Gun Sense

Don't look now, but bipartisanship broke out in the House.

COMMON SENSE TRIUMPHED over ideological posturing in Congress last week when, following the Virginia Tech massacre, the House approved a bill making it harder for someone who is dangerously mentally ill to buy a gun.

In 1993, Congress designed the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a database that should contain the personal information of those ineligible, under federal law, to own guns. That includes people the states determine are dangerously mentally ill. Virginia Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho fell into that category after a Virginia special justice deemed him "an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." But that information never made it into the database, and his background checks came back clean when he purchased the guns he used on April 16.

Currently only 23 states participate in the system. The House bill would help states pay the cost of contributing to the database and withhold federal grants from states that do not comply. This nugget of rationality overcame the intensity of the gun control debate in America and emerged from the House with the strong backing of the Democratic leadership, leading Republicans and the National Rifle Association, all of whom deserve credit.

If the proper state authorities do not hear about those who are a threat to themselves or others, however, that information will never make it into the database. That was one of the problems in the Virginia Tech case. According to a report delivered to President Bush last week, teachers, school administrators and even local officials often overestimate the legal restrictions on sharing information about dangerous people.

The report, produced jointly by the departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services, has been criticized for not favoring sweeping new gun control laws or huge spending increases for mental health programs. But it makes useful recommendations for improving knowledge of relevant privacy laws. Federal agencies and state authorities can and should clarify and advertise privacy rules for those who are mentally ill. Universities should examine internal privacy policies. Everyone, from school teachers to state governors, ought to familiarize themselves with the rules. If they do, disturbed people will have a better chance of getting help, and the gun database will be more complete.