Group: Still Easy for Mentally ill to Buy Guns

What will it take? Another Texas Tech tragedy, at least:

Information on 90% of mental health records that could disqualify prospective gun buyers has not been supplied to the FBI database used to screen firearm purchases, a report to be released today shows.

The report was conducted by Third Way, a Washington think tank founded by several former senior aides to President Clinton to advocate policies for Democrats. It comes weeks after Virginia Tech University shooter Seung Hui Cho — found mentally ill by a Virginia judge prior to buying two handguns — committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

Federal law bans people who have been judged mentally ill and committed for treatment from buying guns. But 28 states do not provide mental health records to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), FBI spokesman Steve Fischer said.