As part of a series of proposals designed to tighten Federal gun laws, President Obama, in early January, pushed for $500 million in Federal appropriations for improved access to mental health services. His announcement opened up a debate in Congress over whether, and to what extent, gun policy and mental health reform should be linked legislatively.
Most Republicans have said that improving the Nation’s mental health system would be the best way to reduce gun violence, while most Democrats have maintained that both mental health reform and gun safety measures are needed. Mental health advocates, while wary about combining the two issues, recognize that the linkage gives momentum to their priorities.
In early March, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee announced plans to mark up a mental health package that is likely to draw substantially from a bipartisan bill introduced by Senators Christopher Murphy (CT-D) and Bill Cassidy (LA-R). Titled the Mental Health Reform Act (S. 1945), the measure would integrate physical and mental health care systems, create the position of assistant secretary for mental health and substance abuse disorders within the Health and Human Services Department, establish new grant programs for early intervention, and strengthen enforcement of mental health parity rules.
Senator Murphy and others are concerned, however, that such a bill could be threatened by attempts to include provisions relating to firearms — specifically, those in a bill sponsored by Senator John Cornyn (TX-R) called the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act (S. 2002). Cornyn’s measure, which he is offering as an alternative to the President’s initiatives, focuses on mental health in the criminal justice system and provides incentives to States to send mental health data to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) but narrows the category of records that they need to submit.
Under current law, anyone who is one found to have a mental illness and to be a danger to oneself or others, or who has been committed to a mental institution, is barred from possessing a firearm. In 2014, the NICS issued more than 3,500 gun purchase denials due to “adjudicated mental health,” out of nearly 91,000 total denials.
The National Rifle Association supports Senator Cornyn’s bill, saying that it would “protect millions of lawabiding citizens from bureaucratic abuse by the Obama Administration, while ensuring only relevant records that comply with the new due process safeguards are entered into NICS.”
Senator Murphy said he is “uncomfortable having mental health framed as a response to gun violence because it risks drawing an inherent connection between mental illness and violence, which doesn’t exist.”
Senator Charles Schumer (NY-D) said that “some of the provisions in Senator Cornyn’s bill would make it easier, not harder, for mentally ill individuals to access firearms.”
Senator Cornyn responded, “Nothing in my legislation makes it easier for mentally ill people to get access to firearms.” House Speaker Paul Ryan (WI-R) said, “We have seen consistently that an underlying cause of these attacks has been mental illness, and we should look at ways to address this problem.”
The standoff continues between those who argue that mental health system changes could prevent mass shootings and those who say that mental health reforms are an inadequate response to the need to reduce gun violence.
For more background, see the March 2013 issue of Congressional Digest on “Gun Violence Prevention,” the November 1999 issue of Congressional Digest on “Firearms in America,” the April 2010 issue of Supreme Court Debates on “Gun Control in the States,” and the May 2008 issue of Supreme Court Debates on “The Second Amendment.”
