General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: If we don't focus on the mentally ill how are background checks supposed to work? [View all]Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)The main intent was preventing persons with felony criminal records from buying guns at retail stores (and, increasingly, from private sellers...we just enacted universal background checks here in Oregon). Preventing sales to people with (adjudicated) mental health issues was a secondary benefit, since they represent a much smaller total.
But you make a very good point: if we want the system to do a better job of denying firearms to people whose specific mental illness means arming them is a bad idea, we're going to have to have a national conversation about just which diagnoses should be added to the list of disqualifying conditions. This will be challenging if we wish to avoid stigmatizing and penalizing those who don't deserve it, but it's a challenge we need to meet.