Profiling people who dare to seek help

Pop quiz: What do sufferers of eating disorders, combat veterans, rape victims, grief sufferers and police officers who have experienced traumic events have in common?

If, as a means of recovery, they checked themselves into a counseling facility or stress center (or if a family member helped them check in), they share in common being profiled by the Ohio gun ban lobby and certain Ohio newspaper editors as being "people no one wants to have packing a loaded handgun."

Yes, that's right. If followed through to it's logical conclusion, the recent balleyhoo over a supposed conflict between the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Ohio's new concealed carry law would seek to prevent citizens like these from exercising their Constitutional right to self-defense.

Simply because she needed help in a mental care facility while recovering from a violent rape, and checked herself into a mental facility, Cincinnati Enquirer editors apparently believe a victim should be prevented from ever being able to obtain a concealed handgun license (CHL).

Simply because he needed some time in a stress center to deal with the loss of a child, writers at the Dayton Daily News infer that a father is not to be trusted with a concealed firearm.

Simply because she was nearly killed by a drugged-up felon while trying to make an arrest, and sought professional help in a recovery facility before going back on the job, Toby Hoover, Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, seems to suggest a former police officer deserves to be treated like the criminal she once took off the street.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

The Ohio Department of Mental Health says about 17 percent of patients (204 people) in Ohio state mental hospitals on December 31 were committed without a court order. The gun ban lobby and their media accomplices want us to imagine that this presents a serious problem for concealed carry background checks, since "only" the 83% of mental patients who were adjudicated mentally-ill by a court will be denied licenses.

The entire so-called HIPAA controversy appears to have started with the office of Attorney General Jim Petro. On January 28, the DDN wrote a story about how "the Ohio Attorney General's Office is researching how to comply with...HIPAA, but also check to make sure gun permit applicants have not been committed to mental hospitals." We hope that statement is embellishment from the DDN, because under HB12, the Attorney General should be having no part of "checking to make sure CHL applicants have not been committed to mental hospitals" anywhere but in court records.

House Bill 12 intentionally withholds any such privacy-invading checks, and as is now well-known from these stories, federal law (HIPAA) provides a second layer of protection against those who would try to access these private medical records. There are 36 other states with similar
concealed-carry laws. Kentucky and Indiana both deny permits to people who have been adjudicated mentally ill by a court. Neither state checks for mental health
commitments that originate from family or others, and neither state is having any problems.

These facts notwithstanding, newspapers across the state soon picked up the DDN story, and since then, have tasked reporters to dutifully publish follow-up stories, compounding the errors.

The facts are indisputable. HB12 was NEVER intended to allow checks of private health records via anything other than court records. The media's recent discovery of a year-old HIPAA law has absolutely NOT changed the implementation of Ohio House Bill 12 as passed by the General Assembly, and signed by Governor Taft.

The notion that HB12 background checks are asking for something that HIPAA refuses to provide is ludicrous, and journalists who continue to report as such should be challenged for their very jobs.

Cincinnati Enquirer reporter Dan Klepal recently wrote that "Ohio law says people who have been committed to a mental-health facility should not be permitted to carry a concealed weapon." This reporter left out three very important words. To be truthful (which would have negated the need for the rest of his story), Klepal would have written: "Ohio law says people who have been committed BY A COURT to a mental-health facility should not be permitted to carry a concealed weapon."

The Dayton Daily News' Mary McCarty reported that "it seems that...HIPAA...may make it impossible to conduct thorough background checks on people applying for concealed-weapons permits in Ohio." But as we have seen, House Bill 12 itself limits background checks to court records.

Either entirely ignorant or intentionally obtuse, McCarty continues: "Ohio's new concealed-weapons law disqualifies applicants who have been committed to a mental institution. Trouble is, HIPAA regulations prohibit hospitals and mental health centers from supplying that information." FALSE! (They seem to be hoping that saying it more times in a given article will make it true). So we too must repeat ourselves - HIPAA won't prevent Ohio sheriffs from obtaining the information HB12 authorizes them to check - court records.

In the conclusion of their most recent editorial on the subject, "Concealed carry needs a tweak", the Cincinnati Enquirer states that "Ohio lawmakers should revisit HB 12 to see if they can give sheriffs the notification they need to protect the public." HB12 was written after HIPAA went into effect, and there is no doubt that the legislature kept this law in mind when writing the bill. They should be applauded, not questioned. It is only when legislators take these editors' advice that Ohio's concealed carry law would come into conflict with HIPAA.

Perhaps most tragically, if these groups were to succeed in their quest, persons who may need medical help of this kind in the future would be forced to weigh their need for assistance against the possibility of being profiled as the type of "severely disturbed people" that the gun ban lobbyists and media want to discriminate against.

For this reason alone, New York Times/ Jayson Blair-style reporting in the DDN and Enquirer should not go unchallenged by Ohio's newsreaders.