[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 156 (Wednesday, December 7, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         NICS AND MENTALLY ILL

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CAROLYN McCARTHY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 7, 2005

  Mrs. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, for months, I have been discussing how 
Congress can improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check 
System (NICS) by passing H.R. 1415, the NICS Improvement Act. People 
who now are barred by current law from possessing a firearm can 
purchase guns because NICS data is incomplete. The attached article 
provides more information on why the 109th Congress must pass H.R. 
1415.
  I want to comment on patient privacy or the stigma of mental illness. 
The bill contains language directing the Attorney General to work with 
Federal, State, and local law enforcement and the mental health 
community to establish protocols for protecting the privacy of 
information sharing.
  My bill does not change current law. The 1968 gun act already bars 
guns to people ``adjudicated as mentally defective or those committed 
to mental institutions.'' That is how the law now reads. H.R. 1415 does 
not change the law.
  It is important to remember how the NICS process works. If a NICS 
search determines that a prospective buyer is barred from getting a 
gun, then NICS tells the gun dealer that the sale must be ``Denied.'' 
NICS does not tell the dealer why the purchase is denied. The stigma, 
if any exists, is that a prospective gun purchaser is denied the gun. 
Why he was denied does not come into the NICS process.

               [From the Hartford Courant, Nov. 27, 2005]

             Gaps In Records Allow Mentally Ill To Buy Guns

                           (By Mark Sherman)

       Washington.--In Alabama, a man with a history of mental 
     illness killed two police officers with a rifle he bought on 
     Christmas Eve.
       In suburban, New York, a schizophrenic walked into a church 
     during Mass and shot to death a priest and a parishioner.
       In Texas, a woman taking anti-psychotic medication used a 
     shotgun to kill herself.
       Not one of these names was in a database that licensed gun 
     dealers must check before making sales--even though federal 
     law prohibits the mentally ill from purchasing guns.
       Most states have privacy laws barring such information from 
     being shared with law enforcement. Legislation pending in 
     Congress that has bipartisan support seeks to get more of the 
     disqualifying records in the database.
       In addition to mandating the sharing of mental health 
     records, the legislation would require that states improve 
     their computerized record-keeping for felony records and 
     domestic violence restraining orders and convictions, which 
     also are supposed to bar people from purchasing guns.
       Similar measures, opposed by some advocates for the 
     mentally ill and gun-rights groups, did not pass Congress in 
     2002 and 2004.
       The FBI, which maintains the National Instant Criminal 
     Background Check System, has not taken a position on the 
     bill, but the bureau is blunt about what adding names to its 
     database would do.
       ``The availability of this information will save lives,'' 
     the FBI said in a recent report.
       More than 53 million background checks for gun sales have 
     been conducted since 1998, when the NICS replaced a five-day 
     waiting period. More than 850,000 sales have been denied, the 
     FBI reported; in most of those cases, the applicant had a 
     criminal record.
       Legislation sponsored by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., 
     says millions of records are either missing or incomplete. 
     ``The computer is only as good as the information you put in 
     it,'' McCarthy said.
       In the Alabama case, police say Farron Barksdale ambushed 
     the officers as they arrived at the home of his mother in 
     Athens, Ala., on Jan. 2, 2004. Barksdale had been committed 
     involuntarily to mental hospitals on at least two occasions, 
     authorities said.
       Facing the death penalty, he has pleaded not guilty and not 
     guilty by reason of mental disease and defect.
       The shootings led Alabama lawmakers to share with the FBI 
     the names of people who have been committed involuntarily to 
     mental institutions. But just 20 other states provide NICS at 
     least some names of people with serious mental illness, a 
     disqualifier for gun purchases under federal law since 1968.
       Shyla Stewart had been hospita1ized five times in Texas, 
     twice by court order. Yet Stewart was able to buy the shotgun 
     that she later used to kill herself at a WalMart in 2003 
     because Texas considers mental health records confidential.
       The same is true in New York, where Peter Troy was twice 
     admitted to mental hospitals but bought a .22-caliber rifle 
     that he used in the shootings inside a Long Island church in 
     March 2002. Troy is serving consecutive life terms for the 
     killings.
       As a result of the church shootings, McCarthy and Sen. 
     Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced legislation that year to 
     close the gaps in the background check system. The bill would 
     have required the states to give the FBI their records and 
     provided $250 million in grants to cover their costs.
       The bill passed the House without opposition but stalled in 
     the Senate. In 2004, the measure again had the support of 
     lawmakers who support gun rights, but it did not pass 
     Congress.
       McCarthy, whose husband was among six people shot to death 
     on a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993, has introduced it 
     again this year, but it has not yet been taken up by a House 
     Judiciary subcommittee.
       Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a National Rifle Association 
     board member, was a sponsor of the bill in the last Congress 
     and continues to support it, spokesman Dan Whiting said. The 
     NRA supports the concept, but it has not taken a position on 
     McCarthy's legislation, spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.
       Michael Faenza, president and Chief executive of the 
     National Mental Health Association, said forcing states to 
     share information on the mentally ill would violate patient 
     privacy and contribute to the stigma they face.
       It's just not fair. On the one hand, we want there to be 
     very limited access to guns,'' Faenza said. ``But here you're 
     singling out people because of a medical condition and 
     denying them rights held by everyone else.''
       The states that provide some or all mental health records 
     are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, 
     Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, 
     Michigan, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North 
     Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.

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