At bottom. this bill is about Cho Seung-Hui. He shouldn’t have been allowed to buy a gun, and he was. Everyone but the NICS knew he was a psycho. This bill clarifies what information the NICS should have.
Now, in NYS, there is a confidentiality section in the Mental Hygiene Law that the Office of Mental Health (OMH) has interpreted to mean that the State can’t share hospital records with the feds. There had been talk of allowing that information sharing. However, there are exceptions to those confidentiality laws for pistol permit applicants, and a pistol permit applicant’s OMH record must be checked. The rub is that OMH only records State-run hospital stays, and not people ordered to private hospitals for inpatient mental health treatment.
However, the doc at any hospital is allowed to certify a person who is ordered to that hospital for psych treatment as “not suitable to possess a rifle or shotgun”, and the police are expected to go and collect his guns. But, the do not automatically notify a pistol license issuing authority or NICS so that the guy can’t but a new gun.