Wow, he can do that?
AP Headline: Virginia governor closes gun loophole.
Only not the gun loophole you’re thinking of and, err, he didn’t close anything. What he actually did was issue an executive order requiring that a database of people banned from buying guns include the name of anyone who is found to be dangerous and ordered to get involuntary mental health treatment. I guess Virginia could, like Tennessee, have it’s own check system but if it does it is the first I’ve heard of it. The article says the info goes to a police database which then goes to the NICS. What did he actually do? Based on press coverage, I couldn’t tell you. But I’m guessing he’s requiring someone (judges, social workers, etc.) to report people so they can be put in some database.
Someone help me out here?
Also:
Virginia has supplied more than 80,000 mental health records to the federal database. Twenty-eight states do not supply any records, either because they lack the technical ability or are barred by privacy laws.
Update: Ravenwood clears it up:
Virginia Democrat Governor Tim Kaine just issued an executive order that retroactively takes away the gun freedoms of serial killer* Cho Seung-Hui, and any other Virginian who’s been remanded to outpatient treatment.
His order is, according to the VCDL, probably unconstitutional. Decrees usually are. Seems VA, like TN, has its own instant check system too.
Update 2: Actually, under federal law, I think Cho was a prohibited person any way.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:05 am
First, Virginia does their own version of NICS in addition to NICS. When you buy a gun you fill out a white state police form that looks exactly like the yellow federal form.
Second, you can read his executive order here: http://www.governor.virginia.gov/Initiatives/ExecutiveOrders/2007/EO_50.cfm
As near as I can tell, he’s retroactively taking away gun rights (forever mind you) by including people who are involuntarily remanded to outpatient treatment. Previously they had only included people involuntarily committed to inpatient treatment.
VCDL did an interesting write-up which I posted here: http://www.ravnwood.com/archives/005977.php
May 1st, 2007 at 10:05 am
Ravenwood, aren’t mentally defective types like Cho prohobited persons under federal law already? If so, finally telling the feds today about people who weren’t supposed to buy guns yesterday is hardly an example of retroactively taking away anyone’s rights. Unless, of course, you construe someone’s mere *ability* to break the law as some odd kind of “right.”
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Xrlq,
The federal standards are being “adjudicated mentally defective” and “involuntarily committed to a mental institution”. The two are not one in the same, and both being involuntarily committed to a mental institution and being remanded to outpatient treatment do not require you being adjudicated a mentally defective.
So what Kaine is proposing is to treat people who were remanded to outpatient treatment the same as if they had been involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
Regardless, people with mental problems are not incurable and should not lose their firearms rights forever.