Gun Control Measures for the Mentally Ill

Spurred by the April shooting at Virgina Tech, the issue of gun control with regard to people who have a history of mental illness has become the subject of national debate. Many argue, and federal law supports, that people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness should not be allowed to purchase firearms. In particular the predominant belief applies to those who have been deemed a threat to themselves or others. This issue has arisen in response to the massacre at Virginia Tech due to the fact that Seung-Hui Cho, the student who committed the shootings, had been declared mentally ill by a court in 2005. Because of this court decree, Cho should have been blocked from purchasing the guns used in the shooting in compliance with federal law.

According to an article appearing in the New York Times a law which was intended to avert such incidents and should have denied Cho's ability to purchase a gun is already in effect. The federal law referred to by author Michael Luo prohibits the sale of firearms to anyone who has been "adjudicated as a mental defective" and that this includes those judged by a court to be a "danger to himself or others." Luo states that the reason Cho was still able to purchase a gun is that Virginia has a law which is similar to the federal law but applies only to involuntary committals to a mental health institution. For purposes of submitting documentation stating that an individual should be denied the ability to buy guns the federal law has seldom been properly adhered to, with most agencies in Virginia abiding more closely by the state law. Rather than submitting information on all who have been declared a potential threat, the state of Virginia had been reporting only those who had been committed involuntarialy. Cho was ordered to seek outpatient counseling, which did not constitute being involuntarily committed. Because of this difference in language, Cho did not get flagged in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as should have happened in accordance with the federal law (Luo 1).