Outpatients and guns

Although your June 13 article "Bill ties mental health to owning gun" correctly reported my testimony to a state Senate committee that Senate Bill 2081 would add people who are not dangerous to the National Instant Check System database, wrongly rendering them unable to own firearms, the piece failed to mention why.

Prior to the Virginia Tech massacre, Seung-Hui Cho was adjudicated in court to be dangerous, then remanded to outpatient treatment -- something impossible here.

Attorney General Roy Cooper defended the bill with an administrative determination from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that outpatients are barred from owning guns if they have been adjudicated dangerous.

Cooper neglected to mention, however, that under N.C. General Statute 122C-263(d)(2), courts may remand to outpatient treatment only those people who are not dangerous. A finding that they are a danger to themselves or others requires courts to involuntarily commit them.

By reporting to NICS patients remanded to outpatient care, Cooper's proposal falsely saddles them with a federal firearms disability.

As Cooper testified to the committee, last year North Carolina reported 466 people to NICS. Meanwhile, Virginia -- which now reports outpatients -- reported 80,000. Eighty thousand North Carolinians barred from owning guns: Is that Cooper's goal?

F. Paul Valone

President, Grass Roots North Carolina

Raleigh