Bill seeks to close gun law loophole Proposal aimed at mentally ill

AUGUSTA – A month to the day after the shootings at Virginia Tech left 33 people dead, Maine lawmakers took testimony on a bill Wednesday that supporters said could play a vital role in preventing similar scenes from playing out closer to home.

Assistant House Majority Leader Sean Faircloth’s bill seeks to close a loophole that enables someone who has been certified as mentally ill to buy guns. About half of the states have similar gaps in their laws.

Faircloth, D-Bangor, said he agrees with the National Rifle Association on the need to address the matter, but at the same time he does not want his proposal to stigmatize mentally ill people.

“The focus is extremely narrow,” Faircloth told the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

Faircloth’s bill says that if a court that commits a person involuntarily to a mental hospital, or a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist determines a person to be a danger to himself or others, that must be reported to the national criminal background check system.

The sponsor suggested that committee members drop the provision referring to the psychologists and psychiatrists and limit the finding of mental incompetence to a court.

Repeated references were made during the hearing to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech.

In that case the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, had been judged a danger to himself by a court in 2005. But his name was not added to a state police database of people barred from buying guns because he was not committed to a hospital. Instead, he was ordered to get outpatient mental-health treatment.

Following the shootings, Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine ordered that anyone who gets mental health treatment must be added to a state police database of people barred from buying guns.

The bill under consideration in Maine says reports of those judged to be a danger to themselves or others would have to be forwarded to the Department of Public Safety. The reports would then be sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which operates the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

“Unfortunately, most states do not send mental health records to NICS,” Cathie Whittenburg, executive director of the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement released before Wednesday’s hearing.

“Without state and federal laws requiring that these records be submitted to NICS, background checks in many states will continually fail to reveal purchasers’ mental illness histories,” Whittenburg said.

South Portland Police Chief Ed Googins, representing the Maine Chiefs of Police Association, agreed, saying NICS plays a vital role in screening gun purchases.

“But NICS is only as good as the information put in it,” Googins told the committee. “We need the system to be as complete and thorough as possible.”

Also speaking in favor of the bill was Carol Carothers, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Maine. Carothers agreed the bill could save lives and bring the state into compliance with federal law.

But she added, “The real problem is not guns … The real story is about access to treatment. They cannot get care, that’s the real problem.”

The bill includes a process for a person judged no longer to be a threat to apply to get a firearm.

The Disability Rights Center of Maine was neutral on the bill but suggested some changes. No one spoke in opposition to the bill.