Reply #30: Tough mental health background checks could leave gaps (OH) [View All]

[MrBenchley]

Yeah, this is gonna be a helluva benefit to public safety and sanity in Ohio...

"Unlike criminal background checks, where deputies can search an expansive state database to look for disqualifying crimes, mental competency checks offer no such tools.
The Sheriffs' Association is recommending that sheriffs send a self-addressed stamped enveloped to probate courts and ask workers there to search for the results. That puts sheriffs at the mercy of those probate courts to get the results back in time.
If the 45-day clock runs out and results are not returned, the sheriff still must issue the permit.
Opponents of the gun bill also note that only a small fraction of those with mental disorders actually come in contact with the court system. As proof, they point to Charles A. McCoy Jr., the accused Ohio highway shooter.
McCoy's family described him as a paranoid-schizophrenic, but because he was never committed to a mental institution by a court, he would have been eligible to get a gun permit. "

http://www.coshoctontribune.com/news/stories/20040405/localnews/174470.html

And so the GOP and the corrupt gun industry changed the law...not to prevent him from getting a gun, but to ALLOW him to get a pistol permit.