Guns: how much longer will it take ....

Michael Moore

The NRA is a terrorist organization. The media should speak of the NRA in the same way they do of ISIS. Total ISIS-inspired deaths in US = 79. Thanks to the NRA & the politicians they buy, we’ve made it easy for anyone to have as many guns as the want — and the result has been 1.2 MILLION American gun deaths since John Lennon was shot dead in NYC. #NRAKillsKids

It did not attract a ton of attention at the time (nothing does these days) but about a year ago on February 28, 2017, Congress passed and Donald Trump signed a law revoking an Obama-era regulatory initiative that made it harder for people with mental illness to buy a gun.

Yet despite this effort to roll back even a very modest effort to restrain the ability of seriously incapacitated people from obtaining deadly weapons, this morning Trump tweeted that there were “so many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed,” implying that someone should have done something to report him.

But it’s Trump’s party — and Trump himself — who have consistently prevented the federal government from doing anything about this kind of situation. The Obama-era gun regulation wouldn’t have had a massive impact on gun violence in the US since it’s estimated that it would only affect about 75,000 people. And disability rights groups had their own objections to the bill so some liberal groups, including the ACLU, joined with the National Rifle Association in urging Trump to reverse it.

But anything that makes it easier to obtain a gun, the research suggests, will likely worsen gun violence. After all, America already has some of the weakest gun laws in the developed world — and repealing a rule that made it a little tougher for some people to buy a gun likely makes that worse.

The rule tasked the Social Security Administration with turning over information to the FBI.

The vote was part of a larger suite of Congressional Review Act measures that passed early in the Trump administration. The CRA allows Congress to overrule recently enacted regulatory initiatives passed by the executive branch. CRA bills can’t be filibustered, but they do need to be signed by the president.

Consequently, the CRA is rarely used since the president isn’t going to sign a measure blocking his own regulations. But in the first year of the Trump administration, the CRA was used to reverse a whole suite of final-year Obama regulations. These reversals mostly made life easier for polluters but also let Internet Service Providers sell your web browsing data to advertisers and made it easier for people with severe mental illness to buy guns.

Specifically, what Obama did was order to Social Security Administration to take the list of people who were deemed so severely mentally ill that they are unfit to handle their own disability benefits and forward it to the FBI. The FBI was then supposed to incorporate that list in the background checks used to disqualify people from gun ownership.

This is obviously an extremely narrow measure that wouldn’t have had enormous impact one way or the other — it just represented Obama’s limited capacity to do anything on guns in the face of relentless congressional opposition.

“Mental health is often a big problem underlying these tragedies.” — House Speaker Paul Ryan

There’s a link, but it’s more limited than widely thought.

Mr. Ryan’s claim reflects a common misconception. According to various polls, roughly half of Americans either believe that failing to identify people with mental health problems is the primary cause of gun violence or that addressing mental health issues would be a major deterrent.

That conclusion is not shared by experts or widely accepted research.

In an analysis of 235 mass killings, many of which were carried out with firearms, 22 percent of the perpetrators could be considered mentally ill.

Overall, mass shootings by people with serious mental illness represent 1 percent of all gun homicides each year, according to the book “Gun Violence and Mental Illness” published by the American Psychiatric Association in 2016.

To be sure, gun violence experts contacted by New York Times reporters have said that barring sales to people who are deemed dangerous by mental health providers could help prevent mass shootings. But the experts said several more measures — including banning assault weapons and barring sales to convicted violent criminals — more effective.

And, as The Times has reported, Americans do not appear to have more mental health problems than other developed nations of a comparable size, which experience far fewer mass shootings.

Some further research:

A 2016 academic study estimated that just 4 percent of violence is associated with serious mental illness alone. “Evidence is clear that the large majority of people with mental disorders do not engage in violence against others, and that most violent behavior is due to factors other than mental illness,” the study concluded.

A 2015 study found that less than 5 percent of gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people diagnosed with mental illness.

as though Trump didn't rescind Obama's regulatory order dealing with guns and those with documented mental illnesses.

I mean, did Trump forget his own actions?

The rule, which was finalized in December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.

The guns regulation absolutely did have to with those with mental illness

Quote:

The rule, which was finalized in December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.

source

the measure being blocked from implementation would have required the Social Security Administration to send records of some beneficiaries with severe mental disabilities to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System. About 75,000 people found mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs would have been affected.

NO, it is YOU who are full of ****. The gun nutz have totally ignored anything doing with gun control

while the side on which I stand, weve been saying that mental health AND availability of militarized rifles with all the features , short barrels, pistol grips, surpressors, and mostly high capacity clips and receivers to take high capacity clips are a PACKGE PROBLEM

Many times Oralloy worries me because he totally dismisses truth.

The Congressional Review act in 2017 was used by Congress , working under recommendations of mr Trump did this:

Quote:

the measure being blocked from implementation would have required the Social Security Administration to send records of some beneficiaries with severe mental disabilities to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System. About 75,000 people found mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs would have been affected.

Youre right, he is, once again arguing against the facts,

hoping by bold assertion he can convince those who are too busy to look it up, that he, oralloy, knows of what he speaks.

The Congressional Review act in 2017 was used by Congress , working under recommendations of mr Trump did this:

The rule pertained to people who receive social security checks through mental illness to the extent they can't handle their financials. In that that rule, social security gives that information to the FBI database for background checks.

I won't respond again, you just ignore facts and keep going on what you want to say regardless. You sir, are not credible.

Response: As we explained in the
NPRM, in choosing the criteria we
sought to find the best fit between our
adjudication regarding a claimant’s
entitlement to benefits and the decision
to designate a representative payee and
the regulatory definition of an
individual who is subject to the Federal
mental health prohibitor. For the
reasons we discussed in the NPRM,10
we believe that there is a reasonable and
appropriate fit between the criteria we
use to decide whether some of our
beneficiaries are disabled (e.g., a
primary diagnosis of a mental
impairment and meeting or equaling the
requirements of one of the Mental
Disorders Listing of Impairments
(Listings) and requiring a representative
payee because of that mental
impairment) and the Federal mental
health prohibitor.

We have not adopted the comment
that we conduct a criminal background
history in advance, because it does not
comport with the criteria we are using
to identify individuals for referral to
NICS and, within that framework, a
criminal background check is
unnecessary. To reiterate, we will report
an individual’s record to the NICS based
on his or her inability to manage his or
her affairs due to a disabling mental
impairment that meets or equals the
criteria found in one of the Mental
Disorders Listings. A criminal
background check is not necessary for
us to make a determination on that
issue. However, we will obtain a
criminal background check as part of
the relief process. The relief inquiry
focuses on whether the applicant will be
likely to act in a manner dangerous to
public safety, and whether the granting
of the relief would be contrary to the
public interest. The distinction we have
made in these rules, under which we
will obtain a criminal background check
as part of the relief process, but not as
part of the referral process, is consistent
with the NIAA.