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 The measures are the latest step in a year-long push by President
Barack Obama to tighten U.S. gun laws in the wake of a school
shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children were killed.
Obama tried last year to bring in sweeping new gun control measures
in the aftermath of that shooting, but most of his proposals were
defeated in Congress. He has pledged to continue working on the
issue despite that setback.
Obama had directed his officials to take steps that do not require
approval from Congress, such as Friday's two proposals.
The first action, proposed by the Department of Justice, would
clarify who is prohibited from possessing firearms because of mental
illness and would outline for states what information can be shared
with the federal database.
The department will seek public comment over the next 90 days about
whether the ban should encompass people under the age of 18 who were
either adjudicated by a court to be suffering from a serious mental
illness, or who were involuntarily treated for a mental illness.
The second measure, led by the Department of Health and Human
Services, would remove barriers that could prevent states from
passing on information to the database.
"The administration's two new executive actions will help ensure
that better and more reliable information makes its way into the
background check system," the White House said in a statement on
Friday.
The proposals have raised concerns from mental health advocates, who
fear that people with mental illnesses will not seek care because of
concern that their conditions will be entered into federal records.
The database, called the National Instant Criminal Background Check
System, or NICS, is used by gun dealers to check whether a potential
buyer is prohibited from owning a gun.
States are encouraged to report to the database the names of people
who are not allowed to buy guns because they have been involuntarily
committed to a mental hospital, or have been found to have serious
mental illnesses by courts.
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Many states do not participate. So the administration studied
changing a health privacy rule — part of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — to remove a potential
barrier.
HHS said the new regulation would not require routine mental health
visits to be logged — and would apply only to agencies that are not
directly involved in treatment.
"Seeking help for mental health problems or getting treatment does
not make someone legally prohibited from having a firearm, and
nothing in this proposed rule changes that," HHS said in a
statement.
"Furthermore, nothing in this proposed rule would require reporting
on general mental health visits or other routine mental health care,
or exempt providers solely performing these treatment services from
existing privacy rules," said the department, which will take
comments on the regulation for 60 days before finalizing it.
The idea of expanding the database comes at a time when the
government's collection of citizens' phone and internet data remains
in the headlines. Obama is studying recommendations on how to rein
in the U.S. National Security Agency in the wake of disclosures
about the government surveillance programs from former U.S. spy
contractor Edward Snowden.
Mental health advocates worry that somehow, whether intentionally by
a hacker or unintentionally through bureaucratic bungling, mental
health data could be made public.
(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrew Hay)
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