Bill makes it harder for mentally ill to buy gun

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AUGUSTA - Gov. John Baldacci, Attorney General Steven Rowe, a gun-control group and some mental-health advocates are backing a bill in the Legislature that would make it more difficult for mentally ill Mainers to buy guns.

But a disability rights lawyer has some reservations about the proposal.

Preventing mentally ill people from acquiring guns has become a big issue since Seung-Hui Cho, who had been ordered by a court to undergo psychiatric counseling in 2005, shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on April 16 before committing suicide.

Sponsored by House Majority Whip Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, the bill would force the state to report more information to the federal system that licensed gun dealers use to run background checks on would-be gun buyers.

Federal law prohibits people who have been adjudicated as mentally ill from possessing firearms, but the states decide for themselves what mental-health information to give the FBI for background checks.

Maine is one of 28 states that withhold at least some mental-health data from the FBI because of privacy issues or technological problems, according to a recent story by The Associated Press.

In Maine, the state Department of Public Safety notifies the FBI when someone is found not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity. But the state does not notify the FBI when someone is involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.

Faircloth's bill would require that a court notify the state Department of Public Safety when a judge commits someone involuntarily. The state would forward that information to the FBI for its National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

"It makes logical sense to go through this screening process," Faircloth said Monday. "I want to keep it targeted to the specific issue" of court-ordered hospitalizations, he said.

The Department of Public Safety commissioner could restore a mentally ill person's suspended right to buy a gun if a court or a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist confirmed in writing "that the person is no longer a danger to self or others."

Legislative leaders initially refused to let lawmakers consider Faircloth's late-filed bill, but he eventually won their permission to submit the bill. The Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the proposal at 1 p.m. Wednesday in Room 436 at the State House.

The committee will send its recommendation to the full Legislature unless the panel unanimously opposes the bill. Such a vote would effectively kill the bill in committee.

"We are definitely supporting the bill" because it takes a "balanced" approach to the issue, said Carol Carothers of the Maine chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocacy group.

"Limiting access to firearms is a good idea" when people are so sick that they pose a threat to themselves or others, Carothers said. She noted that the bill does not permanently prohibit mentally ill people from acquiring guns.

The bill recognizes that "these diagnoses can be temporary," said Cathie Whittenburg of the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, which supports the measure.

The National Rifle Association, the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine and the Maine Chiefs of Police Association have taken no position on the bill.

But Mark Joyce, a lawyer for the Augusta-based Disability Rights Center, said people are sometimes hospitalized involuntarily without just cause, so denying all such patients the right to buy a gun would be unfair to some of them.

Joyce said preventing mentally ill people who are truly dangerous from buying guns is "a sound idea," but he said mental illness can be stigmatizing. If the Department of Public Safety gets hospitalization records, he said, it is important to ensure that they are secure, so no one other than the FBI gains access to the files.

Staff Writer Paul Carrier can be contacted at 622-7511 or at: pcarrier@pressherald.com

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