[Skinny Shooter]

This is continued from the NRA page:

Relief in Sight?
by Stephen P. Halbrook, Ph.D.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 imposed a lifetime ban on firearm possession by any person who was ever adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution. The Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 provided that such persons could petition BATFE for removal of such disabilities, but Congress has prohibited that procedure in annual appropriations acts. For the first time since 1968, the "NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007," H.R. 2640, would allow the states to provide procedures to remove these federal disabilities, and also require federal agencies to adopt disability removal procedures.
Imposing a lifetime firearm ban on all persons who were ever subject to such adjudications or commitments, without any hope for such persons to prove themselves recovered, is cruel and vindictive. H.R. 2640 would remedy this injustice and allow restoration of such persons’ Second Amendment rights.

Almost all mental commitments and adjudications occur under state law. This bill requires states to have procedures to allow such persons to show that they would not be a danger to public safety. Under H.R. 2640, the State "shall grant the relief" if the person is unlikely to endanger the public. The person would also have the right to appeal a denial to a state court. This is the first time since the ban was imposed in 1968 that persons could seek relief at the state level, thereby reforming current law which only authorizes BATFE to decide on relief. When BATFE used to administer such a program, it granted relief about 40% of the time, but Congress has circumvented that law by defunding the BATFE program.

The Veterans’ Administration and other federal agencies also conduct certain adjudications and commitments, and the bill provides for removal of these disabilities by these same agencies—rather than by BATFE—and for judicial review of any denial. Many people could also get relief from a provision in the bill that excludes adjudications or commitments where the person has been "fully released or discharged from all mandatory treatment, supervision, or monitoring."

Passage of H.R. 2640 would, for the first time in their lives, give hope to persons who in the past were subject to a mental commitment or adjudication and have recovered their mental health. Current law only serves to sentence such persons to a lifetime ban on firearms without any chance of ever redeeming their Second Amendment rights.

Stephen P. Halbrook is an attorney and author in Fairfax, Virginia. His latest book is The Founders’ Second Amendment (Stanford University Press, 2007). For more information, visit www.stephenhalbrook.com.