Rebuffed by Congress on stronger gun safety laws, President Obama is wisely using use his executive powers in a more focused attempt to bar mentally ill people from eluding federal watch lists and purchasing firearms. Two sensible changes proposed for the background check system would allow states and mental health providers more discretion than they have now in reporting information about potentially violent people.
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The first would deal with longstanding complaints from law enforcement authorities about the narrow scope of a rule stipulating that a person cannot be denied the purchase of a firearm unless he or she has been "committed to a mental institution" in the past. This ignores whole categories of obviously risky citizens.
The proposed change would broaden the rule to include involuntary outpatient as well as inpatient commitments. Some of the shooters in cases of mass gun violence were found to have previously come to the attention of authorities but received psychiatric testing or care that fell short of orders of commitment. Including inpatient and outpatient care broadens the grounds for denying weapons.
The second proposal deals with privacy strictures in health insurance laws that states say prevent the passing on of relevant information about potentially violent people. After consultation with mental health professionals, the White House said health insurance organizations would be extended "an express permission" to furnish to federal authorities "the limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands."
Neither of these changes can fully solve the nation's gun safety problem, but both offer a promise of relief. Far more is needed, if Congress can ever disenthrall itself from the gun lobby to rein in the carnage.
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