Shootings may push states to give FBI mental health records [View all]
HELENA, Mont. Six states are not alerting the FBI about people who have been found to have mental health problems that would bar them from owning guns, according to a new report released Thursday by a gun-control advocacy group.
Three of those states recently passed laws to turn over records of people who are involuntarily committed to mental institutions for use in the FBI's National Criminal Background Check System. The recent mass shootings in California and Colorado could put pressure on the other three, officials for the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety said.
"I would hope that renewed attention nationally to the gun area would help propel those states to finish the job," said Jonas Oransky, the organization's legal counsel.
Background checks are in the spotlight again after the shootings that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and three in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have called for expanding background checks, which Republican candidates strongly oppose.
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