Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Recent Shootings May Push States To Share Mental Health Records With FBI
Six states are not alerting the FBI about people who have been found to have mental health problems that would bar them from owning guns, according to a new report released Thursday by a gun-control advocacy group. Three of those states recently passed laws to turn over records of people who are involuntarily committed to mental institutions for use in the FBI's National Criminal Background Check System. (Volz, 12/11)
Americans with severe mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by police than other civilians, a study by an advocacy group said on Thursday. Official and unofficial accounts of the hundreds of Americans killed yearly in encounters with police show that at least a quarter of those slain are severely mentally ill, the report by the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center said. (12/10)
