Of course it's part of an article on some dolts suing Walmart because their daughter bought a shotgun at the store and killed herself with it. But that's not what I'm talking about here.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-New York, who ran for Congress after her husband was killed and son wounded in 1993 by a gunman on a Long Island Rail Road train, wants to strengthen the federal background check system by encouraging states to share mental health records. She has introduced legislation that would give states grants to automate and turn over the information.
She drafted the bill after a priest and a parishioner were shot to death by a schizophrenic man in a New York church in 2002. He, too, should not have been allowed to buy a gun.
Now that makes sense. It would make even more sense if it is tacked onto the abilities of the NICs system. I'm certain though that this won't be a catch all of mentally unfit people. It would also require someone to sit down and say which mental illnesses are disqualifying. Probably a good thing, but I see lots of fights.
Of course they then go too far with this statement.
As the Bracys prepare for another Christmas without their daughter, they are urging lawmakers to support McCarthy's bill and dealers to conduct their own background checks.
Would this be a requirement that dealers conduct their own checks? I'm guessing the ACLU might fight this one on privacy grounds. The NIC check just gives a yes-or-no answer and a number. Not a reason. Do they believe that dealers should be forced to do something like this?
3 comments:
"Dealers to conduct their own background checks"
WTF? Hire detectives?
Anyway, this is a good idea. Actually we should expand the NIC system so that anyone can contact it. That way, any transfer of a firearm that doesn't have a NIC ID is illegal. But then, we open up the system so that anyone that can pass a NIC gets the damned guns. Frigging MA gun laws are crawling further up my backside every day.
I'm a little worried about the thought of everyone having access to the NIC system. I have a bad feeling that the nut jobs of the Gun Prohibition movement will flood the system with requests just to bring the system down or limit the ability of dealers to use the system by running a denial of service attack on the system.
Or people could just abuse the system by using it as a cheap version of running a security check of a person or new employee. Unfortunately, I think the system would suffer greatly from abuse.
Last time I had to have a check done for a purchase it took 10 minutes to get a response, so I'm a little worried that getting a check would become unfeasible when people start abusing the system.
All valid points. I'm still in favor. Almost any system is subect to abuse. I don't doubt for a moment that the wing nuts would try to shut the system down by overloading it. Slapping a fine or a prison sentence or three on 'em will slow that down. It's just a database query with some pretty restrictive parameters (SSN, first and last name, address) which should be pretty tunable (300 million row tables aren't that bad especially with a nice clustered index built on SSN & last name say...) so the system should be even more resliant than it is now.
Anyway, pipe dream. I'd rather spend lobbying time & money on getting a National CCID.
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