N.H. Looks at Including Mental Health Records in Gun Background Checks
Concord — For now, a person can be released from involuntary admission at the New Hampshire state hospital and buy a gun the same afternoon. Even though the sale is prohibited by federal law, New Hampshire doesn’t make mental health records available for background checks.
Gov. Maggie Hassan and other state officials are asking whether that should change.
Hassan has asked state agencies to recommend safety improvements involving guns and mental health, including ideas for making appropriate mental health records available for background checks.
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Federal law prohibits anyone “adjudicated mentally defective” from buying a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer, which includes gun shops. Federal laws define that term as anyone who has been involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, found incompetent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity, or whose mental illness makes them a danger to themselves or others.
But the federal government does not require states to make relevant records available to its National Instant Criminal Background Check System. And many don’t.
Read More: http://www.vnews.com/news/state/region/6924386-95/nh-looks-at-including-mental-health-records-in-gun-background-checks
