BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER)-- Maine State Police say 44-percent of Maine cities or towns issue concealed weapons permitsbefore conducting a mental health background check. State police, however,have a potential solution.
They want to create a database with the names of people who deal with mental health issues so they can be checked before issuing a permit. This has been the driving force behind the gun laws debate especially with Newtown and the Aurora shootings. But some mental health professionals question if this database is the answer.
Licensed clinical social worker, Bill Donahue, has worked in the field for more thanthree decades. According tohim most people who seek treatment are not a danger to the public. It is the individual who suffers with a mental illness who doesn't seek or can't afford treatment that worries him. Thereal change needs to come from the accessibility of mental health treatment.
Donahue said,"I'm not sure the database doesn't give some false security because most people probably aren't in the database who are dangerous and the database. There's a lot of people in the database who wouldn't be able to whose information is there and probably not a risk to anybody."
Under the new healthcare reform mental health is included in the coverage and President Obama has pushed to make mental health treatment more accessible.
According to Donahue, it needs to be something society as a whole works to help.