List of Mentally Ill Banned From Buying Guns Doubles
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

PARK CITY, Utah — A federal list of mentally ill people barred from buying guns has doubled in size since the Virginia Tech shootings, and Attorney General Mukasey urged more states yesterday to add information to the database.
In his first policy speech since taking over as attorney general early this month, Judge Mukasey said states have now reported 393,957 mentally ill people to the federal database used to screen the backgrounds of potential gunbuyers. As of last July, three months after the Virginia Tech shootings, states had submitted only 174,863 names to the database.
“Instant background checks are essential to keeping guns out of the wrong hands, while still protecting the privacy of our citizens,” Judge Mukasey said. “But as we learned in the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the checks must be accurate and complete to be effective,” Judge Mukasey told the National Association of Attorneys General. “We’re making progress, and I hope that even more states will submit this information so that the national instant background check system can be maximally effective.”
People are included in the federal database only after courts or other authorities have found them to have mental health problems, Justice Department officials said. Federal agencies, including the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, also submit names, but the Justice Department could not immediately say how many.
Currently, 32 states submit names to the mental health database, and the federal government cannot force the other 18 to follow suit. “We’ve got 32, it’d be nice to have 50,” Judge Mukasey said.
Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and himself in the deadliest campus shooting in American history. He bought two guns — a Glock 9mm at a Virginia store and a .22-caliber pistol over the Internet — despite a special justice’s 2005 order to get outpatient treatment for being a danger to himself.