Nevada Senate advances bills aimed at keeping guns from mentally ill

A Senate committee Thursday approved two bills aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill with one measure seeking broader gun control by expanding background checks to all firearms purchases in Nevada.

The vote on the measure, Senate Bill 221, was along party lines with three Democrats voting yes and two Republicans voting no on the Senate Health and Human Resources Committee.

Committee Chairman Sen. Justin Jones, D-Las Vegas, who sponsored SB221, gave an impassioned speech, making the case for preventing the mentally ill and felons from buying guns. He dedicated the bill to the four victims of the Carson City IHOP shooting in 2011 and the 20 children who died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut.

“We need to stop cowering at the vocal minority,” Jones said after explaining that he and other members of the committee had been inundated with emails and phone calls from gun rights advocates who opposed the bill.

He said a recent poll of Nevadans showed 86 percent favored making all gun sales subject to background checks.

Now, only licensed gun dealers must run buyers’ names through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System used to determine if they’re prohibited from buying firearms because of their legal or mental history.

Sen. Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, said her family members hunt and own guns, but she has been frustrated that it’s too easy for criminals and the mentally ill to gain access to firearms.

“This legislation does not threaten me or my family, who are legal gun owners, in the least,” Smith said.

Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, said the bill could prevent not only homicides but suicides too.

“If this bill stops one person, I think it’s a fantastic thing,” Segerblom said.

Sen. Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, said he appreciated the parts of SB221 that require mental health professionals to report to law enforcement authorities when a patient is an imminent danger to others. But he suggested the bill doesn’t address the root problem — how to keep guns away from those intent on doing harm.

“Criminals will not apply for a concealed-weapons permit,” Hardy said. “They will get guns where they do.”

Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno, also voted against SB221 but did not say why.

Jones amended his bill to allow for transfer of firearms among family members without having to obtain background checks after objections were raised by committee members at a previous hearing.

Besides the universal background check, Jones’ bill is largely aimed at closing loopholes in the law to ensure better reporting of the mentally ill to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

SB221 would give the state five days to send records to the background check system of mentally ill individuals who are involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Now, those records are only transferred if the person is held at least 30 days. Involuntary commitments are done for people who are judged to be a harm to themselves or others.

The committee also approved a second mental health gun bill, Senate Bill 277, sponsored by Kieckhefer. Hardy was the only no vote. Hardy said 90 percent to 95 percent of the mentally ill are easily treatable and so he thought that taking away a person’s gun rights for up to three years, as the bill envisions, “is an arbitrary period of time.”

SB277 would require a mentally ill person to be reported to the gun check database after a legal petition is filed to have the person involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital — whether or not that person is committed.

Kieckhefer amended his measure to address concerns by the Washoe County public defender’s office that a mentally ill person would have no way to legally object to the petition before his or her Second Amendment rights were taken away.

Under the amendment, if a judge dismisses the petition to commit, then the mentally ill person’s name would not be sent to the national gun background check database after all, he said.