A gun proposal worth considering
Members of Congress return Tuesday from their five-week summer recess. Budget negotiations that could end in a government shutdown await them, as do votes on the Iran nuclear agreement and a speech by Pope Francis — all while the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination plays loudly in the background. And with four senators running for president, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, additional grandstanding is guaranteed.
Not to be lost amid the inevitable partisan noise to come over fiscal and foreign policy is a bill to try to stop people with serious mental illness from buying guns. The effort deserves attention.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn introduced legislation last month that would spur states to send more information about people adjudicated with serious mental illnesses to the federal system that runs background checks on gun buyers. Cornyn’s proposal does not expand background checks to include online and gun show sales — though such an expansion is desperately needed — but it does represent a Republican attempt to strengthen background checks and limit gun purchases, however narrowly and applicable to however few.
Further, and most significantly, Cornyn’s bill, known as the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act of 2015, has the blessing of the National Rifle Association. Yes, the NRA has endorsed the bill, as have the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which advocates for mentally ill people, and groups representing police organizations, correctional workers and social workers.
From 1998 through Aug. 31, background checks stopped 19,378 people who had been determined by a court or other legal authority to be mentally ill, or who had been ordered into involuntary psychiatric treatment, from buying guns. Cornyn’s bill uses federal law enforcement grants as an incentive for states to send more of their records on people with mental illness to the federal background check database run by the FBI. States that meet the bill’s requirements would receive more federal grant dollars in return. States that fail to comply would receive fewer dollars.
The bill has been sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Any attempt to restrict guns, however tepid, faces uncertain prospects in Congress — even one with the authority of the Senate’s No. 2 Republican and the backing of the NRA behind it. Most Republicans in the House might greet the legislation the same as the National Association of Gun Rights greeted it, as an imminent betrayal by Congress’ Republican leaders and “the establishment gun lobby.”
Meanwhile, groups that favor broader gun control legislation said Cornyn’s proposal would make it easier — not harder — for some people with mental illness to buy guns because it would allow some people discharged from involuntary psychiatric treatment to buy a gun without first needing court approval. Some of their opposition perhaps is rooted in an understandable skepticism that should greet any gun control legislation backed by the NRA and proposed by a lawmaker with an A-plus rating from the NRA for his support for gun rights — and it serves as a reminder that the devil in Cornyn’s proposal almost certainly is its details. Thus the importance of a Senate hearing.
Critics also say Cornyn’s bill would make it easier for veterans with severe mental illness to buy a gun because contrary to current practice, Cornyn’s bill would require Veterans Affairs to obtain a court order before it could send the names of veterans it considers to be “mentally incompetent” to the FBI’s database. Not to be lost in the debate on this issue: The suicide rate among veterans is 50 percent higher than the rate among civilians. Access to firearms not only greatly increases the risk of suicide but also practically assures that any suicide attempt will succeed.
When Cornyn announced his proposal Aug. 5, news reports focused on the NRA’s noteworthy endorsement. Somewhat lost in the coverage, however, were the bill’s provisions that would fund better training for law enforcement officers, correctional officers and others so they could deal more constructively with people who are mentally ill — and that would strengthen programs designed to steer nonviolent offenders with mental illness away from jail and into treatment programs.
Too often, jails are used as default treatment facilities. Any legislation that attempts to stop the shuffling in and out of jail of the mentally ill is welcome.
Upon introducing his bill, Cornyn said his legislation tries to reach a middle ground on the “politicized” issue of gun control. Not quite. But if Congress is willing, it could be a nudge toward the middle Cornyn says he seeks.