Many States Haven't Reported Mentally Ill to National Database for Gun Purchases

In the wake of the horrific massacre that took place on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007 , a federal law was enacted that requires states to share the names of mentally ill people with services that provide background checks for the purchase of weapons. Anyone who has been deemed mentally incompetent by a judge or who has been committed to an institution was to be included on this list . The three-year deadline for complying with the law has just passed, and very few states have submitted the entirety of their records.

Nine states have not submitted a single name, while seventeen other states have offered fewer than 25 names to the database. This renders the law's efforts to stop mentally ill individuals from buying guns virtually useless. Many argue that the lack of compliance is tied to the fact that the federal government has only released a small portion of the funds promised to help with the recordkeeping process. Without that federal assistance, it is cheaper for some states to accept the penalty of diminished grant money than it is to pay for the cost of gathering the names themselves.

Another problem is the wide variation in recordkeeping that exists between the states. Some local and state agencies still keep their paperwork in boxes that must be combed through, while others have a more automated system. For those in the former category, the process can be cumbersome and time-intensive.

Forensic psychology research can provide compelling evidence to show that many men and women who commit brutal acts of violence, such as the recent shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that left six others dead, are dealing with some sort of mental illness. I hope that a method for effectively cataloguing and sharing these names, while also respecting each individual's privacy , will soon lead to decreased number of guns in the hands of people who are not competent to own them.