Bang!

[goof2]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

"Reasonable", to me, is considering the totality of the situation, of a prospective gun owner. If you're in a house with someone who has a history of violence or mental health issues, then odds are you shouldn't have a firearm on the premises. Proper storage is also an issue.

When I got my Firearms Acquisition Certificate, I went through a RCMP background check, that included fingerprinting. When I got my Restricted Weapons Certificate they repeated that process, to make sure that there were no un-logged changes in my situation. The local Firearms Officer also attended my home in order to check that I had proper, lockable storage for my restricted weapon.

I see nothing unreasonable in these practices.

The primary issue is how do you establish that totality of a situation? We often don't have the ability to check the mental health history of the person who wants to buy a firearm, much less the history for everyone in a household. We have a ton of laws that protect the privacy of a patient's medical records. A person can have an extensive history of mental health issues and have none of it show up on any background check. As far as I know the only things related to mental health that would flag on a background check is if someone's mental issues create problems with the police or they are deemed incompetent by the courts. We have two opposing interests and, at least at this time, the government has determined that protecting a patient's privacy is more important than understanding a person's mental health for firearm ownership.