Bill To Include Mental Health For Background Checks Passes Senate

I’m OK with this bill.

The state Senate unanimously passed a bill Tuesday that would require gun dealers to check whether someone has been involuntarily committed for mental health reasons before selling them firearms.

The move is meant to help prevent shootings like the one at Virginia Tech in 2007 that killed 32 students and teachers.

Gun dealers currently have to conduct background checks through the state Department of Justice, but the checks don’t include information about mental health commitments by state courts.

The bill passed without debate and now heads to the Assembly, which like the Senate is controlled by Democrats. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle has supported the idea in the past.

As the bill is written, the courts would have to declare if someone is unfit to possess a gun and notify the DOJ.  The courts would also have to notify the DOJ if a person is returned to being deemed fit to possess a gun.  Then the DOJ includes this information in the criminal background checks that they already do and the gun dealers are already required to request.  So the gun purchasers are afforded due process in the court system regarding their mental health status and it provides a reasonable layer of regulation for preventing nuts from legally buying guns. 

I don’t think that it will have any substantial effect on the true nuts who will find a way to get a gun, but it doesn’t strike me as overly onerous.  Nobody wants a nutjob to have a gun.