Why Did Stephen Colbert Suggest That The NRA Opposes Mental Health Checks?

By Bob Owens

While discussing the issue of gun control with Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, comedian/talk show host Stephen Colbert made the false claim that the National Rifle Association is “opposed to mental health checks.”

His exact misleading-statement-in-the-form-of-a-question was, “And if mental health checks are opposed by the NRA, how do you fight back?”

You can catch it at 1:30 in the video below.

As my colleague Katie Pavlich notes, Colbert’s suggestion that the NRA is opposed to keeping mentally ill people from acquiring guns is entirely false. The National rifles Association has been working with legislators since 1966 to help try to keep the dangerously mentally ill from acquiring firearms.

The problems we have in keeping criminals and the dangerously mentally ill from acquiring firearms is three-fold.

Poor Reporting

Background checks are conducted by running the personally identifying information of individuals through several databases. Unfortunately, databases are not omnipotent, nor perfect. They are only as good as the data entered into them by human beings.

Many states and localities are not uploading data in a full and timely manner. Most will cite budgets (they don’t have the equipment/staff/hours) as the reason for not keeping records up to date for disqualifying …read more

Source:: Bearing Arms