60 Minutes on Mental Health Bill

"Reporter" Steve Kroft starts out with misinformation and goes downhill from there: He tells us about the "1,000 homicides...committed by people with mental illness" each year, but fails to note how many of those involve firearms. He claims "the very first gun control law ever passed in the U.S. [was] way back in 1968..."

He then proceeds to mug for the camera with facial expressions as manipulative as his questions, only gives Larry Pratt enough exposure to make an out-of-context statement the viewers are being maneuvered into dismissing, and then gives us the "reasonable" alternative courtesy of Carolyn McCarthy and Wayne LaPierre.

I do have one question, something I haven't understood since these discussions have been resurrected: If someone is adjudicated mentally ill, why would it be necessary to make their medical records available to police, as everything I've read or seen in the media implies? Why wouldn't just a record of the judgment suffice? Court records are generally public records. I don't know enough about the system--is sealing such judgments common practice, and does it vary by state? Anybody have insight on this?

[Via 45superman]