The bill’s background check provisions are far weaker than Senate legislation that Republicans and the NRA killed two years ago; that legislation would have required the checks for firearms bought at gun shows and online.
Advertisement
Nonetheless, it represents a uncommon effort by a number one Republican to suggest modest steps that would curb some firearms purchases.
WASHINGTON (AP) A leading Republican senator proposed a National Rifle Association-backed bill Wednesday that he said would make the federal background check system for gun buyers more effective and bolster programs for treating people with mental illness.
“Gaps in existing law or inadequate resources prevent our communities from taking proactive steps to prevent them from becoming violent”, said Cornyn, R-Texas, in a written statement.
A new bill just introduced in the U.S. Senate aims to keep guns out of the hands of people with serious mental problems.
Currently, background checks are required only for sales by federally licensed gun dealers.
It’s already illegal for people who are legally determined to be “mentally defective” and those who’ve been committed to mental institutions to buy guns, but states are not required to send that information into the FBI’s background check system. States offering much less knowledge might see their grants from a broad vary of justice packages penalized by the identical quantities, on the lawyer basic’s discretion.
It increases grants under the government’s main law enforcement program by up to 5% for states that send the federal system at least 90% of their records on people with serious mental problems.
The invoice would give state and native governments extra flexibility to make use of federal funds to display for psychological issues in prisoners and enhance coaching for regulation enforcement officers and others on dealing with emergencies involving the mentally ailing.
Less than two weeks ago, John Russell Houser fired a handgun into a crowd of movie watchers in Lafayette, Louisiana, killing two and wounding nine.
When he purchased the weapon at a gun shop in Alabama, the information about his problems had not been sent to the background-check system and the sale was allowed. “But I think after a certain time, the person should have the opportunity to go back and have it revisited and determine whether those people have received the proper training and the proper mental therapy and they turn out that the problems; the issues they had are taken care of”.
Piercy, the state police firearms unit manager, said he’s added three temporary workers to his staff to ensure they can meet added demand.
They question why someone should have to get a background check to sell a gun to a good friend or store it at a neighbor’s house while on vacation. That should have blocked his purchase.
On Monday, a Democratic leader, Sen.
Advertisement
His office also stressed that the bill “does not expand, broaden, or redefine the current background check in any way”-i.e., it is not a gun control”. But wouldn’t that be a preferable argument to blanket federal legislation? All however 4 of the chamber’s 45 Republicans opposed the measure.
