This is a Day in Washington #Disability #Policy Podcast.

Audio File: http://dayinwashington.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Executive-Order-on-Gun-Violence-and-2.mp3 

The President's Executive Order on Gun Violence and Mental Health

Hello and welcome to Day in Washington, your disability policy podcast. I'm your host, Day Al-Mohamed working to make sure you stay informed. Today, I want to talk about the President's Executive Orders on gun violence.

There are a lot of things that are rolled up into that so I thought it might be useful to break them open a little bit, look at them and see what might be of interest here to the disability community.

One of the first things on there is that it talks about processing background checks 24 hours a day, seven days a week and improving notification of local authorities when certain persons unlawfully attempt to buy a gun. This sounds like a really good idea; I know there have been backlogs and it's been difficult to keep up and checks are going through as well as they can, so it really offers some substantial change. Again, the creation of the Internet Investigation Center to better track illegal online firearm sales as well as additional ATF agents for the enforcement and prosecution of gun laws - all sound really good. Of course that one in particular, it will come down to implementation. Does this actually get implemented to ensure it works effectively?

Now this next one is the point that made me think; it specifically says: "Increase mental health treatment and reporting to the background check system." Whoa, so including mention, automatically connects the two, "mental health" and "violence." The disability community has repeatedly cited statistics from research and from the government's own reports showing that individuals with mental health conditions are actually more likely to be victims of violence. So the presence of it here sets an expectation that could be problematic.

The Administration is proposing a $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care. That sounds pretty good.

So here's the real kicker, Social Security will include information in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm for mental health reasons. Riiight (said sarcastically). Social Security will "include information." I have a problem with that.

Reading through, there are a few other issues. One was smart gun technology and also anyone who is "engaged in the business" of selling firearms must be licensed and conduct background checks on their customers." But let's go back to the mental health treatment and reporting.

So in the last seven years our country's made some fantastic progress in expanding health coverage for many americans and even before that there was the Mental Health Parity Act and the ADA and those were both pushing the way we think about mental health and mental illness, fighting to reduce stigma, increased services, and encouraging people to seek treatment.

The reports that SSA along with the Department of Justice will basically include in that database are basically 75,000 people who have a documented (and that's actually 75,000 per year) who have a documented mental health issue, receive disability benefits, and are unable to manage those benefits because of their mental impairment or have been found by state or federal court to be legally incompetent.

It reminds me of the way we treat people who use food stamps and the way I've heard politicians talk about the program and its recipients. They're all about preventing them from being able to buy soda or candy bars or junk food, adding restriction upon restriction.

Now we do hear about the few people who may game the system but at the same time we also hear about people who are working two and three jobs and still needing the support that food stamps gives them - to basically put food on the table.