267312 Firearms laws and mental illness: Legal overview, current challenges and opportunities

Monday, October 29, 2012 : 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM

Joshua Horwitz, JD , Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Washington, DC
The presentation will provide an historical overview of federal laws and regulations that restrict gun access by people with mental disorders, starting with the 1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, through the Brady Act of 1994, to the National Instant Check System Improvement Act of 2007. The federal law's problematic categorical disqualifying criteria of “adjudicated mental defective” and involuntary commitment—potentially both over- and under-inclusive of individuals at risk of gun violence—and the wide variability in individual states' criteria and implementation of federal restrictions will be described and critiqued. The presentation will also describe the history of implementation of reporting to the NICS and its component databases; the status of current efforts to “fix the NICS”; and the linking of reporting incentives to the development of “relief from disabilities” programs for restoration of gun rights. Finally, the presentation will highlight some current and potential legal developments and opportunities for reform of gun laws, regulations, and policies regarding persons with mental illness, in order to improve these laws' effectiveness, fairness, and feasibility of implementation and enforcement.

Learning Areas:
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
List the specific federal criteria for excluding certain persons with mental illness from access to firearms and give several examples of variations on these criteria in individual states’ firearms laws.

Keywords: Violence, Policy/Policy Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I received my law degree from the George Washington University. I am a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-author of a recent book, Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, published by the University of Michigan Press.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3344.0: Guns, mental illness, and violence: A conversation at the intersection of law, policymaking, and research