Gun assumptions
Published: Mon, Dec. 10, 2007 12:00AM
Modified Mon, Dec. 10, 2007 06:24AM
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closeA Nov. 26 letter-writer disliked your Oct. 30 editorial, "Protesting gun access." He naively assumed that potential firearm purchasers give gun dealers accurate information about their mental health histories -- and that campuses will be safer if "responsible students and professors carry concealed weapons."
The federal Firearms Transaction Record application asks whether one has "ever been adjudicated mentally defective ... or ... committed to a mental institution." If so, federal and North Carolina laws require the dealer to deny the purchase. However, there is no recourse if the applicant lies. He might have been committed, but this information will not be in the database when the dealer does the electronic national instant background check, and his request will be "approved."
North Carolina, like many other states, lacks a system for getting mental health information into databases to indicate that one could be a danger to himself or others with a gun. We hope that the Attorney General's Task Force on Campus Safety will recommend such a system and that there will be a new federal law to assist states.
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Lisa Price
Executive director, North Carolinians Against Gun Violence Education Fund
Durham
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