I “liked” your post and I agree with it, and I agree with the juvenile provisions, at least until there is clear evidence the person has matured past the behavior. However for mental health records the details are tricky.
We all agree mentally ill people should not have access to guns. As someone with Masters degrees in both mental health counseling and vocational rehabilitation counseling, who has worked counseling juvenile offenders, as well as adult offenders before using those skills on the investigation side, (and eventually finding a more satisfying career in VR) it’s an imprecise science that is almost as much art as science.
I’ve seen way too many “counselors” who got into a masters or Ph.D psychology or counseling program as a way to work on their own issues. The good programs either screen them out or ensure they resolve their own problems before they get a degree, but there are a lot of bad programs out there.
I’ve also seen way too many psychiatrists who got into that profession after losing their medical licenses due to their own substance abuse issues. I worked with one once who got his license back only on the condition that he go through a psychiatric residency and then work in the prison system. It was a deservice to the prison system.
I definitely understand the frustration with the poor quality of mental health services in this country.
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However when we start talking background checks including mental health records there a split.
Gun owners like ourselves envision records of involuntary commitments, clinical diagnosis of mental health conditions that render someone unfit to carry a gun due to delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, major or bi polar depression, or a processing problem that alters their perception of reality, or a personality disorder that affects their ability to act on reality in a safe and acceptable manner.
However the anti gun side is more likely to see any mental health treatment as disqualifying.
Upset and situationally depressed over losing your job? It’s a temporary speed bump in life where situational depression is normal and mental health treatment can be a big help. But out of an over abundance of caution the anti gun folks will want to suspend or revoked your gun rights. However, if it’s a disqualification for gun ownership or possession, it’s now off the table for most gun owners to voluntarily seek treatment and that “precaution” now becomes counterproductive.
As a parallel example I’m a commercial pilot in my post retirement life and the FAA aeromedical branch has become massiveLy risk averse and over cautious in pulling pilot’s medical certificates. Once they pull or deny a pilot’s medical certificate, they subject them to literally years worth of tests costing tens of thousands of dollars (on top of lost income) to prove they are healthy enough to fly that pilots just don’t report any health condition or treatment. It’s a case where being over zealous has made the problem far worse.
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The problem is that statute as passed by congress is never that specific. They leave it up to cognizant agencies to write the actual rules and procedures and those folks are usually legally trained rather than actually knowledgeable of the issues, rely on a very narrow read of statute and are very risk - so an overabundance of caution becomes the norm.
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That was my immediate reaction when an assault weapon “ban” was proposed in the house that allowed owners to keep them but banned any future transfer. That’s bad in terms of all of mine become worthless win terms of cash value while I’m alive, and having to be destroyed after my death, but that wouldn’t be the worst of it. The only way to enforce it, would be to require them to be registered, then have a process requiring me to prove I still have them on demand, and that I don’t have any not registered to me.
They wouldn’t go straight there, they’d wait for the first case to arise where tan illegal transfer may have occurred and then pursue it as “neccesary” to carry out the intent of the law.
The use of mental health records on back ground checks would follow a similar trajectory. At some point, someone who sought treatment for a temporary condition would commit a gin crime years later and there would be criticism that getting treatment for 6 weeks after the death of a spouse, daughter, etc, should have resulted in his guns being confiscated, even though the crime happened years later for unrelated reasons.
So…if we go that route, and I think we should, the scope of it needs to be *very* explicitly limited in statute to prevent creep and over reach in regulation.
