"Is there a connection between healthcare reform and gun rights?" (CSM)

Yes, if there’s a centralized medical database. It’s one reason some people are showing up armed at town hall meetings. (Christian Science Monitor)

All we need is a bill giving the Atty. Gen. the authority to prohibit individuals from owning firearms and Sen. Lautenberg’s bill S 1317 does precisely that.

There is no connection between this and Lautenberg's bill.

And the key point in the cited paragraph is 'adjudicated'. Meaning due process. When found unfit to possess firearms, you get due process. It's even possible to restore it once lost.

Feeding these records into NICS is a good idea. The VT massacre may not have occurred, had Cho's medical records been feed by the state into NICS. He should have been ineligable to purchase a firearm, but there was no link between the relevant databases.

I can't think of a reason why this could be a bad idea. You cannot be ajudicated 'mentally defective' by the stroke of an AG's pen. Please do not smear this issue with that other steaming piece of shit.

absolute for example AtheistCrusader may be placed on a "watch list" such as "No Fly List" and an Atty. Gen may use that to deny you the right to own firearms.

Similarly veterans evaluated for PTSD may have their military medical records reviewed and denied the right to own firearms. That has already happened

Tying together medical records from the states, to NICS, so that the medically unfit are unable to purchase firearms on the open market is in no way related to S. 1317.

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Shining a light into the dungeon is always a good idea.

if only to make sure that legitimate guns go into the hands of thoroughly responsible owners, not ticking timebombs.

...then it would help to have the tools to facilitate that. I can't disagree with the CSGV guy that it is absolutely in the public interest that those adjudicated as having mental problems that disqualify them from owning firearms be readily identifiable as such to firearm sellers.

Pratt, the guy from GOA, seems to have a rather overblown idea of what authority the executive branch of government has. The executive can't declare people "mentally unfit," because the executive can't adjudicate matters; that job falls to the judiciary. That means there has to be some form of judicial hearing.

That's not to say I particularly care for this or any other large-scale database. I was, and am, leery of any database associated with "Real ID" ("facilitating identity theft three time zones away!") and if anything, databases of medical information are even scarier. But I'm not going to get my panties in a wad because it might be used to enforce already existing law.