Depends

President-Designate Trump released a position paper on gun-rights.

"BACKGROUND CHECKS. There has been a national background check system in place since 1998. Every time a person buys a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer – which is the overwhelming majority of all gun purchases – they go through a federal background check. Study after study has shown that very few criminals are stupid enough to try and pass a background check – they get their guns from friends/family members or by stealing them. So the overwhelming majority of people who go through background checks are law-abiding gun owners. When the system was created, gun owners were promised that it would be instant, accurate and fair. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case today. Too many states are failing to put criminal and mental health records into the system – and it should go without saying that a system’s only going to be as effective as the records that are put into it. What we need to do is fix the system we have and make it work as intended. What we don’t need to do is expand a broken system."

This worries me.

What does he mean by mental health records?

I worry because there's lots of people who've been successfully treated and are no danger to themselves or others now.  The fact that they sought and received treatment should not disqualify them from owning or buying a firearm.  Or car.  Or knife.  Or gasoline.

As near as I've been able to determine, there's no law that disbars anyone with any mental illness from owning or buying a gun.

Where the law cares about your mental health is when you've been declared legally incompetent, a court record not a mental health record.

I think we've been over this before with the anti-gun crowd.

I can think of many different methods of doing the background check that would be fine by me.  A simple go/no-go call in that keeps no record would suffice.

A published and searchable list of people banned from owning guns would also do.  Such lists are already available for employers to deny employment to felons and ex-cons now.

Or we could even go full-radical on this.  Change the laws about the forever disability given to felons.  Why is someone who cannot own a gun allowed back into society in the first place?  What other rights do they lose forever without recourse for recovery when they get a felony conviction?

Can they still speak their minds?  Can they still go to the church of their choosing?

Can they be forced to let soldiers live in their homes during peacetime?

Can the cops come and search their houses without warrants whenever they want?

Can they now be reconvicted of the crime that caused the disability now?  Can they be forced to testify against themselves now?  Can their stuff be seized without just compensation?

Can we just toss them in prison without bothering with a trial, or conduct a trial in secret.  Can we skip letting them have a lawyer too?

Can we skip the jury too?

Can we make them pay off the national debt to make bail or as a fine?  Can we sentence them to torture or dismemberment?

Before you say, "of course not!" remember, these are felons or people who've been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.

Or does seeing that list make you think that, perhaps, that lifetime sentencing should be served in prison alone?