The Associated Press' Tom Breen has found that West Virginia is among 28 states unable or unwilling to supply the mental health records needed to enforce a federal 1968-era ban on selling guns to anyone "adjudged mentally ill."
The Mountain State "does not report involuntary psychiatric commitments to the FBI because the state doesn't know how many such commitments there are," Breen reports.
The state Supreme Court is developing a computer system to record these commitments, handled by the counties, but it won't be online until at least 2010, the AP story said.
The Virginia Tech massacre has prompted the review of existing gun laws, and Breen reports on possible congressional action in this area.
Update: Public Broadcasting's Scott Finn has also focused on this topic, with a piece that aired on National Public Radio's Morning Edition on Wednesday (with audio link).
26 April 2007
Gun Control & Mental Health - Updated
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The situation is not as complex or as simple as the AP story suggests.
All involuntary hospitalizations for mental illness or addiction in WV are recorded at circuit clerks' offices, and a simple form could be used to report them to the state police when they occur -- there are several thousand a year.
But ninety percent of these hospitalizations are only "probable cause" based, and do not go to a final adjudication, because the person is stabilized on medication and released.
Naturally, in a rural, gun-friendly state, all limitations on gun ownership are politically touchy.
Finally, there is apparently no clarity as to what the federal standard means in this context.
In other words, the problem is not the lack of a means of reporting -- but other policy and political obstacles.
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