background check.
The clerk shall certify and forward forthwith to the Central Criminal Records Exchange, on a form provided by the Exchange, a copy of any order for involuntary admission to a facility. The copy of the form and the order shall be kept confidential in a separate file and used only to determine a person's eligibility to possess, purchase, or transfer a firearm.

(emphasis added)

The big job is going to be preventing anything else to being added to 37.2-819 in the next legislative session (January 2008).

stay safe.

skidmark

 

[Ratzinger_p38]

Be nice if other states would do this so we wouldnt have some new McCarthy law.

 

[Kali Endgame]

What loophole? That guy had nothing in the system and the system OK'd him for the purchase. Too bad you can't close the loophole on being a moron.

 

[Roc_Kor]

A judge had ruled him a danger to himself and others. He went to a treatment center on an outpatient basis. That "should" have appeared on the NICS check. That's the "loophole."

 

[cloudedice]

Be nice if states could repeal all gun laws so we could really start seeing some change.

 

[SouthpawShootr]

I don't view it as a loophole. In my view, the state and by extension, the governor was negligent in failing to provide information to a federal database that could have prevented this guy from purchasing a gun (through an FFL anyway). He was found to be a danger to himself (the language was most likely "himself and others"). Trying to excuse the state's failing to report this matter as a vague federal law is simply passing the buck.

Implying that Cho intentionally exploited this so-called loophole is giving the guy to much credit. He may not even have realized that he was prohibited from buying or owning a gun. Probably just spun the dice.

Now to Kaine's proposal to close the loophole through executive order. I don't like the guy (it comforts me that he'll be out of office in 4 years and cannot be re-elected). Never have, never will, but my personal likes and dislikes aside, it scares the hell out of me when one of these chief executives (President, governor, mayor, Republican, Democrat, whatever) uses this avenue to get what they want. He's basically taking a legislative function that, in my view, is outside his pervue. He wants it done, then he can get somebody to introduce a bill. Standing there and making it a decree concentrates the power of two branches of government into the hands of one person and makes him too much like a king.

 

[Erebus]

Gunman exploited law in order to buy guns used in campus rampage

They are all trying to convince the general public that he did something to effect the outcome of the background check rather than it just being a failure of the system.

If it's just a failure of the system then all they can do is fix the system that is already in place.

If they can make everyone believe that it's something that Cho did to 'beat' the system than they can pass new laws and restrictions in the name of preventing everyone from doing what Cho supposedly did.

 

[JohnBT]

The funny thing is that Virginia leads the nation in reporting mental health data to NICS. Only 22 states report any at all.

John

 

[Waitone]

Temporary or permanent restraining orders in cases of DV sounds like a noble provision. And one could make a case that it was necessary . . . . . right up until some idiot got the brilliant idea of an administrative RO issue immediately and routinely in all divorce cases. Great evil is done by the government to the innocent all in the name of safety.

We're headed down the same road in the VT case and I for one don't like it. Removing "adjudicate" from the process will open the door to all kinds of utopian planners letting them change society without interference of the legislative branch. Bad mojo.

 

[RealGun]

The blissninnies are all in a dither, and the Governor feels pressure to do something to comfort them.

I stand with Laura Bush in not making too much of a random incident.

What I think would have made a difference is not giving Cho extra consideration against being expelled or suspended for treatment, because he was a "foreign" student and upperclassman. Reasons for being removed from a professor's class should have been a very big deal. Now we get extra slack to avoid creating an FBI record.

 

[JohnBT]

Googled up at random, an article from the NYTimes on Virginia's new law.

"March 2007. Virginia passed a law, the first in the nation, prohibiting public colleges and universities from expelling or punishing students solely for attempting suicide or seeking mental-health treatment for suicidal thoughts.

“In one sense, the new law doesn’t cover new territory, because discrimination against people with mental health problems is already prohibited,” said Dana L. Fleming, a lawyer in Manchester, N.H., who is an expert on education law. “But in another sense, it’s ground-breaking since it’s the first time we’ve seen states focus on student suicides and come up with some code of conduct for schools.”"

 

[justashooter]

current legislation allows for the disqualification of an individual "involuntarily comitted". the problem, in Cho's case, was that the judge did not commit him. he simply ordered him to attend outpatient therapy. comittment involves locked doors and padded cells, not one hour therapy visits twice a week.

 

[VARifleman]

justashooter, when the judge said that he is a danger to himself and others, that means he was declared mentally incompetant (or whatever the term is from the GCA) and thus prohibited from owning firearms per federal law.