Closing Mental Health Gaps in Background
Checks
In the wake of the tragic events at Virginia Tech on April
16, 2007, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)
Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 was passed unanimously by the House and
Senate and signed into law by President Bush on January 8, 2008. This important
piece of legislation authorizes funds to states to maintain and update criminal
history and mental health records in NICS, making it harder for prohibited gun
buyers, like the Virginia Tech gunman, to slip through the cracks of the
background check system. Although this law is a step in the right direction, it
is imperative that congress appropriate full funding to ensure its effective
implementation nationwide.
Read more
The Tiahrt Amendment
Update
- December 2007:
Mayors Against Illegal Guns is pleased that in its
omnibus appropriations bill that has been signed into law, Congress has rejected
a more insidious version of the Tiahrt Amendment that threatened police officers
with prison terms for using the data to map illegal gun trafficking. Also, while
the coalition is staunchly opposed to the anti-police Tiahrt Amendment
provisions that remain, we are pleased that Congress eliminated the Tiahrt
Amendment's geographic restriction on data requests, clarified that local law
enforcement may share the data ATF provides to them, and gave ATF wider
authority to publish summary reports about trace data. These were all
steps in the right direction and changes that Mayors Against Illegal Guns called
for.
Read Mayors Against
Illegal Guns' December 21, 2007 statement on the improvements to FY08 version of
the Tiahrt Amendment
Read the text of the FY08 Tiahrt
Amendment (in PDF)
Read a summary of the
improvements in the FY08 Tiahrt Amendment (in PDF)
See more background information about the
Tiahrt Amendment
Visit
ProtectPolice.org for additional background