It might help to be crazy if you want to buy a gun.
Many states don’t provide the federal gun buyers’ background check system with data about the mentally ill — and around 40 percent of gun sales take place without any background checks at all.
“We have a system that looks like Swiss cheese,” said John Feinblatt, a top adviser to Mayor Bloomberg who works on the issue for Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Seventeen states and all five US territories each made fewer than 10 records of mentally ill people available to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System as of October 2011, according to a Congressional study.
The failure came despite the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, carried out by a man who had no trouble buying guns from licensed dealers despite his history of mental illness.
After the killings, Virginia improved its system for providing information about the mentally ill to the FBI. New York also appears to lead other states in providing the data.
President Obama on Wednesday proposed changing reporting rules and providing money so states can add data about the mentally ill to the system.
That idea is generally supported by the gun lobby.
But gun control advocates may run into intense opposition to Obama’s wish to require background checks for all gun buyers — even for private sales.
Feinblatt says the checks could be expanded with little change to the existing system.
At gun shows, unlicensed sellers could simply ask licensed gun dealers to conduct the checks on their behalf.
In a sale between two people, buyers and sellers could simply go to a gun shop, where the owner could collect a small fee for carrying out the background check.
Feinblatt suggested such a law would bring new customers to licensed gun dealers. “They may not be buying guns from them, but they might buy other equipment from them … It’s going to be good for business,” he said.
Dealers make the FBI checks over the phone or the Internet. They usually take no more than a minute or two.
The National Rifle Association and other pro-gun organizations previously have opposed requiring background checks at gun shows and in private sales.
Pro-gun groups have declined comment so far on Obama’s new proposals.