To require mental health screenings before the purchasing of a gun.

 

The purpose of this bill is to help prevent gun violence and gun related deaths including suicide, domestic violence,

and mass shootings, etc. This would insure that the person purchasing the gun is in a safe mental state before doing so.

It would achieve this by using a standardized mental health screening, that anyone attempting to purchasing a gun or

acquiring gun permits must pass.

 

49% of Americans support mental health screening before gun purchasing and with a 2023 poll showing that 92% of

Minnesotans support background checks before buying a gun. A study by Stanford Medicine in 2019 showed that out of the

35 mass shooters they studied, they were able to diagnose 28 with at least one untreated mental illness at the time of

their crime. Other countries like Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Austria and Slovakia all have some sort of required

mental checks before you are allowed to purchase a gun. Germany has only seen two school shootings since implementing

mental health screening before gun purchase for those under age twenty five (25) in 2002.

 

(1.) “gun” - a weapon incorporating a metal tube from which bullets, shells, or missiles are propelled by explosive

force.

(2.) “mass shooting”- An attack in which multiple people are shot over a short period of time.

(3.) “mental health screening”- a standard set of questions that a person answers to help a health care provider check

for signs of a mental disorder.

(4.) “mental illness”- a condition that alters a person’s behavior or thinking, especially in a way that has an

undesirable impact on some aspect of their life.

 

Official gun permits in Minnesota cost between seventy five ($75) to one hundred dollars ($100) paid for by the permit

requester. An average mental health screening costs around one hundred dollars ($100), this would be added to the cost

of the permit and be paid for by the buyer.

 

If a person is selling or buying guns without the prior required mental health screening they shall be fined three

thousand dollars (3,000) or face up to one year in jail. If they repeat this offence they will be fined up to twenty

thousand dollars (20,000) or face up to 10 years in prison.

 

This bill will be enacted twelve months after it is passed.