More than half the states are not complying with a post-Virginia Tech law that requires them to share the names of mentally ill people with the national background-check system to prevent them from buying guns, an Associated Press review has found.
The deadline for complying with the three-year-old law was last month. But nine states haven't supplied any names to the database. Seventeen others have sent in fewer than 25, meaning gun dealers around the U.S. could be running names of would-be buyers against a woefully incomplete list.
Officials blame privacy laws, antiquated record-keeping and a severe lack of funding for the gap the AP found through public records requests.
Eleven states have provided more than 1,000 records apiece to the federal database, yet gun-control groups have estimated more than 1 million files are missing nationwide.
"If the mental health records are not current from our sister states, the quality of our background check is going to be compromised," said Sean Byrne, acting commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services in New York, a state that has submitted more than 100,000 records.
Congress has doled out only a fraction of the $1.3 billion it promised between 2009 to 2013 to help states and courts cover the costs of the 2008 law.