As the Durango Herald’s Joe Hanel reports:
Gov. John Hickenlooper announced plans Tuesday to improve the state’s psychiatric-crisis care and keep mentally unstable people from buying guns.Hickenlooper and his Cabinet began working on the plan just days after the Aurora movie theater massacre in July, and they scheduled Tuesday’s announcement well before a gunman killed 20 children and seven adults and himself last Friday in Connecticut.
“We have a duty after tragedy to look at what we do, how we act and how we help others,” Hickenlooper said.
Hickenlooper wants Colorado courts to send mental-health commitment records to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in real time so they can be used for background checks of people who want to buy guns. Currently, the CBI gets the information twice a year on a CD-ROM.
Hickenlooper could not explain why it has taken so long to send the information to the CBI.
“There are too many things like that in government,” he said.
As upset as Republicans are about Gov. John Hickenlooper’s recent embrace of modest gun law reforms in Colorado, it’s going to be very hard on a practical level to find opposition to closing the “loophole” noted above. The idea that in the modern connected world, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations only receives notifications about mental health commitments twice a year will be rightly considered absurd by most citizens, even as the gun lobby indiscriminately, if toothlessly, declares any such attempt to improve existing law a threat.
The second proposal Hanel reports on from Gov. Hickenlooper, to create a new mental health hotline and walk-in crisis centers, refutes criticism from some Republicans that mental health access should be the focus, not restricting access to guns. Presumably this means the $18 million Hickenlooper is seeking to pay for that will not be a problem.
These proposals from Hickenlooper are unlikely to represent everything we’ll see on the issue in the upcoming Colorado legislative session; look for legislation on universal background checks on gun sales, as well as a possible ban on certain high-capacity ammunition magazines. We don’t how how much more will be possible at the state level, but these are significant measures–a major reversal of momentum on the issue from before last summer. And they’re the kinds of common-sense measures that even a majority of gun owners say they support.
In fact, we really can’t see how anyone can rationally oppose any of these now.
Full story: Hickenlooper Proposes Gun, Mental Health Access Reforms
at least as it is outlined in that newspaper is outstanding. It is not without cost, more than many in CO will think is tolerable, but it would lead to greater meaning in the CO background check AND possibly get many gnuts the help they desperately need. Might have prevented the Aurora shooting. Might be a national model
Good thing you said rationally. Because otherwise the Colorado Senate GOP would be about to prove you wrong.
will love this because they really don’t care about the mentally ill. If they can skate by with no changes to access for themselves they’ll willingly embrace this. I would embrace it just because I have always felt that the mentally ill are woefully underserved and those in the greatest need, those dangerous to themselves or others can not be adequately addressed because the involuntary committment is too damned restrictive
I’m with you,Gray. My partner has checked herself into a hospital twice, but because she has never been involuntarily committed, she could buy a gun. She usually has better sense, but when she’s sick, all bets are off.This just scares the spit out of me.
Every six months? How on earth was that ever supposed to do any good at all? Still want military style weaponry banned but if we can start with improving the way we deal with the mentally ill, both with and without reference to sensible gun laws, that’s a good thing in itself.
Repugs will fight that to the (metaphorical) death.
But Greg Brophy can still plink watermelons with his AR-15 with a 10-round clip. That and closing stupid loopholes like this, and yeah.
got to me also. What is that, a head start? There are other issues in my opinion with the CO background checks. I think they have staffed the place with folks who are doing a CYA and barely doing the minimum. They do not keep good records, again minimal. If a County Coroner calls them and wants to know where a gun was purchased they can tell you the chain but not the location. Obviously, since these records are being digitized, and since they are dealing with a particular location when doing the check, it would be easy to have the store location.
CO does some things right though and it is only fair to acknowledge that. Although guns can be purchased online, as well as ammo, guns must be delivered to someone with a FFL (Federal Firearms License). The holder of the FFL calls the buyer when the gun is delivered to him/her. The buyer shows up, presents his driver’s license, completes the form, and a background check is done. The buyer then pays the holder of the FFL for receiving the gun. In most cases that I am familiar with the FFL does not want to do too many of these, they would rather sell retail, so they have some sales relationship with the customer. Some retailers will not provide this service. And, yes, any gun legal in the US, or your particular state can be purchased in this manner. If you go online looking at weapons or ammo you will see a disclaimer that certain items are not available to certain states. I think everything is available to CO.
The FFL, any retailer has to be FFL, always engages the customer in mutual complaints about the govt restricting 2nd Amendment rights