Mental-health officials clash on N.Y. gun law reporting

[Neoma]

ALBANY, N.Y. — Psychiatrists, county officials and law enforcement are questioning a portion of New York's new gun-control law that requires them to take steps that could lead to guns being seized from potentially dangerous people.

Since mid-March, New York's Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act has required mental health professionals to report when a patient is a potential danger to himself or others.

A county receives the information, decides whether to approve it, and if so sends it to the state for entry into a database. Local law enforcement officials then must suspend or revoke any gun licenses and remove a gun owner's firearms.

More: http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2011399?articlePage=0

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. The mental health professionals should certainly report any police officer patients that they treat.

[Neoma]

2. I think it'd be on too much of a regular basis on false alarms and then a lack of confidentiality.

I mean, have you ever heard a depressed person talk? There's a constant, "I feel like shit, why is life worth living? I just want to die and get it over with. Arrrrrgh!"

[Neoma]

3. Also, in the article...

The New York State Nurses Association wrote a memo March 13 to Cuomo arguing that the statute violates medical privacy laws and stigmatizes mental illness by linking it to gun violence, creating barriers for those who need treatment.

This is very true.

[HereSince1628]

4. It sounded like a good idea at the time...keep guns away from dangerous people.

Apparently the New York law was cobbled together in 24 hours and rushed through the legislature without any hearings that could have involved mental health experts.

It provides no standards for what is dangerous enough, so different therapists will report at different thresholds of concern. Within the law are provisions that protect the therapists from liability if they make a mistake. Uniformity would seem a critically important standard for equal justice.

But, that's exactly the same situation that's existed for many years concerning the disqualification of driver's licenses for mental health reasons. Unfortunately, those laws have stood without challenge, and community acceptance is a consideration in considering the validity of a law.

The SAFE act was put together in a tremendous hurry. Such a rush usually means its language was borrowed/modeled from/on existing law or boiler plate. And indeed, this seems pretty similar to the language and intent of legislation concerning disqualification for DLs on the basis of mental illness.

In Obama's presidential non-orders about gun regulation, he specifically indicates that HIPAA will NOT be a problem. I assume that mean he has directed the DOJ and the many Associate Attorney's General to not prosecute providers who violate the language of HIPAA.