McSally pushes bill on gun background checks, mental health

• Republican Rep. Martha McSally says her bill would improve background checks and treatment for mental health.
• The bill is a rare bipartisan effort that makes McSally one of the few Republicans willing to touch the issue.
• But gun-control groups like Giffords' Americans for Responsible Solutions warn the bill could loosen gun restrictions.

U.S. Rep. Martha McSally is joining a handful of Republicans daring to touch an issue that has bitterly divided Congress: background checks for gun-buyers.

McSally, R-Ariz., who represents the Tucson-area district where a deranged gunman ended Gabrielle Giffords’ congressional career, says her legislation wouldn't expand background checks but would improve them, as well as mental-health treatment to reduce gun violence.

A rare alliance has coalesced around the freshman’s bill including politicians on both sides of the aisle, mental-health advocates, law enforcement and even an activist whose late husband was injured in the mass shooting near Tucson.

While McSally's approach has drawn praise from an array of supporters, it has also drawn rebukes from gun-control advocates including Giffords' own organization.

“I’m looking for where can we find common ground,” McSally told The Arizona Republic. “We know we have a problem. We have to find good solutions to try and fix it.”

Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group Giffords founded after the 2011 mass shooting, and other gun-control organizations warn the legislation is a smokescreen. The National Rifle Association endorsed it for a reason, the organization says.

“This bill does much more harm than it does good,” Americans for Responsible Solutions Director Peter Ambler said in an interview. “The sum effect of the legislation is a weakening of the background-check system.”

The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act tackles three problems, McSally said:

• States’ spotty performance reporting orders banning mentally ill people from buying guns to the background-check system. The bill would direct more federal grant money to states that achieve a 90-percent reporting goal, while shrinking grants to states that fail to meet that standard.
• The law-enforcement pipeline that funnels the mentally ill into jails and prisons. The bill would encourage state and local jurisdictions to divert more people with mental illness to residential treatment centers and substance-abuse programs.
• The need for police, firefighters, judges and school workers to better respond to people in crisis. The bill would provide more specialized training and crisis-intervention teams around the country.

The legislation, first introduced in the Senate by the powerful Texas Republican John Cornyn, would use existing grants, requiring no new funding.

McSally acknowledges the bill would make modest reforms but argues it could be a step in the right direction, after attempts to tighten background checks and improve mental health have stalled in Washington. She credited a bipartisan mental-health bill by Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Penn., for helping to show her the way.

“When tragedies like this happen, you’ve got on the one side: ‘We want more gun control and ... we want to potentially infringe on the Second Amendment of law-abiding citizens,’” McSally said. “And on the other side: It’s basically do nothing. ... They get in their corners and are not willing to budge.”

Efforts to expand gun rights are more common among McSally's Republican colleagues, such as Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon, whose bill this month would make it easier to purchase gun silencers.

But pro gun-control critics of the bill say increasing access to firearms is exactly what McSally’s bill does. The mental-health proposals are helpful but distract from the larger problem, they say.

“Yes, there are some parts of this bill that do good things. … (But) all of the provisions in this bill regarding guns weaken the law,” said Pia Carusone, senior adviser to Americans for Responsible Solutions. “They have used (the mental-health provisions) to try to convince people that this is a good bill.”

Everytown for Gun Safety, another advocacy group, called the bill "nothing more than sleight of hand."

The legislation would strip away current punishments for states that fail to submit mental-health orders to the background-check system, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence concluded. The McSally bill would make cuts to grants optional and label states compliant if they promise to do better.

McSally staffers counter that the penalties aren't being enforced at all right now and the bill would add incentives for states to comply.

Critics also worry the bill loosens criteria for prohibiting gun possession, allowing some people to regain the right as soon as their medical orders expire instead of having to petition a judge.

“You could go from the mental institution to the gun store, which we think is dangerous,” Ambler said.

An analysis from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service raises that possibility.

"The bill could potentially narrow the number of people who qualify" for gun bans due to mental illness and remove their records from the background-check system, the report says.

McSally staffers disagree. The bill doesn't get rid of current law requiring people who are committed to mental institutions to petition for their rights, they argue, but instead establishes factors officials can consider when restoring gun rights.

Two Democrats campaigning for McSally's seat in 2016 said the mental-health parts of the bill are positive. But physician Matt Heinz and state Rep. Victoria Steele, a counselor, said the legislation would not prevent gun violence.

Besides the four Democrats and three other Republicans co-sponsoring McSally's bill, backers include the National Alliance on Mental Illness, National Association of Police Organizations, National Association of Social Workers, American Correctional Association, the National Sports Shooting Foundation .

In southern Arizona, it is supported by Democratic Tucson Councilman Steve Kozachik, executives at mental-health centers and Sallie Badger, whose husband Bill Badger tackled the Tucson shooter while wounded. Before he died this year of natural causes, the Badgers were advocates for tighter background checks.

“I commend Martha for her efforts to help prevent instances of gun violence,” Sallie Badger said in a statement. “Bill was about bringing both sides together and showing that this is an issue we can be united on, and I’m glad to see Martha carrying on his work in that spirit.”

But if McSally wanted to prevent gun violence in a bipartisan way, she could act on a position she took on the campaign trail, advocates from Americans for Responsible Solutions say.

McSally revealed last year that as a survivor of stalking she would back partially closing the “stalker gap" in background checks.

She announced her position after Americans for Responsible Solutions aired a hard-hitting television ad against her on the issue. The group, which spent $2 million seeking to defeat McSally, canceled the ad after criticism.

The congresswoman should fulfill her campaign position, Carusone said.

“Here we have a glaring gap in federal law that allows stalkers to hang onto their firearms,” she said. “You said you’d be involved in fixing it.”

McSally told The Republic that she doesn’t plan to join a bipartisan bill in Congress to shut the stalker loophole. “Arizona law already covers that. It’s not a focus of what we’re trying to get done,” she said.

Arizona law prohibits people convicted of felony stalking from gun possession. Those with misdemeanor records are unaffected.

McSally argued she is responding to her district's concerns with her bill.

"I'll continue to listen to my constituents," she said. "There a whole lot of things people are deeply concerned about."