For too long, proponents of common sense gun control have been waiting for some movement on this very important issue. This past week, President Barack Obama finally delivered when he laid out a ground breaking plan that will hopefully change the way guns are purchased in this country. The President hopes that his proposed changes will potentially limit gun related violence and mass shootings.
Our huge win is not only that President Obama finally stepped up, but the triumph is in the details embedded in the executive actions. One of these details is that doctors will be allowed to report certain demographic information to the FBI of mentally ill patients.
Some states have questioned whether allowing doctors to report such information will violate a patient’s privacy under HIPPA. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), however, issued a ruling on Monday,
“expressly permitting certain HIPAA covered entities to provide to the NICS limited demographic and other necessary information about these individuals.“
The DHHS proclaimed that their ruling:
“can help further the important safety goal of strengthening the background check system to ensure that individuals who are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms are not able to obtain them.”
According to Politico:
“Paul Gionfriddo, chief executive of the mental health rights advocate Mental Health America, said he believes the White House strikes the right balance between the need to have this information shared with the FBI’s background check system and protecting individuals’ privacy.“
Though we have seen an increase in “the number of health records submitted to the FBI” since the horrendous Newtown shooting, and though there have been “more than 6,000 denials of firearm purchases because of mental health,” it is reassuring to know that these reports will only continue to increase and more lives will be saved thanks to President Obama’s bold move on common sense gun control.
I am not naive to think, however, that President Obama’s executive actions will sweepingly change our current gun laws; rather Congress also must take action “to truly stem the frequency of mass shootings.”
I am also not naive to think that President Obama will not face the wrath of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the strong political and legal muscle they own. Though they have not laid out any plans since releasing their rebuking statement on Tuesday, I imagine soon we will see the NRA supporting potential lawsuits against these new gun control measures.
Featured image by Michael Saechang under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.
