Front Sight, Press

Wednesday, June 13th, H.R. 2640, a compromise version of Carolym McCarthy’s H.R. 297 was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives by a voice vote. This bill is an enhancement of the National Instant Check System for firearms purchases.

Links from Jeff Soyer

• David Hardy examines the details of the bill.
• Say Uncle has a nice round up on it.
• So does Kelley Beaucar Vlahos at Fox News. There’s a quote from me [Jeff] at the end of that article. Okay, so I’m a media whore. . .
• Then, NewsBusters looks at the typical bias by Katie Couric at CBS News regarding the bill.

 

The Post says that, under the new language, the federal government would pay (that is, spend taxpayers’ money) to help the states send more names of individual Americans to the FBI for inclusion in the background check system. If a state fails to do this, then the feds could cut various law enforcement grants to that state. In essence, this is a restatement of what the original McCarthy bill does. The states will be bribed (again, with your money) to send more names, many of them innocent gun owners, to the FBI in West Virginia — and perhaps lots of other personal information on you as well.

Under the terms of this compromise, the Post says, “individuals with minor infractions in their pasts could petition their states to have their names removed from the federal database, and about 83,000 military veterans, put into the system by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2000 for alleged mental health reasons, would have a chance to clean their records.” Sebastian at Of Arms and the Law

From Snowflakes in Hell:

 David Hardy has the language, and cuts to the relevant parts for us. The bill will be HR2640. Take a read. As best as I can tell from my reading of it, the key things we get out of this are:

• Clarification of the language of what “adjudicated mental defective” actually means.
• Ability to have mental health related disability removed through a state process
• The ability to appeal decisions of state bodies in regards to mental health related disability removal.

I was hoping for a little more, personally. But this addresses much of the concern we had about state mental health records being put into NICS. I still believe this bill is a net gain for us rather than a loss, so given the current language, I’m still inclined to not oppose passage of this bill.

UPDATE: You can see the bill here on GovTrack.  Still no text yet, but we can see the cosponsors.   I am very sorry to say that the sponsor of this legislation is Carolyn McCarthy.  I’m guessing the Democrats let her introduce the bill so she wouldn’t get snubbed by her own party.  This is a disappointment.  The Democrats would have pulled off more of a public relations coup by having Boucher introduce it.

Jeff Knox from Firearms Coalition says the following:

The Firearms Coalition has opposed passage of McCarthy’s previous “NICS Improvement” bills because we are opposed to the entire concept of the NICS program, oppose throwing another Billion dollars at this expensive placebo with little, if any, impact on crime, and we were concerned about language which would snare more individuals into prohibited status.  We were critical of NRA and NSSF for supporting the bills and critical of GOA for over-hyping the potential negative impacts of the bills.

With the negotiated language of the new bill, reduced negative impact, and inclusion of some very specific, positive improvements to the NICS system, we feel that, though it is still a large-scale waste of taxpayer money, this is not a gun control bill and the good in this bill outweighs the bad. Source

I don’t have a real problem with having the seriously mentally ill in the NICS, although I remain concerned about who sets the triggers and what kind of behavior is established as the threshold for inclusion into the NICS. The bill does not expand the basic disqualification standard or add new ones, but if a judge doesn’t like you and someone claims that you’re disturbed and brings some kind of legal action against you on that basis, watch out.

The bill compels states to forward their mental health records to the National Instant Check System (NICS) providing monetary incentives and penalties for non-compliance. 

There is a positive in this bill, that being the appeal process and the ability to get a disabled listing removed so that it is not a lifetime stigma as it currently is. 83,000 military veterans, put into the system by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2000 for alleged mental health reasons, will have a chance to clean their records, and that’s a good thing.

My real concern about this bill is that it’s the “camel’s nose” for a new round of gun control legislation. It is being heralded as a great victory for gun control. It’s hard to argue with and even the NRA has signed off on it, but it gives psychological momentum to the gun-grabbers’ cause.

In the wake of the VA Tech shooting, many thoughtful people have wondered if the system failed us: shouldn’t have Cho been prevented from buying guns given his clear pattern of menacing and anti-social behavior which did include a court order to get mental health care. It’s a legitimate question. The mind naturally searches for answers and asks if something could have been done to prevent the tragedy. Lawmakers, desperate to appear to be “doing something” about the problem can appear to be doing something on this one. Schumer and McCarthy can strut and crow, and do endless photo ops about their huge victory for “sensible gun control.”

GOA observes:

Sad thing is, this bill, which spends hundreds of millions of your dollars, will do nothing to make us safer. More gun control laws will not stop the next deranged madman. What will stop a killer is an armed law-abiding citizen. In the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, we should be considering removing barriers that prevent honest, decent people from carrying their lawfully possessed firearms.

We don’t know where the next shooting will occur; that’s something the killer decides. So whether it is in a school, a church, a shopping mall or a government building, we should urge our elected officials to repeal so-called gun free zones and oppose more gun control.

This one leaves me feeling a tad queasy. I wonder if somewhere down the road, mental health standards may be used against gun rights, and our easy acceptance of this legislation may come back to haunt us.