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After a dash to passage that would make Belmont Stakes winner Rags-to-Riches whinny with embarrassment, the House of Representatives is claiming a significant victory with the passage of HR-2640, which makes "improvements" to the National Instant Check System (NICS). Two days after the legislation was introduced in the House it passed on a voice vote and was sent to the Senate, where it is as we go to press. HR-2640 requires states to automate the mental healthrecords they share with the FBI that are included in the NICS system database. It will provide $250 million annually to the states over the next three years to implement these updates, while penalizing states that do not update their systems by certain deadlines. The bill was the result of behind-the-scenes negotiating and was signed off on by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the largest firearms-industry trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). According to reports in The Washington Post, the NRA "drove a hard bargain." NRA reportedly will also stand by only the House version-if changes are made in the Senate version it could withdraw its support. Unsurprisingly, the bill was a response to the mid-April Virginia Tech (VT) shooting in which a deranged young man, with a serious mental health history, but apparently no paper trail of the same, was able to legally purchase the firearms he used to kill fellow students, teachers and himself. The media was quick to point out that HR-2640 is the first "gun control" bill to be passed on the federal level since the Clinton Crime Bill, which banned some semi-automatic rifles and large capacity magazines. And, while on face value it certainly seems like a good idea to exclude those people who have been committed or adjudicated as a mental health risk to themselves or others, the question becomes more complex for a number of reasons. First, different jurisdictions handle cases differently, so, what might receive a mental health evaluation in one place, would not necessarily do so in another. One person might ended up in the NICS records, but someone in another state involved in an identical incident might not. The biggest sticking point however concerns Relief from Disability (RFD). The new legislation will allow many people, mainly veterans, to use an RFD provision to expunge records, because as the Veterans Administration has admitted, many service people who received mental health problems never had legal hearings. This would seem to make sense, but causes concern because it applies only to one small segment of the population. At one time, RFD existed for all citizens, including those adjudicated for minor crimes. The process allowed someone, who, for example, was convicted of a felony count 18 or younger, to have his or her right to own a gun restored years later. But since 1991, there has been no funding for RFD, because the agencies involved have not requested it from Congress. And, of course, Congress has cowered before the anti-gun lobby and not insisted funding be restored. The manner in which the new legislation appeared so quickly and was approved by what can only be described as a gutless voice vote (with no roll call), is also troubling. Whether the Senate will get away with a tactic like that remains to be seen. At minimum, legislators who think any bill is worthwhile should be willing to stand up and be counted as among its supporters (or vice versa). Gunowners on Internet forums have been chewing this all over, and while the Net makes communication fast, it doesn't always make it clear. By the time you read this issue it seems more than likely that the bill will be passed in the Senate and signed by President Bush. Politicians on both sides of the aisle will go home to their districts and proclaim that they "did something" about the VT shootings. And it will remain to be seen whether this legislation "does anything" to prevent another shooting in a so-called gun free zone.
Photo © Copyright 1998 Nancy Floyd, used with permission. |
By
Peggy Tartaro,
