PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- New data from the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition reinforces a deficiency that Rhode Island officials say they are trying to address: the state is still not contributing mental health records to the federal gun background check database.
The gun control advocacy group, which is led by mayors from New York and Boston, says Rhode Island is among 15 states that have submitted fewer than 100 records to federal authorities since the database was created 20 years ago.
The others are Alaska, Maryland, Nebraska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.
"These record-sharing failures leave dangerous gaps in the database designed to keep firearms from the wrong hands," Mayors Against Illegal Guns said in a statement.
Spokesman Jack Warner says the coalition is in the process of updating its 2011 "Fatal Gaps" report, which showed how each state reports mental health records to the database. (That report also showed Rhode Island was not contributing to the records.)
The new data comes as a state task force on Thursday will hear public testimony as it continues to look at ways to improve the state's compliance with the database, known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS.
The Joint Behavioral Health and Firearms Safety Task Force hearing takes place at 3 p.m. in Room 313 of the State House.
The Mayors Against Illegal Guns report also comes as the 20th anniversary of the federal Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which created the database, approaches on Nov. 30.
"Twenty years after the signing of the Brady Bill, our background check system continues to allow guns to be sold to individuals who have been deemed a danger to themselves or others," outgoing Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who co-chairs the coalition, said in a statement. "Every state and federal agency should be doing everything they can to submit mental health records to the system so we can prevent senseless tragedies. The safety of our communities depends on it."