Schumer wants to restrict gun sales to people with mental illness or restraining orders

NewsRadio 88 ^ | 4/9/02

[areafiftyone]

(Lynbrook, Long Island-AP) -- Senator Charles Schumer says there's a loophole that allows people with mental illness or restraining orders against them to buy a gun. Schumer says the person accused of shooting a priest and a woman at a Lynbrook, Long Island church last month had a history of mental illness. Schumer says state records covering mentally ill patients are not forwarded to the F-B-I - so federal background checks don't see any ``red flags.''

He wants the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System to get notices of people in mental hospitals so a background check would show they should not be sold a gun. Schumer says 34-year-old Peter Troy bought his .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle on March 8th. Four days later he allegedly shot the gun in Our Lady of Peace Church in Lynbrook, killing the Reverend Lawrence Penzes and a female parishioner. Schumer says Troy had been admitted to Bellevue Hospital and the Nassau University Medical Center on at least two occasions, but his background check did not reveal that. Schumer says federal background checks ``are only as good as the records that are in the system.'' Schumer adds that Troy's mother had a restraining order issued against him in February 1998. He says that fact, also was missed by the background check.

[biblewonk]

Felons having guns wasn't a problem until the nanny state started disarming the rest of us through unconstitutional restrictions.

WHAT!? It's no problem for felons to have guns or felons never committed crimes with guns until...

[newgeezer]

Both.

[biblewonk]

Riiiiiiiiight

[lavaroise]

Since when the federal government could interfere with States' jurisdictions over the handling of people with mental illnesses and restraining orders? This is a major constitutional violation.

[logician2u]

These gun controllers are anything if not ingenuous.

They take a single incident that makes their case, then generalize on it, claiming all former mental patients are a threat to civilization as we know it.

And people who have had a restraining order against them. Well, that could be something like half of all divorced men if you think about it. And a fair percentage of women.

Pretty soon, expect that having bad credit will be cause for denying a person his right to own a firearm.

[from occupied ga]

Schumer wants to restrict gun sales to people with mental illness or restraining orders

Actually upChuck wants to restrict gun sales so that only the police and the military will be armed, just the way the first Nazis did.