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[HereSince1628]

16. I'll take these up in order...

Remember these are response to the way the reporting currently takes place.

I doubt that Gabby Giffords would be listed. The language in the law reflects usage that addresses language in previous law and court determinations...it also reflects decades old psychological terminology so it is arcain and not common speech, that leads to misunderstanding by persons who simply read it at face value.

Currently the determinations about mental "defects" are made by a review board or by a judge depending on where the case is considered. These determinations usually are not made until there is an intervening concern about danger to self or others.

That isn't to say brain injuries can't be important. Yesterday there was a story relating a football player's suicide to brain damage due to repeated blows to the head.

In the interest of safety to a patient's or the public safety HIPPA does NOT make patient information available to gun retailers.

I don't know how that idea emerged, but it isn't true. The NICS instant checks for gun purchases provides a statement of 'proceed' or 'denied'. No one knows if you were denied because you are an illegal alien, a dishonorably discharged former service member, a felon, an unlawful user of a controlled substance, or a person adjudicated to be prohibited for mental health reasons.

Frankly, I have concern about the security of NCIS information it is about the future more than the way it currently functions.

There is much pressure on government to liberalize information sharing between agencies and databases. This liberalization is actually necessary to make things like the NICS work effectively. Over time it is likely that information will become more and more available as lobbyists push lawmakers to make "reasonably available" information that is needed and useful to protect business interests and the public. Criminal background checks are now a regular part of the hiring process. While it varies by state, background checks for some jobs and even volunteer positions are required to go deeper into the data than others--for example in Wisconsin deeper checks are run on persons who will have contact with children, such as in daycare, recreation centers, and in teaching. It's not difficult to see an argument that says NICS should be part of these deep background checks because if a person is prohibited from owning a gun, they should probably be prohibited from working with children. We've certainly seen how sharing of personal credit information has spread from loan applications to employment and now even dating.

People certainly do make mistakes, intentional and otherwise, regarding mental health interventions. Whether it is malicious as in the case you mentioned, or whether it's more a consequence of the application of 'an excess of caution' at every step along the chain of events originating from a well intentioned concern, bad stuff happens. As it is, involuntary commitment and it's consequences can be appealed. It's pretty obvious when the police show up and place you in handcuffs and drop you off at a municipal or county inpatient center, and you know you should respond.

One of my concerns going into the future is that IF some of the proposed data snooping comes to pass, it may not be possible to know you are in the NICS unless you go to purchase a firearms product. If two-way information sharing is the solution to the information gaps in the NICS database that leaking information on mental illness could be a bad thing.

My nightmare scenario is speculative and requires a series of things to happen that currently don't happen, these things MAY NEVER HAPPEN, but it goes something like this...a woman gets put on an anti-depressant for post-partem depression...a snooping software reports use of an anti-psychotic med to NICS. Because state budgets are tight and employees few...the database reporting to NICS has never been updated to reflect that the depression was transient and the drug use stopped after several months; it still flags her name. Four years later the woman applies for a job as a kindergarten teacher. She fails a background check because the snooping in her medical records years before secretly placed her name on the NICS because she took "a substance indicative of depression" which is a common feature of gun suicides. That data has become linked for use in more general background checks used to keep our children safe in their schools. And worst of all, she may feel she just wasn't competitive for the job. She may never know it was an Orwellian invention that wrongly kept her out of the job. Again, THIS IS A SPECULATIVE WORST CASE intended to show why this data must be handled with care.