Mentally ill may own guns in many cases; background checks for gun purchases often weak

Beverly Northcutt, who has struggled with a bipolar disorder since 1990 but has arrived at a good place in her life, wants to buy a gun for protection. Legally, she can in Missouri and most other states.

Federal law bans firearm ownership by anyone who has been adjudicated as a “mental defective” or has been committed to any mental institution.

A majority of states, including Missouri, essentially subscribe to that ban on involuntarily committed patients.

But mentally ill people who have not been committed under a court order in those states may own and buy guns.

A few states — California, Connecticut, Maryland, Mississippi and New York — apply a stricter standard.

Those states bar all mentally ill individuals who have been committed to a mental institution, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, from owning guns.

Northcutt, who directs an art gallery that showcases artwork produced by clients of Cape Girardeau’s Community Counseling Center, sees no reason many mentally ill patients automatically should be barred from gun ownership.

“If someone is mentally ill but does not have a record of violence, I think they should be able to have a gun,” she said.

Northcutt said she would like to buy a gun and keep it locked up in her house where only she would have access to it.

“My husband is not dangerous, although he is mentally ill,” she said. “I would feel safer having it under lock and key, and I think he would, too.”

But Jeffery Frazier, who also suffers with a bipolar disorder, believes guns should be kept out of the hands of the mentally ill.

“It is not good to have a gun if you are not mentally stable,” he said.

“I never owned a gun, and I don’t want to own a gun,” said Frazier, who works at the Community Counseling Center.

Across the nation, there have been widely publicized cases of mass shootings in which the assailant had a history of mental illness.

Violent times

But Asif Qaisrani, a licensed psychiatrist and medical director of the Community Counseling Center, said shootings by mentally ill individuals are the exception rather than the rule.

“Mental illness does not automatically translate into violent tendencies,” he said. Individuals with mental illnesses accounted for only 5 percent of the gun violence in the United States from 2001 to 2010, he said.

From 1982 to 2000, 40 mass shootings, defined as the shooting of at least four people, occurred in the United States.

From 2000 to 2012, the nation has seen 160 mass shootings, Qaisrani said.

But he said it is unfair to blame the mentally ill for the increased violence.

The shooters, he noted, often experienced trauma or feelings of abandonment in their lives and engaged in substance abuse.

Qaisrani said these shootings reflect a breakdown in society.

“There are provisions in law that were reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 that felons and the mentally ill should not have access to firearms,” he said.

But the definition of what constitutes a mentally ill person dates back to the 1960s, when the mentally ill routinely were hospitalized, he said.

Back then, there were fewer treatment options.

“We didn’t have the understanding of mental illnesses, and patients were institutionalized for years involuntarily,” he said.

In the mid 1960s, as many as half a million people with mental illness were being held in mental institutions, he pointed out.

Today, medications have made it possible to treat many of the mentally ill successfully without hospitalization.

“Most of our clients, they know they need help, and they want help,” he said.

A court order

In Missouri, the initial step in any effort to commit an individual to a mental institution begins with an assessment in a hospital psychiatric unit. “You initiate the process through court,” Qaisrani said.

A warrant is issued, on the basis of a psychiatrist’s affidavit, to take the individual into custody and deliver him to a hospital emergency room for a doctor to do a preliminary analysis to make sure there are no other medical issues that might affect the person’s behavior.

In issuing the warrant, the judge typically will give law enforcement several days to find and place the person into custody, said Warren Skinner, community mental-health liaison with the Community Counseling Center.

By the time the individual is placed in custody, the immediate mental-health crisis may have ended, he said.

After the ER visit, the individual is transported to a psych unit, where a psychiatrist is required to do an assessment within 96 hours.

The assessment can take far less time.

A doctor could do an assessment and decide to release the patient within hours after arrival, Skinner said.

Following the assessment, the psychiatrist or hospital representative may apply for a 21-day commitment if it is felt the patient cannot be discharged without being a danger to others or himself or herself.

“Nobody is trying to take anyone’s rights away. The thing we are trying to do is get people help,” Skinner said.

If necessary, additional extensions can be sought that would keep the patient hospitalized for up to 90 days, Qaisrani said.

“But that is very rare. Usually we can treat them with medicines,” he explained.

In fiscal year 2015, more than 1,400 petitions were filed in Missouri for 21-day commitments and 137 for 90-day commitments, according to the Office of State Courts Administrator.

An accurate count could not be obtained for the 32nd Judicial Circuit of Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Perry counties.

A court hearing must be held before any commitment in Missouri.

The patient may be represented by a public defender or his or her private attorney.

The judge rules on the request for a 21-day commitment after hearing the evidence presented by the hospital or psychiatrist.

But even if the individual is released after 21 days, he or she no longer can own or possess guns.

The individual loses his Second Amendment rights once the 21-day commitment occurs, Qaisrani said.

The current process, he said, penalizes people who may have experienced a single, unstable episode.

“We are taking away the right to bear arms for the rest of his life,” he said. “Many of those patients also are under the influence of drugs that cloud their judgment and make them violent or aggressive, which is not a pervasive mental illness.”

Still, under current law, they lose their right to own a gun.

Restraining order for guns

Missouri could benefit from a Texas law that essentially provides a “restraining order for guns,” Qaisrani said.

Under that law, a judge can issue a restraining order that allows law enforcement to seize guns temporarily from an individual who is “not thinking straight” and might engage in violence against himself or others.

Texas is one of a handful of states that have such laws.

As for national background checks, Qaisrani said the database is far from perfect and largely depends on how well information is reported to the FBI by each state.

In Missouri, it is up to court staff to enter the information into the Missouri State Highway Patrol computer system, which automatically sends the information to the FBI, the agency that handles the national background check database.

Licensed gun dealers rely on that database to determine whether a gun can be sold to a prospective buyer.

But Qaisrani said the “reporting system is pretty weak,”

Federal law does not require states to submit information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, according to the website of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

In 2008, a new law authorized federal grants to encourage states to provide relevant information for background checks better.

Forty-three states, including Missouri, have their own laws that require or authorize the reporting of information on some mentally ill people to the federal database, the Law Center website states.

Regardless of the background checks, Qaisrani said he doesn’t want to see the focus placed on the mentally ill in regards to gun violence.

“We are talking about human beings who happen to be challenged with mental illness. We cannot scapegoat them. That would make it harder for them to get the help they need,” he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

402 S. Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau, Mo.