Stalin and Mao thought a lot of people were insane, too. It's a slippery slope. Once legal precedent is set and we agree to throw a class of people under the bus, it's much easier to expand the class.

EGGGGxactly

The law already denies adjudicated mental defectives and judges already decide whether an individual is too much of a harm to themselves or others, thereby denying the defective the right to purchase a firearm.

Cho (the VT shooter) was adjudicated mentally defective, technically he should have been denied. Futhermore he perjured himself on the 4473 by saying NO to question 12.f. The reason he was not denied is because the records of his adjudication were not forwarded to NCIC for NICS background checks and of course he lied on the 4473. Had the records been forwarded from the Virginia court system, Cho would have been denied.

Since Cho purchased both his weapons through a dealer that preformed a NICS check, its highly likely that VT shooting never would have occured if Virginia had forwarded its records. Not only would Cho been denied, but he probably would have found himself back in mental care because his first denial would have generated a perjury investigation and put him on the path for a checkup.

HR 2640 seeks to force/help the states to forward their adjudication records to NCIC on a more timely basis. It also setups an appeals process for those adjudicated mentally defective, which is currently not available.

Looks like the state courts are submitting more records w/o congressional incentive:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/29/gun.checks/index.html

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

I stand by my statement. The "adjudication" line will get thinner and thinner once the antis have their foot in the door. The next step is to complain that the judicial system isn't responsive enough, or that shooters were clearly dangerous but kept out of the system because they hadn't been in trouble. So the "adjudication" process will evaporate when someone codifies a list of mental health conditions that must be reported to the state.

It's not inconceivable. People in the military have their mental health records "protected" in terms of privacy, but mental health providers are also required to notify the chain of command if they feel a person may pose a hazard to himself or others. It's not much of a stretch to legislate requirements for certain conditions to be reported based on the idea that there's a POTENTIAL for a problem.

Just an update. This bill was eventually passed by congress and signed by Bush a few weeks ago.