Photo illustration by the Amboy Guardian

There have been numerous mass shootings in the United States over the years. People are quick to blame the President, the NRA, mental illness, bullying, terrorism, etc. 

I do believe people have a right to protect themselves and their families. However, if you look at the photographs of these mass shooters, they all have the same “deranged” look in their eyes. In many cases, the automatic weapons they used were bought legally. The problem is you want to prevent these tragedies before they happen. I propose a solution to this problem.

The present procedure for buying a gun in New Jersey: The first part is to fill out an application with references what gun you are planning to buy and the reason you are buying it. It can take a while to process through the system. 

All well and good, but this is what I’m proposing: 

The perspective gun buyer should fill out their application, then go through an instantaneous computer background check. If he/she passes the computer check (city, state, federal), the buyer should have a mandatory psychiatric interview/evaluation right then and there. This should take about an hour. The person doing this evaluation should be a licensed psychiatrist who asks a set of standardized questions and depending how they are answered, the psychiatrist can peg someone who is troubled, and probably should not be buying a gun. This serves a dual purpose where if a potential gun buyer that is flagged as potentially mentally ill or severely disturbed, they should immediately be referred to get the help that they most desperately need before they hurt themselves or others. 

There should be tier levels ranging from tier 1 – pellet gun; tier 2 air rifle/skeet shooting; tier 3 – small hunting rifle; tier 4 – shotgun; tier 5 revolver/handgun; tier 6 – semiautomatic; tier 7 assault rifle; tier 8 machine gun. (1 being easiest permit to get). (suggested) These interviews should reflect these tier levels.

Also, during that interview, it should be determined if the applicant’s spouse or any children of the house of a certain age would be deemed as a “red flag”. (They must go for part of the interview/evaluation, too.) This way, any red flags won’t slip through the system. 

You pass that, you can get your gun. It used to take 4 hours to get a cell phone. I’m sure a perspective gun owner would not mind sacrificing one day of his/her life to follow this procedure.

One can make an argument that someone can be stable, then a few years later become unstable and there is a problem. That is a possibility, but many times the early warning signs are there. 

How does the government pay for it? Charge a small fee of around $300 – $400 for the evaluation. That should cover the cost of this position (salary). The psychiatrist doing this evaluation should adhere to standard guidelines to keep his/her own personal feelings or political views out of the decision process. It should be an honest evaluation of a potential gun buyer’s mental stability. 

Hopefully this procedure will satisfy both sides of the spectrum. Nobody is banning guns and it takes guns out of the hands of people who would potentially be a mass shooter. Do this, and hopefully these mass shootings will finally stop. K.M.