Senate Votes To Roll Back Mental Health Background Checks For Guns

The Senate voted 57-43 Wednesday to roll back an Obama-era gun regulation that aimed to reduce firearm access to people with serious mental health conditions.

Approved previously by the House, the measure will now go before President Trump, who is expected to sign it.

The rule was enacted at the end of of Obama's term in December. By using Social Security Administration data, it limits gun purchases to individuals who receive government benefits and have mental health conditions. These individuals would be flagged in a federal background check.

Around 75,000 people are estimated to be affected by this rule.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has decried the rule.

"The Second Amendment, as a fundamental right, requires the government to carry the burden to show a person has dangerous mental illness,” the senator said. “This regulation obviously and simply does not achieve that."

Grassley was on the frontlines of the fight against the rule. He argued that it created a vague standard and unfairly stigmatizes people with mental health issues.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy from Connecticut argued that using Social Security data limits the group affected to those with serious mental illnesses.

"If you can't manage your own financial affairs, how can we expect that you're going to be a responsible steward of a dangerous, lethal firearm," he said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat from California, released a statement opposed to weakening the rule.

“It’s unbelievable that one of the first priorities for Republicans is to pass a bill that makes it easier for individuals with severe mental illness to buy guns,” she said. “Gun violence is an epidemic in this country, but Republicans are making it harder to take even the most basic steps to improve enforcement of current law—in this case a law signed by a Republican president. There appears to be no limit to what they will do for the gun lobby.”

Photo credit: MIKI Yoshihito