Obama proposes new gun control background checks for the mentally ill
US government plans to increase background checks in a legal effort to prevent the mentally ill from purchasing firearms
The Obama administration proposed two new federal gun control rules on Friday to ensure more information about the mentally ill reaches background check databases, after a series of high-profile US shootings.
The rules come on top of a series of executive actions President Barack Obama announced after the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting that left 20 young children and six staff dead in December 2012.
The massacre relaunched a push for gun control laws in America and a handful of states have since tightened gun rules.
But the national measures Obama sought, including a plan for enhanced background checks on gun buyers and a ban on assault-style rifles, failed in the US Senate in April due to fierce opposition from gun rights supporters.
“Passing common-sense gun safety legislation ... remains the most important step we can take to reduce gun violence.”
In the first nine months of last year following a presidential directive, federal agencies provided more than 1.2 million records identifying persons prohibited from buying or owning guns for mental health reasons, the White House said.
The figure is a 23 per cent increase from the number of records that federal agencies had made available by the end of 2012.