St. Helena Star - Thompson introduces gun bill in wake of shootings

U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, has reignited a push to reform gun laws in America following high-profile incidents of gun violence in Santa Barbara and cities in Washington, Oregon and Nevada recently.

Thompson chaired a task force on preventing gun violence in the House of Representatives in early 2013, following a mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 that left 26 children and adults at the school dead.

The legislation that resulted has stalled in the Republican-controlled House, but Thompson said that didn't stop him from introducing a new bill, Promoting Healthy Minds for Safer Communities Act of 2014, late last month that seeks to bolster coordination between mental health agencies and law enforcement, while moving to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands.

In an interview, Thompson said mental health issues are sometimes a factor in driving people to commit mass killings with guns, but they're too often not on law enforcement's radar prior to opening fire.

The bill aims to boost crisis intervention, and would give funding for state-level programs that would allow law enforcement to get warrants to temporarily take guns from people who are found to be a risk to harm themselves or other people.

In the recent shooting near Santa Barbara, the perpetrator, Elliot Rodger, had been visited by sheriff's deputies a month prior, but they did not check to see if he had purchased or possessed firearms. Later, he killed six people in the beachside community of Isla Vista.

State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, is carrying a bill in the California Legislature that would require police to check gun databases prior to conducting these kinds of welfare checks.

Thompson's congressional bill would provide grant funding for states to create that kind of program, or to pass laws keeping people with serious mental illness who have been hospitalized involuntarily from purchasing guns.

"The parents called law enforcement," Thompson said of the Isla Vista shooting. "They checked on him. They found him to be a pleasant kid. (The bill) could have helped in some of these latest tragedies that we've seen."

It would also help expand the reporting of people with potential for danger in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and keep people with misdemeanor stalking or domestic violence convictions from buying guns, Thompson said.

Thompson acknowledged that getting this legislation to a floor vote in the House of Representatives will be an uphill climb, but feels the efforts are necessary to prevent more gun violence.

"That's probably the $64 million question," Thompson said of the prospects for a floor vote. "The majority party has been slow to bring anything to the floor on anything controversial. I keep working on it. It's the right thing to do."