CORRECTION

A story Friday about Sen. Richard Burr's efforts to protect veterans' rights to gun ownership incorrectly named the founder of the Web site vawatchdog.org. He is Larry Scott. The story also named him as a veteran who fought in Korea. Scott served in Korea during peacetime.

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WASHINGTON -- Since a severely mentally ill student went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech last year, killing 32 people before turning a gun on himself, Congress and several states have worked to tighten rules on who can legally purchase a firearm.

But a push by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina would prevent the federal veterans agency from adding the names of veterans declared "mentally defective" to a background check database unless the agency goes through the judicial system.

His bill would allow the agency to submit only the names of those declared dangerous by a judge, magistrate or other judicial authority.

The problem, Burr says, is that some veterans were added to the list not because they were a danger to themselves or others but because the Department of Veterans Affairs assigned them guardians to oversee their finances.

"This is a constitutional issue," said Burr, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.

The national database is for criminals, Burr said, "not for folks who have trouble handling their own financial affairs."

The National Rifle Association and several veterans groups support Burr, but others fear the move could lead to an increase in gun deaths. Gun-control organizations argue that veterans have higher rates of suicide than non-veterans and might be more at risk.

"To take this group out of the system and give them ready access to guns, that's just not a good idea," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington. "It's a sad fact that veterans have increased risk of suicide and increased risk of mass shootings, but that's reality."

With the highly publicized suicides of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, along with rising reports of warriors who suffer from mental trauma, the issue of taking away gun rights is sensitive.

Burr said he wants to protect Second Amendment rights, not give guns to the dangerously ill.

This summer he succeeded in getting his measure tacked on to a popular veterans health bill now headed to the Senate floor.

115,000 vets listed

In the past decade, the Department of Veterans Affairs has sent the names of about 115,000 veterans and their dependents to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS, under an agreement with the FBI.

The names include those veterans found mentally incompetent or committed to a mental institution, but not others who are mentally ill, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The national log is the database that gun shops use to check the names of customers trying to purchase firearms. It was set up as part of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993.

Mark C. Seavey, a lobbyist for the American Legion, supports Burr's proposal and said it isn't right to lump veterans who can't manage their financial affairs into the group of people on the no-buy list.

He also worries about broadly stereotyping veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder but still have control of their affairs.

"We didn't want to stigmatize people," Seavey said. "It should be anybody who actually is a threat to themselves or others. I think veterans as individuals ought to be given the constitutional rights they fought for."

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