Pol Hits GOP on Guns for Mentally Ill

As reported by the New York Daily News:

ALBANY — A Queens Democratic state senator took a shot at the chamber’s GOP majority for holding up a “common-sense” bill to take permitted firearms away from the mentally ill.

Jose Peralta’s bill would give judges the power to strip people of their guns and permits to possess them if they are involuntarily committed to an institution, forced into outpatient treatment or acquitted of a crime by “reason of mental disease or defect.”

It has passed the Assembly four times with bipartisan support — including this year with just four “no” votes — but it has never been taken up by the state Senate, even during the Democrats’ brief majority in 2009 and 2010.

“Cynics might say the bill gets squashed in the Senate because of all the campaign money the NRA gives to Republicans,” Peralta said. “But even the NRA is on record saying that the mentally ill shouldn’t have access to deadly firepower.”

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